Visiting San Francisco for RSA Conference 2011

I’m off to San Francisco again next month for the RSA Conference 2011, one of the world’s biggest information security conferences. On Microsoft’s tab.

Microsoft is obviously keen for me to hear their guy Scott Charney, who’s giving a keynote entitled “Collective Defense: Collaborating to Create a Safer Internet”. This follows on from his presentations last year about treating internet security like a public health problem. Word is he’s starting to get a few converts.

But I’m also interested in hearing the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, William Lynn III, outlining the Pentagon’s Cyber Strategy, and a panel discussion on cyberwar that includes the redoubtable Bruce Schneier.

Once more I’m staying on for a couple of days to explore the city some more. Last time I asked for suggestions of places to visit and things to do, but as it happens I ended up doing none of them. Well, except taking a photograph of a seagull. I just prefer random exploration of a city over museums and packaged tourist experiences. And I did find some great little places to eat and drink. I’ll give them a plug over the next couple of weeks.

As for the conference, by all means have a squizz at the agenda and let me know if anything strikes your interest. I’ll be collecting material for the Patch Monday podcast, and filing stories for ZDNet.com.au and anyone else who’ll have me.

RSA Conference 2011 runs from Monday 14 to Friday 18 February at the Moscone Center. I’ll be staying in San Francisco until Sunday 20 February.

Weekly Wrap 33

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. It’s already Monday, which makes this post late. You’ll cope. There isn’t a photo this week either. You’ll cope with that too.

Articles

Podcasts

Media Appearances

  • On Thursday I spoke with Liz Ellis, the former Australian netball captain and now radio presenter on ABC Radio 702 Sydney about the great work the Queensland Police did using their official Twitter and Facebook accounts during the recent floods.

Corporate Largesse

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

Weekly Wrap 31 and 32

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — which actually covers two weeks because of various distractions.

Articles

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 71, “Avoiding Vodafone’s Wikileaks moment”. Paul Ducklin, who is Sophos’ head of technology for the Asia-Pacific region, reckons Vodafone’s problem is much like the US government’s with WikiLeaks: too many people have logins which give them access to too much stuff. Our conversation covered what organisations should be doing to avoid a disaster like Vodafone’s happening to them.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • Donations to the Artemis Medical Fund included $100 from online accounting software provider Saasu and $50 from an elected NSW politician from the Australian Labor Party.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Apparently Not, a no-stopping sign demolished by a vehicle that didn’t stop. Stanmore Road, Petersham, on 6 January 2011.]

Weekly Wrap 30

In the week between Christmas and New Year I didn’t write anything for anyone, I didn’t do any podcasts, I didn’t appear in the media anywhere, and I didn’t receive any corporate largesse. I’m just posting this post so the numerical sequence of “Weekly Wrap” posts is consistent.

Weekly Wrap 29

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — which was another slow week again this week, since it’s the lead-up to Christmas.

Articles

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 70, “2010: IT’s year of domination”. An extended panel discussion reviewing 2010 and making a few predictions for 2011. My guests are: Mick Liubinskas, co-founder of Australian start-up incubator Pollenizer and, back in the day, head of marketing and business development for infamous music sharing site Kazaa; columnist and author Paul Wallbank; and Jeff Waugh, open-source developer, strategist and advocate, and political tragic.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. It all seemed to wrap up last week. It’s going to be a bleak holiday season. Please send packages of food and drink.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: My Christmas card from 2007, recycled because I didn’t get around to doing anything new this year. I made the tinsel antlers for my good friend the Snarky Platypus, who continues to use them to this day. Photograph by Trinn (’Pong) Suwannapha.]

Weekly Wrap 28

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — which this week wasn’t very much at all because I lost a couple of days returning from San Francisco.

Articles

None this week.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 69, “Service goes social, but how?”. Based on material recorded at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce event in San Francisco, this episode includes a chat with Fergus Griffin, vice president of product marketing for Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud product.

Media Appearances

  • On Wednesday I did another brief spot with Paul Turton on ABC Radio Statewide NSW.

Corporate Largesse

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Since I didn’t take any photographs this week, here’s one of the rather serious seagulls they have in San Francisco.]