Notes From the RSA Conference

It was a whirlwind of activity at the RSA Conference – talking non-stop for four days is a workout. The big take-away for me was a notable change from previous years among the conference crowd in their attitude and interest in privacy. I talked to far more infosec professionals who were looking for ways to educate themselves about privacy laws, regulations and best practices than I have in past events. When asked why I was sensing this sudden interest in privacy, it boiled down the pressure from management or outside sources to “figure it out.”

There was a common recognition among this group of the growing pressures to understand the impact of the shifting laws, regulations and cultural norms. Specifically as the EU refines its laws to give more control and protections to individuals, and in the wake of Obama’s Privacy Bill of Rights announcement, people are starting to pay attention. Isn’t that characteristic of the type of activity and interest you see at the start of a movement?

I’m looking forward to watching this develop over the next couple of years. It’s a bit surprising to me though to realize that the privacy movement is starting at the large corporate level and not in the fast-paced agile world of the entrepreneur, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Entrepreneurs will throw caution to the wind in order to gain traction for their business, where established enterprises have risk managers, auditors, compliance officers and institutional investors who cast a spotlight on the dangers of ignorance and apathy.

On a side note I want to highlight two companies I met that are taking privacy seriously:

Blekko

I had a chance to meet and talk with some really nice folks from this startup search engine. I had heard of them before but hadn’t considered using them – I didn’t see the need. That changed when I heard their pitch.

Their tagline is “The spam free search engine,” which highlights their efforts to vet their sources better than Google, et al, but what encouraged me to take a serious look at them was their privacy control settings. Go to their homepage and click on Prefs on the top right navigation then come back. Pretty fantastic huh? From a privacy perspective they certainly compare favorably, if not better, with others in the space like Duck Duck Go.

However, at the end of the day they’re a search engine and it’s the usefulness of the results that really matters. If they are at least as good as Google’s then the privacy controls matter, if not, then I’m still willing to pay Google’s tax. With that in mind, I’ve been using it exclusively for the past couple of days and I’m impressed. The results are served fast (really fast) and on target and the “slashtags](http://blekko.com/about/slashtags)” concept has me hooked. It looks like I’ll be switching to them for the long haul.

Catch

I had the opportunity to have coffee with a couple of people from Catch early in the week. I found their passion, energy and dedication towards all things privacy and security related absolutely infectious. It’s readily apparent that they have a deep respect for their customer’s privacy and even a strong desire to promote public awareness of security and privacy topics.

Catch offers mobile and web applications that enable users to record, tag and share a wide variety text, images and multimedia sources. With a recognition of the potential sensitivity of the information they collect and store, the service was built from the ground up with privacy and security in mind and by all appearance they mean to stay ahead of the curve on those fronts. In such a crowded space, and particularly one fraught with privacy violations, it’s refreshing to learn that someone out there is doing it right.

I offered to help them any way I could with their efforts to promote privacy and security among the general public and I hope they find a way to take me up on that offer.

Check them out.

Next week I’m traveling again. I’m off to the IAPP Global Privacy Summit in Washington, DC. If there was ever a place to “drink the Kool-Aid” of privacy that’s the place. If you’re attending find me and say hello.