Archive for September, 2008
The unprecedented use of the term unprecedented in the current crisis is terrifying
‘An unprecedented crisis‘ said Hank Paulson. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13590.html
‘American economy is facing unprecedented challenges‘ added a concerned George W. Bush http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,425261,00.html
“The Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, will be granted unprecedented authority in the financial bailout plan” http://www.lockergnome.com/forsythe/2008/09/29/unprecedented-authority-granted-to-henry-paulson/
In a series of moves culminating overnight, Washington took an unprecedented step into the financial sector in a bid to steady an ailing housing market and ease a global credit crunch, analysts said. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24310593-20142,00.html
Tuesday, Paulson is spearheading an unprecedented global change as the Bush administration point man for the proposed $700 billion bailout of the U.S. financial industry as the economy reels from the credit crisis sparked by the national real estate slump and spiraling mortgage failure rates. http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-09-22-paulson-treasury_N.htm
But the $700bn (€480bn, £380bn) bail-out marks an unprecedented test of both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress, who are seeking to pass a proposal that they know will be unpopular among voters in an important election year and is opposed for ideological reasons by factions within both political parties. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c86b58a-89a4-11dd-8371-0000779fd18c.html
Bush: ‘unprecedented challenges‘ call for ‘unprecedented action‘ http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpposted/archive/2008/09/19/bush-unprecedented-challenges-call-for-unprecedented-action.aspx
Why terrifying?
Because after all these exciting ‘unprecedented firsts‘ everything will be ‘precedented seconds’ or, in other words, bland.
Meanwhile, while things are still interesting, have you placed your bets on September Madness?
Faster than you
image by betta design on flickr.com
A couple of days ago I called the India consulate in Sydney, Australia. Turns out they have a new process to get a five year business visa issued:
- Complete all the documentation necessary. This means download and print forms, complete them by hand, etc.
- Scan all the documents and your passport
- Email them to the consulate for approval Read the rest of this entry »
It’s The Best Time
I love this smell as well
It’s this time of the year. One can smell it. If you remember Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore’s statement ”I love the smell of napalm in the morning”, you know what I’m talking about. It’s the last uphill battle at the continuous war on business. Assaf calls this EQ. I call this the best time of the quarter.EQ – the End of the Quarter. Everyone is on the watch, alerted and ready. This is the time to separate between the boys and men. Get the POs and meet your personal goals as well as the company numbers. All are reay to take a bite of the pie.
It’s all about eve sales. The ability to answer the customer needs, create a solution, close a deal and get a PO. All are alerted, focusing on the goal. To be honest, I always thought that sales is an art, but then I’ve learned that it is actually a process.
Old school will use Og Mandino’s sales principles:
On trust and faith (or where should I put my gold?)
After 6 days of riding my mountain bike through 300km of Mongolian Steppes, I come back to learn that the US government had to bail out Merrill Lynch and AIG, meanwhile letting Lehman Brothers go belly up. SEC had banned short calls on most of the financial institutions in the United States. This boosted confidence in other SHODDILY run financial institutions (like Wamu) who saw a sunny day first time in months. Wamu’s spring was short lived, and now it is a part of JP Morgan. Now they plan to give away $700b of our hard earned money to wall street.
Having been completely without cell or Wifi coverage, I was oblivious to all this throughout my journey.
I met people who did not care what the heck Lehman Brother’s CEO Dick Fuld did with THEIR hard earned money. Or who Merrill Lynch decided to give THEIR money to. These people had trust in their own stash of food supply: milk products (cheese curds, butter, condensed milk and other products) and meat (Yak/Cow, Sheep, Horse or Goat), and they had faith that the sky would be kind to them.
Sheep stomachs sewn into sacks maintain the freshness of the home made butter for the brutally cold winter
You Don’t Build A Fence This Way
The Following text is taken from a GAO report on the SBInet (DHS Needs to Address Significant Risks in Delivering Key Technology Investment) that was published yesterday and caught my attention. The title says it all: risk, technology and investment – everything one needs in order to have a good reading). But then, as I go over the text I was very disappointed to learn that the DHS was not learning from the Israeli mistakes when the security fence was built. Judge for yourself. Read the executive summary below:
SBInet, DHS Secure Border system
Just replace some of the names and you feel like your in the Middle East, where projects are known to be delayed, technology is always ahead of what was originally planned and the overall cost is several times higher then originally planned….
Palo Alto Networks’ Security Pie
Finally, some interesting security pie. Palo Alto Networks Application Usage and Risk Report contains lots and lots of pies. One can follow the link and read the document. Two obvious items had caught my attention:
- HTTP has become the universal application protocol
- Obvious attempts at activity concealment continue
At this time (September 2008 
, one could think that the different security solutions would solve the different HTTP tunneling and concealment attempts. After all, there are so many and diverse methods including URL filtering (to block the destination), application identification, proxy authentication (to prevent unmanned applications etc).
I’m curious if and when applications will start to use 53/udp to sneak through the security systems.
Elements of identity
by CarbonNYC at flickr.com
The term ‘identity’ means multiple things in multiple contexts. My intention here is to refer specifically to the term identity as the collection of all information objects that identifies a person. Specifically, identify the person to someone or something outside of the person. Authentication of a person, if you will. Read the rest of this entry »
Federal Regulations Mandates Protection Of Private Sector Data
Here’s some very interesting reading material. I must admit that I was not aware of all the Federal policies to govern and protect IT systems and data in private sector companies. Below you can read the summary of the United States Government Accountability Office GAO-08-1075R.
More important, this document lists some of the penalties and enforcement options that the Feds can use.
Summary of Federal Requirements for Securing Privately Owned IT Systems and Data
Federal policy identifies 18 infrastructure sectors–such as banking and finance, energy, public health and healthcare, and telecommunications–that are critical to the nation’s security, economy, public health, and safety. Because these sectors rely extensively on computerized information systems and electronic data, it is crucial that the security of these systems and data is maintained. Further, because most of these infrastructures are owned by the private sector, it is imperative that public and private entities work together to protect these assets. The federal government uses both voluntary partnerships with private industry and requirements in federal laws, regulations, and mandatory standards to assist in the security of privately owned information technology (IT) systems and data within critical infrastructure sectors. As agreed, our objectives were to (1) identify, for each critical infrastructure sector, the federal laws, regulations, and mandatory standards that pertain to securing that sector’s privately owned IT systems and data and (2) identify enforcement mechanisms for each of the above laws, regulations, and mandatory standards.
Read the rest of this entry »
Dog’s DNA For Carrot and Stick Agsint Pooing
Reuters brings the story of Dr. Tika Bar-On, Petah Tikva’s city’s chief veterinarian who came up with the idea of using analysis of dog droppings to reward and punish pet owners. Under a six-month trial program launched this week, the city of Petah Tikva, is asking dog owners to take their animal to a municipal veterinarian, who then swabs its mouth and collects DNA.
The city will use the DNA database it is building to match feces to a registered dog and identify its owner. Owners who scoop up their dogs’ droppings and place them in specially marked bins on Petah Tikva’s streets will be eligible for rewards of pet food coupons and dog toys.
Powerpoint Snafu
The life of the technology road warrior are filled with airports, Starbucks, very longs days, short nights and lots of PowerPoint slides … During my travel last week, I was presenting to a large forum. Typically, I was refreshing the slides at night, several hours before the presentation. When I presenting I noticed two errors that I have made. One was just a typo. I really don’t like typos (unfortunately, I have more than a few). The other was an error made while copying and pasting a sentence from another presentation. To make me feel better, here are two pictures shot in Israel during the past months. Feel free to choose the caption
Copy&Paste
Typo