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Well, tomorrow is the big day.  TEDxEast kicks off in less than 24 hours.  This year’s event, ”The View from In Here,” will offer an examination of multiple perspectives – the shades of grey that inhabit all aspects of life. It will be for the attendees to decide if the ideas presented are the beginning of the end or the next big thing; magnanimous or mercurial; useful or useless. For the incredible Leonardo da Vinci, the eye was tremendously important. He believed that the eye was “the window of the soul” and the most critical of the senses by which we experience the natural world.  During my talk tomorrow, I will describe the eye as the key that will unlock your world. The convergence of one’s digital and one’s physical presence is upon us and marks the very beginning of what people like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil say will be the singularity.  Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities...

This Friday, May 11th, I will have the opportunity the take the stage and present at the Times Center in the New York Times building, located in the heart of Times Square, as part of the TEDxEast conference.   The ‘instructions’ from TED about the format of a TED talk are themselves pretty interesting – “you have just 18 minutes to give the talk of your life.” And they are serious about that. In fact, they’ve created Ten Commandments: • Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick • Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before • Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion • Thou Shalt Tell a Story • Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy • Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success. • Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need...

Last week, Telwares held its spring CIO Global Forum in Napa, CA. I had the privilege of presenting the second day’s visionary address to an audience of approximately thirty CIOs (Chief Information Officers) from Fortune 500 companies and some of the most distinguished thought leaders in the world. The day before my address, Larry Clinton, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Security Alliance, spoke about the importance of economics for the ultimate success of U.S. cyber security policy. Mr. Clinton is one of the clearest voices on cyber security and has discussed these issues with USA Today, CBS, Fox News, CNN, C-SPAN and CNBC, among other news outlets.   Mr. Clinton even testified about Examining the Homeland Security Impact of the Obama Administration’s Cybersecurity Proposal before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee last year.  During his talk in Napa he reiterated his testimony – a somewhat contrarian position that we must integrate advanced technology with economics and public policy to create a sustainable system of cyber security....

On Wednesday April 26, I will kick of the afternoon session of the CIO Global Forum in Napa, CA.  It’s an honor to join some of the brightest thought leaders in world for a cross industry look into the evolving role of the Chief Information Officer. The role of the CIO is transitioning from a technical expert to a top business executive who brings valuable technological insight and capabilities. This evolution means that every CIO will need real-time education and information about workforce management, global expansion, emerging technologies and other trends – directly from peers who share these challenges. Today, every CIO faces the evolving threat of cyber disruption – the bad guys are coming. These cyber attackers are well funded, sophisticated, relentless and targeting your infrastructure and employees with the goal of gathering critical information and disrupting the business continuity. These attackers are also now empowered with additional channels for attacks such as social and mobile platforms....

New currency reinforces the need to secure banking infrastructure The Canadian government just announced its own version of BitCoin (a virtual currency), called the MintChip, to replace the penny. In my opinion, this is the end of banking as we currently know it. According to the Fast Company piece that shed light on this story: "The news comes only days after RCM's chief financial officer Marc Brule criticized Bitcoin's solution. The problem, he told Reuters, was that Bitcoin was not backed by a credible source. ‘The system we would bring in would be backed by a fund,’ Brule said. ‘Bitcoin may work for the small group of people that believe in its value, but that could change very suddenly." The banking system is already extremely vulnerable – an issue that has become even more clear in the past few months. This type of currency, and the transition from cash to a digital currency, could make financial institutions (and others using this currency) susceptible to pandemic style attacks on the banking...

Shawn Henry, the FBI's executive assistant director in charge of cybersecurity, recently told The Wall Street Journal that the government and private companies aren't up to the task of defending sensitive data from would-be hackers. Mr. Henry said: "I don't see how we ever come out of this without changes in technology or changes in behavior, because with the status quo, it's an unsustainable model. Unsustainable in that you never get ahead, never become secure, never have a reasonable expectation of privacy or security.” His comments were directed at Congress regarding their consideration of two competing measures designed to secure the networks for critical U.S. infrastructure; an issue that has become very political. Nobody disagrees that there is a great need for security improvements, but pro-business advocates maintain that the new regulations are not likely to better protect computer networks. Everyone is right on this matter. The U.S. does need advanced research, development and investment. And regulation will neither fix the core issues, nor damage the business outlook. Furthermore, what is typically missed time and time again is accurately identified by Mr. Henry: if we don’t change the fundamental approach to security we will end up with more breaches and an insecure perimeter....

When I was invited to speak at TEDxEast in New York on May 11, my mind raced with 1,000 possibilities. For the last 10 years of my life, I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by outstanding people who have given me their time, expertise and insight. At the core of these relationships has been a communal search into the complexity of shared information, privacy and the coming singularity. What I am speaking about at TED is a complex idea – how to secure our physical and digital worlds while protecting privacy. To bring clarity to my talk and help move the audience beyond one dimensional, singular thinking – I am giving them a visual feast in addition to the verbal explanation. A brilliant designer, Takao Umehara, of Creativity is Everywhere in NYC, has created splendid visuals to help explain and enlighten the issues that will be addressed in my presentation. Speaking at a prestigious TED event requires that a person give the talk of his or her life in 18 minutes or less. My hope is that in my allotted...

In the Friday New York Times, Brian X. Chen and Evelyn M. Rusli reported that “Consumers are beginning to complain that Apple’s iTunes Store, and in particular its App Store, which the company portrays as the safest of shopping environments, is not so secure.” This report has created quite the stir. It is chaos within the blogosphere with fans of Apple issuing complaints that “their accounts have been hijacked” and application developers saying sternly, “they are having to deal with fraudulent purchases that drain their time and resources.”  All of this seems very scary and in the hysteria that surrounds our cyber security pandemic, could it be that Apple is the mother lode of fraud? The truth is no.  Facts speak loudly: iTunes now costs $1.3 billion a year to run, it has 225 million accounts – more than Bank of America and Wells Fargo put together – and it claims more than 30 billion downloads.  Their fraud rates are modest at best for this transactional volume. It wasn’t that long ago that the banking...

Every day it seems there is a new headline bemoaning the ills of computer security. From bank breaches where hackers steal account numbers and PINS to gaming sites where user accounts are compromised.  We are in the midst of a cyber pandemic and the statistics are startling. Today, ZDnet.com published a story that illustrates the point clearly and comes as no surprise: usernames and passwords top the list as the "weakest link in enterprise IT security." In fact, "Eighty percent of the security incidents studied by Trustwave were due to the use of weak administrative credentials." The report observes that cyber attacks continue to rise unabated, and hackers are increasingly going after businesses’ customer records.  The risk is even greater for businesses frequented by consumers and brand name chains. For an amazing in depth view of the ongoing systematic attacks that are occurring, spend a moment with the Privacy Rights Clearing House security breach tool  The full Chronology of Data Breaches shows that...

Anonymous, the collective associated with collaborative, international “hacktivism”, has been in the news steadily since 2011 – with a stream of successful hacks from Sony to the CIA’s website, to, most recently, the Vatican’s site.  For the past several years Anonymous, LulzSec and other hackers have been attacking major financial, commercial and government institutions around the globe – creating awareness about the serious holes in our current security systems.

Yes, these hacks are a nuisance for organizations and companies to clean up. Yes, they can even be devastating to innocent bystander whose data was stolen and made available online.  Furthermore, as reported by the Huffington Post:

“In turning one of its best-known hackers into an informant and breaking open the highest profile elements of the ‘Anonymous’ movement, authorities have dealt a serious blow to a group they found a growing irritant.  But as the broader ‘Anonymous’ label - complete with its iconic Guy Fawkes mask imagery - is...