September 5, 2008 by dbarker.

I would have to say yes. I think this is partly a technology issue. As information security managers think we can design a system that can be managed by technology. We sit in front of consoles and we feel secure. Physical security requires work that involves people, and not just machines and technology. This process involves education, awareness, and training of actual people. This is something most people in information security don’t like to do. With so much emphasis given to DLP these days, I suspect that physical security will have to be stepped up as well. Most companies I consult with, have separate physical and network security departments. The physical security aspects are never thought about by most network security architects, and in the cases it is, it’s an afterthought. Something else that can be fixed with technology, e.g. video cameras and biometrics.

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September 5, 2008 by dbarker.

What the hell is wrong with the mainstream media? Does anyone believe Barack Obama? Barack Obama has voted with a majority of his democratic colleagues 96.0% of the time. They make a big deal about McCain voting with his party, 88.3% of the time. Obama is not for the change I believe in, he is for more of the same liberal spending and increased government and socialism. If elected, there would be change. A change for the worse . . . A change toward socialism. The media doesn’t care; they don’t expose his relationship with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). They don’t expose his record on abortion, Obama has not seen an abortion he didn’t like. He is ultra-liberal. He is pro-gay rights, weak on immigration, pro affirmative action, basically he’s for everything I’m against. Why do we need gay-rights laws? The laws of the land are for people. Sexual orientation should be irrelevant. When you give a section or subset extra rights, you make them special in the eyes of the law and in the opinion of the public. Take for example, “hate crimes” we already have criminal charges that protect people from “hate crimes” they have names like, assault, battery, manslaughter, homicide. Why is it worse to assault someone who is “gay” or “black” than it is to assault someone who is “white” or “straight.”

I’m appalled at the treatment they are giving to Sarah Palin, they never ask if Obama will be able to take care of the Presidency because he has two children. They are attacking her character? Obama has endorse an admitted racist preacher as his “spiritual leader” People stay in churches for 20 years because they agree with the philosophy that is being preached. There are hundreds of churches in Chicago. Obama is a liar, a fraud, and as immoral as they come. The mainstream media love him, and will not point this out.

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September 4, 2008 by dbarker.

I’ve been an ipod fan for years. I got my first one a 4 gig mini, at the Check Point experience a few years ago. I “won” it by giving a creative answer for the 10 to 1 question. That is, I’d try to recommend 10 crossbeam appliances for every 1 Nokia. That piece of fiction got me a free ipod. We sell more than 10 Nokia appliances for each Crossbeam for sure. After a few while, I gave the 4 gig to my wife and got a 60 gig ipod video. It was nice, now my son has it. Now I have the iphone. It is like a gameboy, ipod, gps, web browser, and phone in one device. It does all of these features pretty well. It does have a few drawbacks.
1) No voice dialing? C’mon phones have had this for years. It’s not very handsfree without it. My Motorolla Q had this, I used this feature alot. It was frustrating sometimes when noisy, but I still used it.
2) No flash? This needs to be fixed, soon. What good is fast internet if you don’t have flash.
3) None of my old ipod devices work with it. I have to go buy a new clock radio, a new car charger, a new car dock. One of the reasons I bought real ipods and not chinese fake ipods was because of compatibility. What gives? Couldn’t apple write some backwards compatibility into the iphone.

Anyway, the good news is that I can read a book or play a game while listening to music. That just rocks.

The iPhone has made flying and airport waits bearable again.

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August 4, 2008 by dbarker.

From time to time I’m asked to perform social engineering attacks as part of a vulnerability assessment or penetration test. So, I’ve been thinking about the types of social engineering attacks that could succeed on modern well protected networks. Have products evolved so much that these types of attacks can no longer work?

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September 23, 2007 by dbarker.

I travel a lot. This weeks adventure will be to migrate from Check Point firewalls to Juniper Netscreen firewalls for a government client of mine. It’s kinda sad, because it’s the passing of an era where Check Point could compete by technology alone. Since there is almost parity in the firewall market the Juniper products are winning at some clients due to cost. Check Point needs to do something about the 40% list price renewals for 24×7 support and software subscription, this will ultimately kill them if they don’t lower their annual costs.

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September 23, 2007 by dbarker.

Well I haven’t updated this site in about a year, and before that it was hosted at home. Bellsouth decided to start blocking smtp so I had to move my mail server to a hosted domain and moved the site as well. Since this is wordpress and my previous blog wasn’t, I decided to start over. At least now if someone hacks in a puts a picture of a butt or something on the blog, it wasn’t really me that was “vulnerable”. Pretty crappy of me to peg a hosting company with the url “areyouvulnerable.com” kinda begs someone to remove my site and post a resounding “yes”.

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August 21, 2006 by dbarker.

Check Point NGX R60 HFA04 is out, but not officially. It has some nice “enhancements”.

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