This is a long delayed post. Was really busy with some office stuffs when I arrived to Cupertino office. So the highlights:
Day 3
Ira Winkler’s Is Google Evil? preso is a good one. He discusses some good points on potential Google apps with controversial policies. (From CNET/Schmidt, Google Streetview, UK protests, Japan Legal issues, to Google Health and Goog-411 etc.). I have used Google Maps here quite often and have tried the Streetview app. I agree with Ira that this street view feature is helpful for the commercial establishment but the risks to residential areas are high. The other points raised are worth some blog posts here in the future.
On the keynote speeches on the afternoon, the first one was The Obama Administration’s Cyberspace Policy Review. We were so excited to hear this out but sad to say that the speech was boring. Good thing John Chambers of Cisco came next and gave one good speech on Collaborate with Confidence.
Dave Dewalt, Mcafee’s CEO cannot keep up with the pace that Chambers set. Sorry but I find his “The Cybersecurity Challenge – How Do The Good Guys Win?” old news and boring.
Day 4
Day 4 gave the best session for me: Exploiting Online Games. The audiences were few, but all of us are very interested, as we are all gamers, young and old alike. Greg Hoglund discusses his progress on exploiting guess what? World of Warcraft. He also discussed the gaming sweatshops businesses in China, Philippines and other third-world countries. Another researcher discussed his experience with Disney’s Pirates of the Carribean. He also gave cool clips and funny experience. Another panelist is a lawyer who handled high profile game related lawsuits. And the last panelist discusses his tricks in the poker game Hold em.
No special keynotes for the day 4 since the one that we want to attend was cancelled (Wikinomics)
Day 5
First session I attended was “Threat Horizon – Discovering the Threats of the Future”. The methodology the presenter discussed is logical and overall the preso was good. Next session I attended is 2009 Cyber Threats and Trends which is a great last presentation for the RSA 2009 (as the afternoons was reserved for keynote sessions)
The afternoon keynotes were great. The Hugh Thompson show featured a victim of a Facebook Scam and share his experience. This is a very informative info and definitely worth another blog post in the future.
The Mythbusters session was A-OK. I initially thought that they will do some serious busting of a techie myth, but do it in front of all these security professionals and industry experts will be tough. I gave up deciphering the code they gave out in the early days of RSA 2009, and good thing they explained it was either all people will get it right or no one at all. They got the biggest deciphering machine that I’ve seen. See the picture taken by my colleague JC.
They gave some good loud bang to end RSA 2009 though and I think that was cool.