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The Daily Incite - 11/18/08 - Peanuts 4 U
November 18, 2008 - Volume 3, #90
Good Morning:
It's the little things that make a big impression. Given my new gig,
I've been on the road quite a bit. Probably even more than I expected
and definitely more than I managed the Boss's expectations. I've been
doing this for a long time, so the travel itself isn't the issue. But
it's the state of the economy that is making travel less
enjoyable. 
The fact is, we've all adjusted to the TSA and additional
security requirements of flying today. I got that Clear card, and at least
one time it saved me a bunch of time. But the incessant cost cutting on
the part of the airlines is starting to take its toll.
For instance, the flight attendant on yesterday's flight is walking
around with the little basket of snacks. Then she mentions that they
aren't carrying peanut butter crackers anymore. Hmm. Is it because of
an allergy thing? Of course not, the bags of peanuts are still right
there. It's a cost thing.
That's right. The peanut butter crackers are too expensive to give out
anymore. I guess the $15 a bag they are charging for checked luggage
isn't enough to offset the snacks. And now with oil prices back to a
reasonable level, you'd think I could get a peanut butter cracker - but
probably not.
The same cost cutting is happening in decent hotels. I'm writing this
from a Westin, which is a much higher end stay than I usually pick. But
I go to get a glass of water this morning and realize I'll only be
having a (plastic) cup of water. That's right, no friggin' glasses in
the Westin anymore. I associate plastic cups with a lower end hotel.
Like a Hampton Inn or a Comfort Inn. Not the Westin.
But I guess now it's plastic for all. Maybe this is the "sacrifice"
we've been told about having to make to get the economy going again.
The germophobic boss is probably fine with plastic, but me - not so
much. Though I better get used to it, it seems most businesses will be
cutting corners for a while.
Have a great day.
Photo: "Airline peanuts: Priceless" originally uploaded
by mcritz
Technorati: Information
Security, CSO,
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Mike, Internet
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Incite 4U
There was enough news yesterday to fill up the Incite. It's
been a while since I've didn't have to go into my stored links to pull
stuff. But I'll get back to some stuff from late last week on Thursday.
- Security really is everyone's responsibility. Phil Schacter over at Burton makes that point,
and reinforces it with this pithy quote: "Security is also not something
an organization can purchase from any vendor or combination of vendors."
There have been a lot of us preaching this gospel for a long time. Yet,
I'm happy to yield the floor to Phil so he can reiterate the point. But
now that we've said it, what are we going to do to MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Right, it gets back to training, process, and accountability. TPA.
Hmmm. I kind of like that.
- What happens when you chop the head off the hydra? I can't
remember very well, but in the monster movies I used to watch as a kid,
if you chopped off the head of the monster, two or three would grow
back in its place. Now that the Internet community has shut down McColo,
do you think the flood of crap into your inbox is going to stop? Fat
chance. Fisher speaks to some folks that echo that sentiment. Clearly,
there will be a bunch more to pop up to take its place. It's an
economic thing. Until consumers stop clicking and buying, there will be
another 50 McColo's before we are done.
- Deal: Barracuda takes out another small company no
one has ever heard of. Buying 3SP, now the low-cost box maker
has a SSL VPN to drive through their channels. These folks have broadly
expanded their product line over the past year, but the question
remains whether a typical small company (that likes to pay $3K for a
box) wants 5 boxes. Or 1. I suspect they want 1, and it's not like
these environments have massive bandwidth requirements. So it's about
time Barracuda started integrating these functions into an integrated
device. Oh the horrors.
- Everyone is gunning for you when you're #1. Cisco is put through the ringer by NSS Labs
because the security modules that go in routers and/or switches don't
perform as well as stand-alone gear. Duh. If performance were the only
arbiter of security product success, a number of well-known companies
would be gone. But little things like simplicity and inertia also weigh
into the buying process. Also interesting in the article is a Nemertes
survey that says lots of users view Cisco as their "strategic" security
vendor, with Microsoft coming in at #2. Guess I need to revisit the
dictionary and see what strategic means.
- I'll take a menthol, please. Enrique Salem takes the reigns at Symantec
as John Thompson rides off into the sunset as they close the
MessageLabs deal. This has been in the works for years and Enrique has
been taking on more responsibility since the Brightmail deal brought
him back into the fold. If anything John Thompson did make bold moves
to remake the Big Yellow after years in the desert. Now the question is
what to do will all the high priced parts.
- Free as in beer. Both NetWitness and Mandiant release free
tools to help investigators figure out what's going on.
NetWitness makes their Investigator product free (of course, the
infrastructure to deploy it at scale - not so free), which is a great
way to build an upsell path to their enterprise product. Likewise
Mandiant's Memoryze does memory analysis, which aids in investigations.
I think this is great for the industry, since being able to investigate
an incident is one of the top skills needed for tomorrow's security
professionals. Kudos to both NetWitness and Mandiant for contributing
to the cause.
- Sun's recent layoffs seems to have created a frenzy in the
media. Uh, like this wasn't expected. They have been moving around the
deck chairs on the Titanic over there for years. Kudos to the MySQL
guys that got paid in cash. But the best analogy I saw was from Serdar
on his InformationWeek blog wondering if Sun is the GM of IT?
There answer is there are a lot of GMs of IT. DEC was maybe the
original, but maybe GM is the DEC of automakers. Anyhow, big companies
missing product transitions and going away is not a new phenomena. It's
happened before, and it's going to happen again.
- EMC launches a new "cloud" computing company, called Decho, which is really just two of their acquisitions bundled together. Perhaps they are looking to have VMware lightning strike twice. They've got about the same chances as the same tree getting hit by a lightning bolt. When you look under the covers, the Mozy online backup service is interesting (and everyone should be backing things up into the cloud - for $5/month, why not?). And it's not clear what Paul Maritz's PI thing was even doing before he got the call to rescue VMW. Regardless, this cloud bandwagon is going to be here for a while. Wait for everyone to jump on.
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