RSA Conference, Day 3 (updated)

And now we return for another exciting episode of security conference updates. This time we've got a short time-lag; I'll be writing about yesterday's sessions rather than today's, since I didn't get a chance to do a write-up yesterday.

I began the day with another 6:50 alarm, and once again skipped hotel breakfast in favor of eating at the conference. I had a cold bagel and cream cheese. Why does anywhere serve bagels cold? They're so much better toasted! Who doesn't like a nice, toasty warm bagel? But I digress.

The first session was a panel on DRM. The panelists consisted of two DRM makers (Crypto Research and RSA Security) and two media companies (Warner Bros. and Fox.) Which is to say, watching the panel was like watching the choir preach to itself. The only opposing viewpoint came from the audience's tendency to applaud at precisely the wrong times, on purpose. The Warner Bros. representative engaged in a bit of historical revisionism about DeCSS (claiming it appeared on Windows before Linux, and that there were Linux DVD player apps before DeCSS was written.) There was some spectacular ignorance, some of it willful -- they all seemed to accept the (incorrect) axiom that CSS is a form of copy protection for DVDs (it's not -- if what you want to do is copy discs, you don't have any reason to break CSS), and save for the Crypto Research guy, none of them even seemed to comprehend the trusted client problem (the fact that if a person can play a disc, they can copy it, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to change that fundamental fact.) One interesting thing was that they agreed that DRM schemes must contain some provision in them that allows them to be relaxed if the initial settings and policies turn out to be too draconian, and they went so far as to suggest upgradeable firmware for consumer electronics devices. This, of course, would be heaven for device hackers, who would produce "custom" firmware in a heartbeat. Also, we learned that the HDTV Broadcast Flag is Andy Setos's fault (he was one of the panelists.) It will, of course, never work, but in the world of DRM, when has that ever stopped anyone? Also, Setos claimed that the media companies have no desire to interfere with legitimate home use of media that doesn't involve transferrence -- a claim that seems to be contradicted by the DVD-CCA's current lawsuit against Kaleidascape (a company that makes hard drive based DVD jukebox appliances that have no transferrence capabilities.) All in all, it seems DRM makers and media companies are continuing their proud tradition of stumbling around in the dark while claiming they can see perfectly.

( Cut for really long and geeky... )

Thus ended Day 3 of the conference, so I walked back to my hotel. I called up Sarah, one of my coworkers, to see if she was interested in dinner; she was not, but redirected me to Greg, who was going to a seafood place called the Tadich Grill at 8:00. So I joined Greg, Himani, and two guys named Dave (one PM, one test) at the Tadich Grill. I took a taxi there, but it only ran $5, so it was quite near my hotel. The Tadich Grill was quite packed, and served quite good seafood -- and a lot of it. I got the grilled petrale sole, and it was good, but I could only actually eat half of it. Atferwards, it was about 9:45, and Greg and the Daves were going to go get coffee and dessert somewhere, but Himani and I both wanted to go back to the hotel and get some sleep. Since it was quite comfortable out (aside from being raining), we just walked back to the hotel. Along the way, we discussed, of all things, martial arts and guns. Her topics, so she doesn't think I'm a loon now. :)

Back at the hotel, I signed on to World of Warcraft for a few minutes, which turned into an hour when I discovered someone selling a really nice weapon and had to borrow money from pyran to buy it. I also got a phone call from my lovely wife, which always makes me happy. And then I went to sleep, glad that RSA Day 4 started at 9:00, rather than 8:00 like the first three days.

RSA Conference, Day 4

I woke up at 7:50, and this time had to add packing to my list of morning things to do. I ended up with a lot more stuff (mainly conference crap, documents, books, and a shirt) than I came with, and my suitcase had already been tightly packed using sheeplass's magic stuff-compressing powers. Luckily, among the conference crap was a satchel (backpack/briefcase/laptop-carrier/thing), which I used to hold all the things that didn't fit in the suitcase. It was still tight. This means I have to check luggage this time (since the satchel has to count as my carry-on, rather than the suitcase), but that's not really a problem.

( I prefer the term 'geektastic' )

Overall, it was a very good trip, and quite educational, albeit not that educatational with regard to things that actually relate directly to my job. It was amusing being on the expo floor talking to other companies -- we all observed that companies, when they noticed you were from Microsoft, would have one of two reactions. They would either say, "Oh.", and then act as though you were a representative of the Galactic Empire there to interrogate them for their valuable company secrets, or they would be extremely friendly. The extremely friendly ones were, of course, from those companies who desired to be acquired ("Would you like a pen? Can I get you some coffee? Would you like to buy an Internet start-up?") This said, this was not true of all companies, and many of the people at the expo were quite professional and dealt with us as they would with representatives from any other company.

It is quite annoying that my flights are so late, because I haven't hugged my wife for a week and this is most vexing. But now I have written all I have to say about the trip, so I'm going to get out a book and read for the next two hours, until my flight gets out of Mexico and lands.