A Belated Report From the SC World Congress

Two weeks ago the SC World Congress was held in the Javits Center in New York City.  If you have never had the pleasure, the Javits Center is on the far west side of Midtown Manhattan.  A very convenient location except for the nasty 10 minute walk from Penn Station.

There were some good speakers at this event, although attendance may have been negatively affected by the current economic crisis. Although I only managed to stick around for a couple of the talks, there were some interesting speakers and the more intimate setting made for some great networking opportunities.

One interesting talk I attended was a moderated discussion with Adrian Seccombe and Paul Simmonds, two of the founders of the Jericho Forum. The Jericho Forum is an aggressive and eloquent proponent of de-perimeterization.  If you are wondering what de-perimeterization means, you are undoubtedly not alone.  I will post on this in the future, but basically this philosophy can be summarized by: firewalls bad, open networks good, security-by-network-perimeter is doomed to failure. Presumably their name refers to the fact that the walls of Jericho couldn't save the city (obscure Biblical reference in case you were wondering).  But then shouldn't they be named after a city without walls that successfully withstood attack?  And do such cities exist?  Hmmm...

Back to the SC Congress - it was also interesting to hear from Louis Freeh, former Director of the FBI.  He is a good speaker with some great anecdotes from what has obviously been a very interesting career (you don't get to be head of the FBI by sitting behind a desk). All in all a great choice for a keynote address, although I wish he had given us more of his thoughts on the recently released report from the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency.

One added bonus from the event - they were setting up for the Boat Show at the Javits Center and I got to see some gorgeous yachts up close and personal.