Happy Friday! Er, I mean Saturday. I’m a day late again, but whatever. I had work to do and stuff.
Spring (finally) seems like it’s in full swing now here in Minnesota. That’s a good thing because the snow was really getting old. Actually, it got old in February and everything else since then was Nordic hell (so to speak).
Always a bunch of really good and cool things happening at FRSecure and SecurityStudio. At least we think they’re cool. Stay tuned for some announcements over the next couple of weeks/months.
Last week (episode 25) was the first time we featured a dial-in guest. A really fascinating guy, Christophe Foulon joined us from DC. It was a great show! Click the link above if you missed it. Some of the ways you can stay current with what Christophe is doing, also in case you missed it:
Christophe is a great asset to the information security community and we were very happy to have him join us last week.
OK, so on with it. What’s to come this week?
We’re switching things up a little this week. Normally, Brad would lead this one, but we’re going to sort of co-lead instead. We’re doing this for two reasons (primarily), 1) I will be dialing in for episode 27 from Los Angeles (more on this later), and 2) Brad may have forgotten to write his notes for this episode. Naughty Brad.
Episode 26
Date: Monday, May 6th, 2019
Today’s Topic: Ego and Arrogance in Information Security
[%name%] Good morning world. It’s time for another episode of the Unsecurity podcast. It’s Monday, May 1st, 2019, I’m %name%, and this is episode 26. Joining me as (almost) always is %othername%. Good morning, %othername%.
[%othername%] Good morning %name%. How’s things?
[%name%] Things are great! Transition into chit-chat.
This is where we chit-chat a bit. Either you like our chit-chat or you don’t. We’ll try to appeal to both sides as best we can…
[Evan] So %name%/%othername% (Oops, sorry. I mean Brad). Last week I wrote an article on my blog where I posed a question. Actually, the title of the article was “Are Information Security People Arrogant?”. Did you happen to read it?
[Brad] No. I don’t read your stuff.
[Evan] Oh. OK. Well, I wrote this blog post. I learned that people don’t like to be called “arrogant”. Imagine that. Let’s talk about it.
Are Information Security People Arrogant?
Discussion about:
- Comments that were received.
- Personal stories.
- General thoughts on the matter.
[Evan] I have another thing I’m working on too that I’d like to get your thoughts on. As you know, I’m in the middle of writing the 2nd book. This one is about information security for “normal” people. You knew that right?
[Brad] Ugh. Yes. I know. &rolling eyes& (I’m kidding! Brad is super encouraging and I love him)
[Evan] So, I’m writing a chapter of the book, and I’m writing a section about how we assume that we know what “normal” people think. I claim that we don’t. Then it dawned on me, have I ever asked “normal” people what they think about information security, privacy, or online safety? No! No, I hadn’t. Have you ever made the mistake of assuming you know what someone else thinks, and been wrong?
[Brad] No. (Just kidding again. I’m in a mood.)
What “normal” people are telling us.
Communication is one of those skills that we’ll always be working to improve (hopefully), and we’re trying to figure it out (better).
- Discussion about the research survey responses (so far).
- Could always use more data (See: https://evanfrancen.com/must-have-more-data/)
Disclaimer: I use the word “normal” affectionately and not in any way as a disparaging remark.
Open Discussion
(time permitting)
Anything else we might cover, but probably not too much babbling.
[%name%] OK. Good discussion! Now some quick news stories from the past week.
News
- Authorities Shut Down the World’s Largest Dark Web Marketplace and Arrested its Operators
- Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system
- Mystery database exposes data on 80 million US households
Man, there’s a ton of news to cover. These were the three that stuck out to me last week. Another story that’s very intriguing is this story from Motherboard.com; Someone Is Hacking GitHub Repositories and Holding Code Ransom. Check it out. Comment. Send us your thoughts. Whatever.
Closing
[%name%] Another full show and another full week ahead. We have another special guest planned for next week’s show (episode 27), and there’s always bound to be some drama here or there. Be sure to look for next week’s show notes.
If you wanna be cool, you’ll probably wanna follow us on Twitter. Just sayin’. Brad’s at @BradNigh and Evan’s at @evanfrancen.
Email us on the show at unsecurity@protonmail.com.
Until next week…
