Friday, July 16, 2010

ECrime Wales Conference

Mention Celtic Manor and depending on your outlook on life it is probably famous for one of 2 things
  1. The venue for next years Golf Rider cup
  2. The venue from which Andy Powell commandeered a golf bugger for a trip down the M4
I had not been there before and while a very good venue for the event, as a place it feels false and superficial. It was the type of place I hate on principle.

The Master of Ceremonies was Jamie Owen, who I had a chat with at the break about the welsh coast with reference to last weekends little outing and how those who live in Wales often don 't visit their local coast line. He was a very good M.C. it has to be said and while he may have earned it, I am sure I could find a very good home for his fee.

Most of the talks were excellent (other than the advertising pitch about Verizons Clould computing services). Lots of sensible people giving big picture sensible stuff. The top 3 speakers I thought in particular order were
  • Robert Hayes from Microsoft
  • Richard Hollis from Orthus
  • RIchard Cox from the Spamhaus project
Richard Cox was perhaps the most interesting in that he was able to articulate specific gaps in legislation which would bring real improvements in fighting ecrime.

I did feel like asking the question to one of the panel sessions alone the lines "To what extent would we reduce my risk of being a ecrime target by banning Microsoft products from our organisations". It would be a very fair question, but not from someone with a badge that said Oracle. Also I doubt you would get an informed or straight answer. To Microsoft's credit they do appear to be taking security very seriously, both commercial and retail. Interesting that Robert Hayes from Microsoft suggests moving your Windows systems to 64 bit would result in a improved security profile.

I don't play in the security world a great deal or do "windows", so there was a lot to learn from the day.


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