The San Francisco Chronicle ran an interesting story about a small payment processing firm that is trying to disintermediate credit card companies. But they are doing it the old fashioned way – cutting out the middleman and going direct to banks to move money for them. Dwolla is a start-up payment processor providing person-to-person payment via mobile and social media outlets. Their hook is providing payment at a substantially reduced reduced commission – just twenty-five cents ($0.25) per…
Most of the time, the words flow. I have a thought, and the next thing I know there are hundreds (if not thousands) of words on the screen. I’m a writer, so that shouldn’t be surprising. What may be surprising is that there are times I get writer’s block. Like now. At some point in the early part of the week, I get a flash of inspiration and bang out the Incite. It’s usually the easiest part of my job, but not this week.
We have finished and put a little bow around our Security Management 2.0: Time to Replace Your SIEM? paper. So it’s time to post the series index, as well as a link to the completed paper.
Over the past few weeks we have been inundated by the 24/7 media cycle, endlessly fascinated bythe alleged child abuse by a Penn State football coach. I couldn’t bring myself to read the grand jury findings, as I have a young son and the idea of anyone doing that to The Boy makes my blood boil. Regarding the perpetrator, I’m with Jay Glazer. But we Americans do take that innocent until proven guilty thing pretty seriously, so we need to let the legal system play it out.
Coupons. Frequent flyer miles. Rebates. Loyalty programs. Member specials. Double coupon days. Frequent buyer programs. Weekly drawings. Big sales events. Seasonal sales. Presidents day sales. Sales tax holiday sales. Going out of business sales. Private clearance sales. 2 for 1 sales. Buy 2 get 1 free.
Heading down into Atlanta last week for the BSides ATL conference, I got into my car and the magic began. I whipped out my magic box and pulled up the address on the Maps app, just to make sure I remembered where it is. Then I fired up Pandora, which dutifully streamed rocking music to my Bluetooth-equipped car stereo. I checked out the NaviGAtor mobile site for real-time traffic data; then I was set and on my way.
As we posted the Security Management 2.0 series, we focused heavily on replacing an on-premise option with another on-premise option. We paid a bit of lip service to the managed SIEM/Log Management option, but not enough – the reality is that, under the proper, circumstances a managed service presents an interesting alternative to racking and stacking another set of appliances. So consider this a primer for managed services in the context of our Security Management 2.0 discussion. We will go…
I guess if you have been around long enough, you have seen everything over and over again. I felt my age today when I saw yet another (lame) attempt to Move Security from a Cost Center to a Brand Differentiator. How many times have we security folks wished for the day we could get project funding because it helped the business either to make more money or to spend less money? Gosh, that would make life a lot easier.
I try not to cover data privacy much any more, despite being an advocate, because we have already crossed the point of no return. We have allowed just about every piece of our personal data to be available on the Internet, making privacy effectively a dead issue, but in most cases the user makes the choice. But many very large public firms have been promising consumers that carefully protect customer information, and fully anonymize any data before it’s sold. This is bull$&!#.
Last week StorefrontBacktalk ran an article on Mobile Wallets. It underscored my personal naivete in assuming that anyone who designed and built a digital wallet for ecommerce would first and foremost protect customer payment data and other private information. Reading this post I had one of those genuine “Oh $&!#” moments – what if the wallet provider was not interested in my security or privacy? Duh!