Another small car for the us market

In munich now, and am drivinv alongside a fiat seicento (600). Must be the followon to the cinquecento (500). Seems smaller than a Smart.
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Prediction....more small cars

Greetings from paris. I have seen several cars in the smart car format. I have seen them from mercedes and toyota. Now all we need is a few of them in california.
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In security, waiting to go to paris

Somehow, standing in line at an airport os comforing to me. I am here early enough. Already missing my girls. And I am still deeply affected by John Germaine's funeral services. He was a good man, a good father and a good teacher. Makes me stop and wonder. Deeply.


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Bill Roth, CMO, LogLogic, 408 876 0111

60 Percent Have Reservations About Cloud Computing

By Bill Roth, CMO, LogLogic

In a recent LogLogic survey, 60% of respondents expressed some reservations about moving to Cloud Computing technology. 34% of respondents said that Cloud was not strategic for their companies, while another 26% said that they were concerned about the risks relating to the technology, and that security was the number one concern.

Respondents cited security, control and transparency as the main drawbacks to cloud computing. According to one IT security manager interviewed, security requirements are “crucial” to adoption and use of cloud computing. “A significant pitfall to cloud computing is the lack of control. It creates a massive security risk.”

“While the cloud holds many benefits for the enterprise, we’re not surprised to see that financial services firms are hesitant to adopt cloud computing,” said LogLogic CEO Guy Churchward. “There are still many lingering questions about data security and transparency in the cloud, and it’s up to cloud providers to offer visibility into these practices before we see mainstream adoption from financial services firms.”

A respondent from a Fortune 500 global financial security company noted that, “We don’t have any cloud computing implementations right now. Typically we’re early adopters – but with cloud computing, we won’t be.”

Recent alleged “state-sponsored” network security attacks by China on Google have had an effect as well. 37% of respondents to the survey have altered their security profile as a result of the China attacks.

It should be noted that LogLogic has been at the forefront of the Cloud Security movement, as an early member of the Cloud Security Alliance, as well as a company that has talked openly about the solutions to security problems in public clouds. LogLogic proposes a full featured log management solution which audits the happenings on a “cloud provider” as one piece of a cloud security program. For more information, see http://loglogic.com/

Its Hard Being A Catholic These Days. Time To Get Back To Basics (Short Form)

 

It is hard being a Catholic these days. Every day, we hear distressing news about our people in our faith tradition. It seems unrelenting.

But it is times like these that we need to remember who we are as Catholics, the good that we do, and what our core values are. It is times like these, when we need to stand tall, fix the problems, we have, and more importantly, get back to our core values. It is times like these when we need to focus on doing good in the world.

What are those core values? Now is the time to re-read foundational documents of the modern Church to remind ourselves what we believe and what we are called to do. I look for solace in two key modern documents, Deus Caritas Est, and Faithful Citizenship. Both of which have powerful calls to action for the modern Catholic that we can scarcely ignore.

Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical was a marvel of clarity in its call to action. He reminded us that faith is not enough, and that we need to be active in the modern world. And that the best way to achieve justice in the real world is through politics.

The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics [28a]

It is clear from the encyclical that we are called to act on injustice in the real world to seek a just ordering of society, and that we must act on our values. We must take to heart the words of James 2:26, which reminds of that faith without action is like a body without a soul….dead.

What are our “civic” values as Catholics. Faithful Citizenship provides a clear framework for the key issues to be considered. They are:

• The Right to all Life, and the Dignity of the Human Person
• Call to Family, Community, and Participation
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
• Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
• Solidarity, or We are One Human Family
• Caring for God’s Creation

This document gives us a comprehensive list of the important issues of the day, in clear language. It reminds us that all of these issues are important, and that while some are more urgent, all of these issues need attention. (I prefer the two page version, here).

We, the Whole Church, have done wrong. We must stand up and take responsibility for the actions of our Church without defensiveness, justification, or rationalization.

We must also do good. We must get back to basics, and renew our efforts to be a positive force for change in the world. We must fight for human dignity. We must fight for justice in our families and in our communities. We must fight for a better life for the poor and vulnerable. We must fight for the rights and dignity of all workers. We must fight to bring together the people of the world into one human family. And we must fight to become worthy stewards of God’s creation.

It is in fighting for these values, our values, that we will be able to weather the storm we’re in, and ultimately renew our Church.

Its Hard Being A Catholic These Days; It Is Time To Get Back To Basics

 

It is hard being a Catholic these days. Every day, I am assaulted by new reports of sexual abuse by priests, and new allegations of the Church hierarchy trying to cover it up. Worse still, are the Church’s defensive reactions to the media, which only serve to make the Church look even more dreadful. But is times like this which remind us of what God is actually calling us to do.

The daily news continues to be depressing. Every day there is new news about fresh allegations of abuse across the globe, new allegations of cover-ups by the institutional Church, or new resignations as a result of the allegations.

For the record: I do not excuse any of the behavior and we, the Church, deserve everything we get. We let this happen. We did not ask questions. We decided the institution was more important than children. We decided to protect the Church’s image, rather than the most vulnerable.

To be clear: By “we” I mean the whole Church, the institutional Church, the Faithful and the theologians/scholars. While I realize that the modern Church is not a democracy, we, the faithful, did not hold our leaders accountable. In this instance, the civic world is doing it for us. We have abrogated our duty.

This is hard for me personally. Much of my identity is based on being Catholic. I had 16 years of Catholic education, and the members of the clergy were more than often than not inspiring and great role models. I looked up to people in the Diocese of LaCrosse, WI, like Sister Renee my 3rd grade teacher, Father Bob Nelson, and Bishop John Paul. At Marquette University, I was inspired by Father David Haschka, Dan Schutte, and Father John Naus. Since graduating, I have a new set of heroes in Father Tom Reese, and Father Jon Pedigo.

This must be even harder for the 99% of the clergy who are honest laborers in the field of the Lord. I witnessed this recently when talking to a local priest, and I could tell the daily news of priestly abuse was taking its toll. I could see that wearing the collar was very difficult for him. This is a good man trying to build a community and save souls. His leaders, and his organization, let him down.

But it is times like these that we need to remember who we are as Catholics, the good that we do, and what our core values are. It is times like these, when we need to stand tall, fix the problems, we have, and more importantly, get back to our core values. It is times like these when we need to focus on doing good in the world.

What are those core values? Now is the time to re-read foundational documents of the modern Church to remind ourselves what we believe and what we are called to do. I look for solace in two key modern documents, Deus Caritas Est, and Faithful Citizenship. Both of which have powerful calls to action for the modern Catholic that we can scarcely ignore.

Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical was a marvel of clarity in its call to action. He reminded us that faith is not enough, and that we need to be active in the modern world. And that the best way to achieve justice in the real world is through politics.

The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics [28a]

It is clear from the encyclical that we are called to act on injustice in the real world to seek a just ordering of society, and that we must act on our values. We must take to heart the words of James 2:26, which reminds of that faith without action is like a body without a soul….dead.

What are our “civic” values as Catholics. Faithful Citizenship provides a clear framework for the key issues to be considered. They are:

• The Right to all Life, and the Dignity of the Human Person
• Call to Family, Community, and Participation
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
• Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
• Solidarity, or We are One Human Family
• Caring for God’s Creation

This document gives us a comprehensive list of the important issues of the day, in clear language. It reminds us that all of these issues are important, and that while some are more urgent, all of these issues need attention. (I prefer the two page version, here).

We have done wrong. We must stand up and take responsibility for the actions of our Church without defensiveness, justification, or rationalization.

We must also do good. We must get back to basics, and renew our efforts to be a positive force for change in the world. We must fight for human dignity. We must fight for justice in our families and in our communities. We must fight for a better life for the poor and vulnerable. We must fight for the rights and dignity of all workers. We must fight to bring together the people of the world into one human family. And we must fight to become worthy stewards of God’s creation.

It is in fighting for these values, our values, that we will be able to weather the storm we’re in, and ultimately renew our Church.

IMG00099-20100327-1503.jpg

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Vta light rail ridership.

Interestingly, this morning there were 5 bikes and nearly 40 people on my train at 7am. Its 5pm, and their is 31 people in my lr car. I hope farebox recovery has improved.
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First morning. Bike commute

a couple of observations as I try to get to work without a car:
I have no bright clothes.
As a result, I am dressed like an overweight, middle-aged ninja.
Almaden lake park is closed in early morning, so you can't get to chynoweth solely on paths.
There is no bike path by oakridge. We have to fix this
The light rail is moderately busy at 7am.
Many poor and homeless people travel by bike.
Final time 36:00 on the bike, 80 min total.
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Breach: Kneber Bot Attack

Another hack attack hits the headlines http://tinyurl.com/yebvj8p

Big deal. This stuff happens every day now right?  Wrong. Not on this scale it doesn’t. The Kneber Bot has penetrated 75,000 systems, 2,500 companies across in 196 countries.  This is not a straightforward Trojan - a simple smash and grab. This one’s a game changer. 

Systems compromised by this botnet provide the attackers with not only user credentials and confidential information, but remote access inside the compromised network.  Just some of the data stolen includes:

• 68,000 corporate log-in credentials
• Access to e-mail systems, online banking sites, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail and other social networking credentials
• 2,000 SSL certificate files
• Dossier-level data sets on individuals, including complete dumps of entire identities from victims' machines.

Penetration of this scale and amongst such an esteemed group of public and private organizations - Merck & Co, Cardinal Health, 10 US Government Agencies - makes it is clear that no-one is untouchable to an ambitious,  determined and organized group of hackers. But what’s most startling is the lack of visibility about this particular bot.

Firstly we don’t yet know where it came from. Fingers have been pointed at China but there appears to be very little hard evidence. Next, we don’t actually know the extent of the damage. This apparently, is still being assessed, and affected companies notified. Moreover it isn't clear to what extent the attack has been contained.

What we do know is that it started in late 2008 in Germany. But that in itself begs another unanswered question. How can an attack using a spyware freely available in the Internet penetrate 75 000 systems Worldwide – and still go unnoticed for more than a year?

What is becoming ever more clear is that conventional malware and signature based detection systems are fast becoming inadequate for addressing the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks like the Kneber Bot.

So how can companies improve their visibility and protect themselves against these increasingly sophisticated attacks going forward? Well, regardless of the sophistication of the attack all computers natively generate electronic fingerprints. For every event that takes place in a computer or a network or a security system, or applications, databases or OS etc. a small record of that event is kept, it’s called a log. 

This is your electronic fingerprint. Just like a fingerprint, properly managed logs enable us to carry out forensics, and get us the visibility required to know exactly what happened, who did what, how the attack originated, how it spread, where are the attackers, what has been compromised.

So could the key to solving and preventing IT crime lie in properly managed logs? Could it be that log management could be of some use?

Yes, certainly. But the trouble is that with the explosion of corporate systems the number of logs has exploded to a difficult-to-manage number and few companies are truly geared up to manage them all – meaning that things inevitably slip through the net. Only companies using the most sophisticated log management systems such as LogLogic’s Open Log Management Platform which - with our new Quad-core hardware can monitor up to 250,000 records per second – can really hope to identify and act upon these new subtle, sophisticated and well-disguised attacks on their infrastructure.

The hackers’ game has moved on. We all need to be prepared to respond to this.

Technorati Tags: bots attack kneber botnet loglogic

RSA Show And What It Says About….

As previously mentioned, LogLogic enjoyed huge success at RSA last week, and really enjoyed introducing our customers to our Nerd Herd over beers. As the Chief Marketing guy at LogLogic,  its interesting to me the casual way in which vendors treat their brand image. I had a chance to walk the floor and assess their self-inflicted damage.”

In some ways, tradeshows like this have not changed. I have been apart of the JavaOne show since the beginning back in 1997. The RSA crowd is a bit different…namely more suits and better hygiene.  You can always tell how the economy was doing by what kind of giveaways are on the show floor. Here are my best and worst for 2010.

Hand Sanitizer? Really?

I did notice that a bunch of people had hand sanitizer. Really? Does this really send the right message? To Whom? Howard Hughes?

(sorry for the picture quality….its from my blackberry).

For Cutesiness, this injection-molded safe was pretty interesting, if a bit dated in a 19th century kind of way:

The Cell Phone stand was cool, but it did not fit my Blackberry:

The Winner: Giveaway Of The Year: RSA 2010

But the winner (for me at least) is the N-in-one tape measure/level/pencil/notepad thingy from a company called Howard:

The type of booth also has a lot to say about the economy, and what the company wants to portray. Some companies have WAY TO MUCH money and were giving it out by the barrel full. Some were trying to get attention my showing you picture of PhotoShopped mutants.

Meet The Beetles

But my favorite, and most cringe inducing was the secure laptop crawling with *live* African beetles. I am not making this up:

They got my attention, but I am not sure this was the best way to do it.

If this is the type of show that is being put on these days, then it appears the economy is on its way to a recovery.

Race for 2010 starts

Predictions are already starting. David Brooks said that some models show that Democrats will loose the House in 2010. That would be a 40 seat swing...

Perfect siliconn valley day

Only in the valley...today was typical silicon valley. Early morning meeting at work, interviewing someone at Peets in Willow Glen, then a taqueria lunch at adelita's. Then a leisurely stroll through the components aisle at frys for 90 minutes. Perfect.
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CIA CIO: We Were Headed To Cloud No Matter What

The most anticipated talk of the day, at the Cloud Computing Conference and Expo, was by the deputy CIO of the CIA, Jill Sanger. Her talk was entitled, Enterprise Cloud Computing, the Infrastructure’s Final Revenge.

She acknowledged the problem with defining Cloud Computing, and then went on to give her paragraph-length definition of “the cloud”. Her talk focused on the part of the Cloud behind the firewall.

“Today’s CIO must increase the flexibility of the infrastructure,” said Sanger. “Today’s CIO must manage cost to free dollars for [other purposes] …and work to improve the competitiveness of the larger organization.”

“Faster, Better, Cheaper, and Safer” was the overall theme of her talk, and she pointed out that the good CIO should be able to get all four out of a cloud computing environment.

She then made parallels between an adaptable businesses and the various arms of business, comparing the business that responds to new realities quickly to FEMA, and businesses which reach out to customers in need like the US Department of State responding is with aid to countries that experience earthquakes and tsunamis.

She then followed with a definitions of clouds within clouds: “You need a storage cloud and a compute cloud on top of your network cloud,” said Sanger. All of this needs to be build on top of world-class processes and governance.

The CIA had been heading to an enterprise cloud whether it knew it or not. The agency, said Sanger,  has also been working on evolving an SOA architecture for 7 years. Gartner first published the notion of SOA back in 2003, which implies that the CIA was a very early adopter of the set of architectural principles.

Sanger focused on IT, but occasionally her CIA background came through. “The internet is the most perilous of attack vectors,” she said. She also used government-speak by using words like “Exfiltration,” which is the leaking of data outside an organization.

In a talk filled with cloud boosterism, Sanger was asked about what happens after the “cloud” craze.  She mentioned that they have been talking about “cloud” for about 18 months and the Cloud craze has not run its course, and will likely be around for at least another 18 months. She offered no indication as to what the CIA might use as an infrastructural organizing principle after cloud mania has run it’s course.

Long lines, No Parking: A Good Sign?

'

Day One of the Cloud Computing Conference and Expo is in full swing. First off, it took me nearly 30 minutes to find parking. For some reason the top level of the parking structure of the Santa Clara Convention Center was closed off. Not sure why. Then I walked through the San Jose Hyatt. At that point, I ran into the lines. The lines for registration we’re 50-100 people deep. And there was no special “press” registration. I waited 42 minutes to get my badge, and so did everybody else.

Was this an example of poor planning, or was there something deeper going on? Many people are touting “Cloud” as the next big thing. Larry Ellison not withstanding. The day 1 keynotes were over-full and there were overflow rooms for keynotes from Oracle, Amazon and Intel. There seems to be a lot on interest in this from both technical and non technical types, judging by the number of suits in the crowd. The always stand out. This is Northern California after all.

Could this be a sign that the Great Recession is over? Could be. All over Silicon Valley there are signs of hope. While SunOacle is laying off 3000-4000 this week, there are other companies are hiring. Companies are still having trouble hiring engineers, and VCs are doling out money to worthwhile companies.

That said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the afternoon, Oracle’s keynote was a standard Fusion pitch which mentioned cloud several times, all apparently irony-free. Intel’s cloud evangelist Jason Waxman give Intel’s vision of Cloud Computing, which seems to be very close to their virtualization story in years past.

It seems that while Cloud may be hot, it is not revolutionary, or even revolutionary. Or it could be I am jaundiced from having trouble marketing and having to wait 42 minutes to register.