[SoCoSA/discuss] Meeting Next Wednesday: Patch Management

[Jim Oser]

Eric,

Thanks.

Jim


On Jul 5, 2006, at 1:50 PM, Eric Eisenhart wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 12:28:04PM -0700, Jim Oser wrote:
>> I google Darren Nicholson and found out he is/was a baseball player
>> and he is active in sports in Danville.
>
> I believe the company is in Danville, so that could be the same  
> person.  In
> fact, after some googling I find some sporting related things with  
> his email
> address at autonomic attached to them, so I'm sure it is.  I  
> usually ask for
> a talk description and a bio; in this instance I just got a talk
> description.
>
>> Could you give a little bit more information about Darren Nicholson
>> and/or Autonomic Software?
>>
>> Why was this speaker/company chosen to speak?
>>
>> Has someone in the group used their product?
>>
>> Has someone in the group heard the speaker before?
>>
>> Will the speaker be talking about the patch management tools that his
>> company makes or will he be talking about US Cert and the Secret
>> Service?
>
> All fair questions.
>
> Susan (our Treasurer/Secretary) talked to somebody at the company at a
> conference (CATS, I believe) that she was attending and the product  
> sounded
> interesting to her and like it might be of interest to others in  
> our group.
> I don't know if Darren is the person she had talked to, or if it  
> was another
> person who works for the company.
>
> As I understand it, their patch management product essentially  
> consists of a
> service running on a Windows server that talks to "agents" on all your
> systems.  They specifically mention Windows, Linux, Solaris and  
> MacOSX, but
> it's my understanding that it can be made to handle pushing out  
> patches to
> any platform as long as the process can be broken down to copying a  
> file to
> the system and running a command-line.  I don't know which way
> communications are initiated or anything like that.
>
> My best guess is that he's got a "canned talk" (one given before to  
> other
> audiences) that talks about security in general and leads into why  
> keeping
> systems patched is an awfully good idea and gets into details about  
> their
> product.  We didn't get the more detailed description until  
> recently, though
> I think we originally talked about getting them onto the schedule  
> back in
> March or April...
>
> And, of course, part of why they were chosen is that we always have  
> trouble
> finding speakers and at the time we lined up the speaker nobody in  
> the group
> was ready to put something together.  Next month's talk will be from
> somebody in our group (Chris, the VP) talking about something he's  
> been
> dealing with at work lately and found interesting (WAFS; Wide-Area  
> File
> Services).  I'm thinking that sometime this fall (september,  
> october or
> november) I'll do a talk either on kickstart (redhat auto- 
> installation) or
> making your own RPMs; both things I deal with at work and that  
> could be
> useful in a Linux-server environment.  If anybody else would be  
> interested
> in giving the group a presentation, let me know (best method: email
> steering at socosa.org); I'd love to have a mix where half (or more)  
> of our
> talks are from members and the only vendors we bring in are the  
> ones with
> outstandingly interesting and informative presentations.   
> Presenting to
> SoCoSA (or NBLUG) is good practice for an important career skill,  
> too; won't
> miss out on a promotion if you get flustered in front of our little  
> group
> and could help you do a better job in front of the VPs next quarter  
> when
> you have to explain the benefits of replacing all your  
> infrastructure and
> why its worth them spending all that money.  ;)
>
>> I think I am missing some pieces of the puzzle.
>
> I hope that filled in a few of the pieces...
>
>> Jim
>>
>>
>> On Jun 28, 2006, at 9:07 PM, Eric Eisenhart wrote:
>>
>>> More Info, Map, etc: http://socosa.org/meeting/2006/07
>>>
>>> Location: O'Reilly's offices in Sebastopol
>>> Start for food: Wednesday, July 5th, 6pm.
>>> Start for talk: Wednesday, July 5th, 7pm.
>>>
>>> Topic:  Today's Technology vs. Dynamic Threats (Patch Management)
>>>
>>> Speaker: Darren Nicholson, Autonomic Software
>>>
>>> The topic will be Today's Technology vs. Dynamic Threats. The
>>> Threatscape
>>> has expanded to new heights. What was once thought to be a silver
>>> bullet
>>> approach, with encryption and firewalls, today's cyber criminals  
>>> have
>>> surpassed by volumes. Learn about the information that US CERT  
>>> and The
>>> Secret Service do not publicly talk about when it comes to cyber
>>> crime.
>>> -- 
>>> Eric Eisenhart <freiheit at SoCoSA.org>
>>> SoCoSA Founder and President
>>> IRC: freiheit on irc.socosa.org
>>> AIM: falschfreiheit
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
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>
> -- 
> Eric Eisenhart <freiheit at SoCoSA.org>
> SoCoSA Founder and President
> IRC: freiheit on irc.socosa.org
> AIM: falschfreiheit
>
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