ust wondering if anybody else out there in the InfoSecLand gets targeted spam on security- and IT-related subjects.  I get maybe one good, well-targeted spam per month.  I think it’s because I’ve had the same work email for over 4 years, and I’m on some security email lists, so I probably got hoovered off an archive someplace.
This is an excerpt of one I got this week:

Hi Michael ,

How are you doing?  I wanted to update you on the recent <DELETED> report titled <DELETED>

The price of this report is $3,395.  Please let me know if you would like to purchase this report.

Research and analysis highlights

Despite robust growth predicted in the <DELETED> end-user research reveals that the banks currently outsourcing a business process remain the most likely to outsource further such processes and that the market growth going forward will predominantly be generated in this part of the market.

<MUCH DELETIA>

 

Thank You.

Warm Regards,

<DELETED>

Account Executive, Technology

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for delivering to the intended recipient, please be advised that it has been sent in error and therefore any use is strictly prohibited.

If you are not the intended recipient, or if you are concerned about the content of this email, please notify our IT helpdesk on <DELETED>.

This stuff is good.  You could almost think that I was on their opt-in mailing list or that I had a relationship with this account executive.  If I was a little bit busier and a little less paranoid, I wouldn’t probably realize what this is: it’s unsolicited commercial email.  The kicker for me was the “intended recipient” tag at the bottom of the mail.  If you think about the irony of such a comment, it will make you die laughing.  The helpdesk number had a UK country code, not a big chance I’m going to call it.

• Is Myspace Satan?
• Even Better Spam
• Some Random Thoughts on C&A SOPs
• More Vendor Craziness
• An Open Letter to the Next President of the United States

So I’m now officially throwing my hat into the blogging ring.  This is my first official “Hello World” to put out there.

Why am I interesting in blogging?  Well, to tell the truth, I’m about as introverted as somebody can get.  I grew up in the backwoods of Idaho, where the population density is something like .5 people/square mile.  My people are known for their actions and not their words.  In our world, it’s nobody’s business what we think, want, or do.

However, when I look around me (I do computer security for a wide variety of US Government agencies), I see lots of things that need fixing.  Don’t get me wrong, the government has lots of good things going for it. Inside DC, there is the highest density of the brightest security managers that anyone could hope for.  Unfortunately, it also has this huge inefficiency and bureaucracy in information security management that sometimes implodes under its own weight.  Since the government has an inertia all to itself, nothing short of a cultural change will fix the few fundamental security problems that it has.

How do we bring about a cultural change?  Well, for starters, you get your thoughts into print and out into the world.  That’s where teaching comes in.  That’s where this blog comes in.  That’s where being published comes in.

I’m now doing 2 of the 3.  I’ll get the third once I have something more formal and polished.

• An Open Letter to the Next President of the United States
• Core Belief #1 — Security is not Different
• Workin’ for the ‘Counters: an Analysis of my Love-Hate Relationship with the CPAs
• Buy a Costume, Get Security Suite Free!
• Learning GovieSpeak: The Plum Book

Just a quick public mental health announcement.

Radio Nigel is the ultimate working music for me.  It’s all the good songs of the 80’s without all the bad songs of the 80’s.  They play lots of Cure, U2, B52s, Stranglers, Talking Heads–just about anything you could call punk, different, new wave, alt, or subversive.  Nummies all around.

• 8 Bit Peoples
• Workin’ for the ‘Counters: an Analysis of my Love-Hate Relationship with the CPAs
• Backtrack 3 USB Slides
• DHS is Looking for a CISO
• Subversive Music