Loading the Gist Outlook connector - I get way too much e-mail. http://ff.im/-5aQDz #

@louis - not the first time re: http://ff.im/5b3XZ #

Wanted to get into the top 100 on FFHolic - once I got there, life was good, hit my goal, time to move on. re: http://ff.im/5b2lf #

yes, yes I do, sadly, I admit no shame in this confession re: http://ff.im/5eb23 #

Done e-mail on the way - can’t wait, can I have it now? re: http://ff.im/5haDR #

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Of all the ways that people try to monetize blogs, and the many ways that users have of short circuiting those monetization efforts, a good friend of mine Svetlana Gladikova of Profy fame has introduced me to a new program called CancelAds.

This might just be the middle ground between casual users who might click on an ad infested web site trying to stay alive, and a low cost subscription model for their more regular users. Ad networks are getting increasingly slower causing the page load times to increase. Many of us are trained from our early days on the internet to ignore ads, even when they look like content, we loath popup box (interstitials) ads for surveys or you could win big something! Even though I use ads here, it is still annoying for some web sites I visit to keep the pressure up. If I see an ad before the page loads, I usually do not go back to that site ever. There has been tension between the needs of legitimate web sites to make money off ads, and people who just want to read content.

This is where CancelAds comes into place, and as Allen Stern from Center Networks points out, this is a revenue stream that is a layered approach. Loyal readers might just go for paying a few dollars for an ad free site, while casual users get the full ad laden impact of the web site. Rather than replacing, and rather than dumping everything behind a pay wall like some newspapers are thinking of, this might be an equitable middle ground concept that works for everyone. Svetlana comments on ReadWriteWeb:

Company rep Svetlana Gladkova wrote to us and speculated that certain sites would garner revenues nearing those of print magazines, saying, “These must be the sites that have numerous ads where people tend to spend a long time (playing online games, reading about fashion and celebrities, socializing). So we are targeting mostly the mainstream-focused websites, not those targeted at the early adopters who know how to block ads without paying better than the mainstream audience.” “Though, of course, blogs targeted at early adopters have a large audience, and many will also benefit from using CancelAds because among their huge crowds of visitors there will be a certain percentage of loyal readers who will want to demonstrate their support by paying and enjoy the blogs ad-free as well.” Source: RWW

In all this looks like an interesting program for people to try out and see where they can go with it and how they can use it to everyone’s benefit. The idea is sweet especially if it pays off for writers and readers to find a middle ground that currently does not exist yet. This is at least one attempt to solve a problem that for some sites we do have. The question is going to be is how will people work out what the actual value of the data is (if someone thinks I’ll pay 100 dollars a month to access their site, they would be wrong, if they think I’ll pay 99 cents a day, that might be more on target for me) and how web site owners will work out the magic number between what people will pay to maximize the potential against the offset of advertising revenue.

Full Disclosure – I do consider Svetlana a good friend, no money changed hands, and she just told me about the site via Facebook. I am an avid reader of profy, and if you have not read it yet, you need to check it out.

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What has been interesting is the amount of interest in the information security program that we have written lately, and this includes how we are using technology in an educational environment, as well as the view of information security and who we are as an industry.

Anna King has penned an article that I was interviewed for along with a number of other industry leaders here in the Seattle area about how we view information security, where it is going, and what the general approaches have to be for our industry, the information security industry to be successful. The good part is that I got to mention my favorite information security leaders, Clement DuPuis, Kees Lune, and Nathan Lambert along the way.

Seattle is really becoming a hot bed of how information is changing, not just here at CityU, but also at the University of Washington, the ISSA group, the Agora, Watcom Community College, and a host of other institutions. Beyond education, the collection of people and organizations that are addressing the real world educational needs of information security is slowly but surely changing for the better, from risk management to reverse engineering malware, to policy, networks, and general information security, the programs that are being built around the region to address all income and education levels are pretty outstanding. That is what makes this second interview so important, it really gave me an opportunity to address one of the issues that I think we have as an industry.

“Computer science is sexy. We no longer hold true to the older stereotype of an out of shape, Mountain Dew drinking, pizza eating nerd like you see portrayed in the popular media,” Morrill says. “Today’s computer science graduate is just like everyone else who follows their passion and wants to help protect people from cyber criminals. Our modern day leaders like Kees Lune, Clement Dupuis and Nathan Lambert are all smart, savvy people who live real lives and are changing the face of information security as we know it.”

What was also good was that Barbara and Karen also chimed in on the same views in the interview. Both Barbara and Karen are phenomenally cool people in the Information Security industry.

Globally, Worstell says importance of cyber security became apparent after violent protests over Iran’s presidential leadership broke out and sparked a flood of social networking that was eventually policed by the ruling Iranian government. The political group limited the free flow of information over social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Keeping information flowing freely on the Internet and preventing cyber warfare will only become more complicated as time goes on, Worstell says.

Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, director of the Center of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at the University of Washington, agrees with Worstell’s concerns. She says targeted acts by the government could lead to other problems, such as hackers or other organized forces, which may use the Internet to intentionally harm people.

You can read the whole interview here, and it is worth reading because it really takes a review not just of my viewpoint on where we need to go with information security, but what we are doing to solve the problems we face as an industry. Not just one person, but a whole region of colleges, groups, support groups, and other mechanisms to help people become smarter information security practitioners. Well worth reading.

Tags: information security, cybersecurity, cyber security, interview, technology, hacking, hack, hacker, interesting, education, issa, issa ps, university of Washington, cityu of seattle

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I am not sure we are ready for a sustainable business process, but Kevin Wilhelm, the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting Group a consulting company here in Seattle will be speaking on this subject and plugging his new book on the Return on Sustainability. The question I have, and one that will hopefully be answered at his meeting is can we really do this. Or is “green business” or “sustainable business” really just a marketing trick/ploy riding on a fad. Is this something we are going to commit to, or is it something we are going to flash in the pan over?

I really am a skeptic when it comes to sustainable business, especially since we have very little track record on this one. I do not think that modern capital systems or businesses are truly set up to do this, and much of the marketing I have seen on this are more geared as a market differentiator trying to get new customers. There has been a poor showing or lack of commitment by business to make “green” or “sustainable” part and truly part of their business processes. This is why I am a skeptic, I have seen it used but not carried through, and if anything that hurts the green/sustainable business movement more than anything else.

Kevin Wilhelm though has penned a book on the idea (click here to see it) and since this is coming from a Seattle CEO who works in this industry and has built a consulting business around it, the hope is that this is more than a flash in pan. We all know the big crunch is coming, the question is can bio-fuels and recycling really do the things we need them to do, and can companies really make a profit when tons of recyclable material are sitting on docks for shipping because no one wants them. That is one of the reasons that I am a skeptic, we mean well, but our follow through has been pretty poor so far.

Kevin is giving a fee free speech on how companies can address the green business process and still survive and make a profit on the 20th of July. You can sign up for the meeting by clicking here. Admission is free, and he will be doing book signing to go along with that. You can purchase his book at the speech or at Amazon right here. In all this ought to be interesting, the question is, can he change my mind, when I am a confirmed and happy skeptic of the whole green business process.

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Of course it helps that I work at CityU but CityU of Seattle has started sponsoring my regular old web site. This does not mean that the irreverent, badly spelled, grammatically incorrect and rambling posts will stop; it just means that I have a sponsor for the web site. Of course I would like to take time out to thank my new sponsor (and let everyone know there are still two sponsor slots open).

What makes this interesting though is that this is true Robert Scoble in its form, we assume or support our web sites being sponsored by the companies we work for, and in some cases, and we even allow a certain amount of redesign to go along with it. Even when the redesign causes some general usability issues along the way (read this). Good thing is that there are no redesigns involved, no one will get a survey, and basically nothing much will change. I’ll still have issues; I’ll still love social media, and generally talk about a great many things that makes techwag so hard to nail down other than general “technology”.

I would also like to make a couple of new announcements; we are also being picked up for syndication by Cloud Ave and IEntry. If you are not familiar with Cloud Avenue it is a small group of bloggers who really love cloud computing and are trying to dispel the myths and report facts about cloud computing. IEntry is a global syndication network that reads RSS feeds, parses it, and then spreads the content all over the internet. I have used IEntry in the past with my ProBlog over on Toolbox.com, but being able to bring it home to my more personal and opinionated blog is a good thing. I would like to give many thanks to Tiffany from IEntry, and Zoli from CloudAve for being willing to brave the often all over the map process that I use here on techwag.

Not a bad way to start out the week, new sponsor (thanks Boss!), new syndication deals with two top tier and great groups of people to work with (Thanks IEntry and CloudAve). In time honored tradition, it is time to go back to work, but you will see an occasional “Please thank our Sponsors” blog entry, maybe one or two a year, or less if possible.

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Andy Sack who is one of the more interesting VC people in Seattle got asked the question “What has been the influence/impact of the current economic crisis on American Culture”. In all this is a very good question to ask just about anyone as we have seen our friends and family in distress if not having their homes and cars repossessed.

I talked about some of this over on Toolbox when I started thinking about the “contractor nation”, in that people with identifiable skills like Programming, Project Management, security engineering and other skills that are expensive and easily transported between companies if not industries. While industry specific skill sets are always going to be needed, I think that one of the biggest impacts to people in the middle career range, between the ages of 45 and 62 have been the hardest hit, they will remember this as they move into their next gig.

Amongst my friends in the 45 to 62 age bracket they have already started working on their exit plan, they want to either go back to doing something that has a more socially aware focus, or want to do something that is cushioned from economic shocks. While this might have been self-inflicted, we are all going to see the ramifications of changes in banking, investing, and in health care. With a slower growth than the boom years (with a quick bypass via 9/11), and a harder time accumulating wealth, some of the folks I know have dropped out, started their own companies and have no plans to work for a paycheck that is not theirs completely in the future.

There is a certain drive to want to control your own destiny, and while the idea of Contractor Nation is viable, it is viable only for those people with skills that are free of the encumbrance of time and place. To be a good project manager you do not have to be in the office every day, to run a vulnerability scan externally of a network you can be anywhere in the world. For jobs that are free of time and space restrictions, you can live anywhere, do anything, and still pull down a decent wage depending on where you decide to end up.

I think that we will still as Americans involve ourselves on an international basis and with the world. It is doubtful that we will become isolationist, but when even the Pope is stating that a new way has to be found to survive economically, you can bet that capitalism has lost some of its world wide sheen. I think we will still be seen as a great place to visit, but as for an economic power, the writing is on the wall, in time the dollar will no longer be the reserve currency unless as a country, and this includes who we elect decides that fiscal responsibility is something we need to do for the next 20 to 40 years. We will be living through the world of a lower standard of living, a higher unemployment rate, and a loss of education rates as we slowly as a country work our way through these issues.

Of course no future prediction is always going to be loud and clear. If anything the magic 8 ball on the desk that helped me write this is forecasting a cloudy and uncertain future. I do expect to see though the following:

1. Less employees for large corporations – there will always be people that seek safety in large companies, but many of the best and brightest will move on to start their own companies over time. We have seen this steady exodus over the last five years; I expect it to pickup speed over the next 10 years. Companies will no longer have the luxury of picking from the best and brightest, they will be picking from people who actually apply which will cause large companies to pressure governments for more H1B visa workers not less.

2. I do expect contactor nation – in that people will move from short or long term contracts that they write. There will be less reliance on the bigger contracting houses, and more reliance on highly flexible teams of people who work well with each other and have a loyalty to each other, not to the company nor to the project they are working on.

3. I do expect that eventually America is going to have to deal with the same issues that have influenced Russia since the fall of communism. This country is divided, and both sides are pulling on each other badly using bully pulpits and modern propaganda methods. While America will not collapse in the next 20 years, unless we can pull it together and stop the hate messages spewing from our supposed news radio, tv and internet sites, we are only going to further fuel problems in this country without a viable solution.

4. Energy is going to be an issue, but not as big an issue as we think it is going to be. We might have brownouts but the minute energy gets to that point; expect a renaissance of infrastructure and ideas to hit that sector. What remains to be seen is can a flexible small group of people take on the energy giants and win, or will they sell out and move onto the next big thing?

All of these will continue to influence us both inside and outside the current economic crisis. While people are losing everything the wreckage left behind is going to invigorate a process that is already starting, people taking better control of their wealth, and their own destinies. Interesting question Andy, thanks for posting this today.

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One of the more fun things to watch in the Seattle startup scene is Marcelo Calbucci’s SSI, Seattle Startup Index that he publishes every month. This month is no different, but he is also seeing a sharp uptick in new startups being formed. Given the employment environment, it is not surprising that many more people who are unemployed and might have a good idea are out there coding, developing, marketing and project managing themselves to their own success and not waiting on the economy to recover.

From a startup junkie viewpoint, Marcelo is saying that 22 new startups are on the list, and that is a good thing. One of the things I have noted throughout this recession is that more people of any age are more likely to go out there and start doing their own thing rather than waiting on state aide, or otherwise waiting for someone to hire them. I still subscribe to the idea that not everyone can run a startup, but when you have a little financing, an idea, and a way to create it, there is no sense in waiting on someone else, just get out there and do it.

The top ten list is still the same old list except for the addition of Survey Analytics making it into the top ten for the first time. But here is how the top 10 break out.

1. Zillow
2. Pet Holdings of I can has Cheezeburger and Fail Blog fame
3. ILike (one of my favorite sites for music)
4. Robot Co-Op
5. Picnik (Which also swept the Seattle 2.0 awards this year)
6. Buddy TV
7. Car Domain
8. Wet Paint
9. Survey Analytics (Congrats on making it into the top 10!)
10. Pay Scale

In all this is a great list of the top 10 of attention seeking and user signup behavior on the part of these startups. This is what makes Seattle such a dynamic place when it comes to running a startup, the competitive nature is there, but it is all friendly. Gist, who I will be visiting on Friday scored in 72end place, but the more I use it the more I love it. When they go into public beta you definitely want to give them a try. What is also interesting about this list is that it is not just technology startups, Thrift Books came in at 86. Remind me to register my own startup at some point with Seattle 2.0.

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Louis Gray pointed out a new reading system yesterday called Lazyfeed, and overall I am pretty happy with it, but like all tag based reading systems, spammers and other miscreants have so corrupted the general tag base to get their message in front of people that tag based systems need something else to make sure they are delivering good valid content for the search strings provided.

Tag based systems have always had one huge Achilles heel, and that is that people often either overuse, misuse, or abuse tags to try to get their message in front of as many people as possible. And while lazyfeed is absolutely awesome, it suffers the same problem that many tag based systems have, spammers have pretty well appropriated the tag system making it nearly meaningless as a way to get good information on the internet.

Here is case number 1 – tag hacking started coughing up page after page of the best Xbox 360 games to get your hands on. I was more or less looking to see what was happening in the hacking community with the new Firefox 3.5 Zero day and instead got a pile of link farmed Xbox 360 stuff that I really didn’t need to or want to see.

Here is case number 2 – same tag, hacking, but further down the page, I like this one because it shows that you get some really interesting nonsense dealing with tag based systems that are auto generated by spammers (or systems engaged in spammy behavior) like the first entry in this picture. The context of the message is meaningless verbal nonsense, but entertaining to attract attention from other major systems and devoid of any real content.

Lazyfeed is not the only ones who have this issue, we have seen this with Technorati and other tag based systems. What needs to happen though is add a bit of human intelligence to the system, or allow someone to flag the entry as spam and let the community do the filtering for you. I also sent this along as feedback to Lazyfeed, but I also think this is important enough that people who are developing tag based systems need to have a way for the community to filter content, or put a process/human in place that will also filter out content based on the actual abuse of tags.

Tag abuse is something that is fairly common and seen far too often, people who are developing systems that rely on tags should work on a way to filter/limit/community reporting the abuse and a way to black list blogs/people that overuse/abuse tags in their entries.

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@Kol - awesome thanks! Checking it out now. re: http://ff.im/4UsUI #

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This is something I have been looking forward to, and I’ll be down at the Gist offices on Friday the 17th taking a look around and doing a general interview with them. In preparation for the interview, I got a beta account with Gist and have tied it into almost a life stream dashboard of people I need to pay attention to, people I want to pay attention to, and those that have some good stuff every now and then.

On first blush Gist is a dashboard for following all the important people to you, which is different that FriendFeed. The idea here is not to start a conversation, but follow the things that they are sending and posting across facebook, twitter, gmail, outlook, or import as a CSV file. Once you have that set up, you can start following along with what others are doing across the social networks and into your e-mail. This is more of a business application than a social application, and this is going to be one that I will use a lot. Although I would also like to see support for MSN and Yahoo mail, and a few other services like FriendFeed because not all my friends are in the same place, and I have friends segregated by e-mail as well.

When you are importing from a service, it only takes a few minutes (for under 1000 friends). Gist will not download more than 1000 people that you are following on twitter. This is not a big deal for those of us with a small followership, but for folks with the mega accounts of 10,000 or more people that they are following, this could be an issue.

The dashboard is very nicely constructed; it makes sense and gives you the information you want in an easy to use and readable format. To pull all your meetings and other information you will need to download the Gist plug-in for Outlook to fully synch the two systems so you can be working off one dashboard in total. It does not have an option to tie into OWA (outlook web access) so remote workers might not be able to fully synch between their mobile systems until they can get to a company computer, and install the Gist Toolbar for Outlook.

Otherwise, pleasantly surprised to see that the product is as good as it is when it is still in beta. Easy to use and understand, importing is very easy, and managing the data is also very easy, from shifting the importance of people, to dropping people who sometimes just end up in an account somewhere. This is promising software, and tons of questions to ask on Friday.

If you have any questions you would like me to ask at Gist on the 17th, let me know, and I’ll ask them for you.

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