I had a great plan today to make my way thru south hall for chats with tons of companies. I also had a few interesting sessions I wanted to be at first thing in the morning. I had a scheduled a quick customer meeting and a quick touch base with a team member I had not met yet. And then keynotes. Well the plan went well, except the customer meeting was really good, so it went long, very long. A very good thing. The team member meeting was late, and by the time were finished the show floor was closed. So I made it to the keynotes.

The sessions I went to were as follows:
1) The twenty books on security you should have read by now. The speaker – Rick Howard is the Chief Security Office for Palo Alto Networks and was a very engaging speaker. He’s been trying to build the Canon for security books. This is not just technical books, but fiction books that get the tech right, and those non-fiction books about security events. By the time he was done talking I had bought three new books for my kindle. I recommend that you check out his blog – Terebrate. Each year he is getting a panel together to vote on the books that deserve to be in the canon. I am looking forward to this project.

2) Security Data Science from Theory to Reality – was another great session on how to re-look at security data science. The two speakers from Verizon – Jay Jacobs and Bob Rudis explained a few techniques that they use to analyze data. There view of the IPv4 Space – by visualization via Hilbert Curves you are able to represent the IPv4 space via the relationships of the IP addresses and see interesting patterns, that you would not see if you looked at IP’s on a global map. You can do your own visualization by looking at the ipv4 heatmap project on github – here. Also, go check out the IPv4 Heatmaps project.

The afternoon keynotes were a mix of interesting and ads. I came in and heard a panel on Cyber Safety, the panel was a powerful reminder of how kids are targeted and exploited on the internet. The one problem I had was that the FBI panelist discussed how they leveraged the patriot act to cut the red tape and save one of the other panelists who had been kidnapped and sexually torched as a child. They did this within a month of passing the Patriot Act. To me, this act was done by a depraved individual not a terrorist, and as such it shows how the act was being used beyond its remit.

Both Cisco and CA did presentations, unfortunately I missed most of the Cisco presentation, but what I did see of it seemed appropriate to the conference. The CA presentation, unfortunately seemed a bit too much like a marketing presentation. The final speaker was Doris Kearns Godwin. She talked about Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. I’ve seen here on both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, and have always enjoyed hearing her. It was a great presentation on the leadership styles of these three presidents. She then signed copies of her book. Was glad to pick one up for my wife.