12 Scams of Christmas

Last week King 5 News (NBC) in Seattle discussed some of the scams cybercrooks are pulling around Christmas time. The segment was based on a McAfee pitch about some of the tricks we've seen online during the holidays. Many broadcasters around the nation and the world have paid attention to the topic, advising consumers how to be safe online while dealing with the stress of the season and trying to get the best deals for the wishlists they have to fill. The Seattle station interviewed me, the segment is below.

Spun Out On 101

Rain in California means a mess on the roads. Right outside my office window is highway 101, the artery of Silicon Valley. The driver of this pick up truck is not having a good day, he spun out and lost a wheel and has been standing in the middle of the freeway, awaiting emergency services, for 10 minutes or so.

TV Interviews via Skype

In the past two days I have been interviewed twice for U.S.-based broadcast outlets via Skype. While the video quality isn't quite as good as when it is shot onsite or in a studio, it is sufficient and TV stations do use it. I've been told that Oprah has been doing Skype interviews for over a year now.

Video interviews via Skype make a lot of sense as they save the stations time and money. Traditionally the stations drive a crew out to the office or the interviewee has to go down to a local studio. This costs time and can cost expensive studio and satellite fees.

Now, for little money and time investment at all, KRON in San Francisco and 11Alive in Atlanta had a McAfee security expert on TV when they wanted it. I am sure this will happen more in the future. You can see the clips below:

11Alive, Atlanta:



KRON 4 San Francisco:

ABC Reports On Obama's Cybersecurity Plans

ABC News' David Louie did a segment on President Barack Obama's cybersecurity plans late May. He stopped by McAfee's headquarters and interviewed me for the piece, which you can see below and on the ABC News Web site.

TV studio

I spent this morning in an TV studio in DC with cybersecurity expert Paul Kurtz. Paul did back-to-back TV interviews across the nation to support the launch of McAfee's Cybercrime Response Unit. These satellite media tours are fascinating to see behind the scenes. A company books the TV slots with local stations from coast-to-coast in markets small and large and then runs the morning by linking the speaker with the shows via satellite. It can get quite behind the scenes. I just love the thought of being on TV in Kalamazoo one minute and on air in Seattle the next. Paul was great.

Disgruntled Employee

Looking out of my office window late Friday afternoon I saw three helicopters hovering over a Santa Clara neighborhood just across Highway 101. I also noticed three Highway Patrol cars pulling over an SUV on the freeway and flashing lights throughout the office park area across the freeway from where I was sitting.

There have been helicopters before and I have seen many traffic stops and accidents, but this time something serious was going on. The helicopters hovered for more than an hour and made low sweeps over the neighborhood. Initially I didn't think much of it, but then I pulled up the Web site for KCBS, the local AM radio news station.

"3 Shot Dead in Santa Clara" read the headline on the KCBS Web page and a short article explained that a man hunt was on to find the perpetrator. This morning the story is a bit more detailed. The San Jose Mercury News reports:

"A recently laid-off high-tech employee opened fire inside the Santa Clara office where he used to work late Friday afternoon, police said, killing the CEO and two others and sparking a massive dragnet that spread throughout the area. "

So this is a recession or depression murder, perhaps a sign of more to come as people get laid off and get desperate instead of rational and work their way through the downturn. I must admit, this scares me.

Judge Halts Def Con Talk

There's nothing incestuous about the drama unfolding at Def Con. Reporters in Vegas for the Black Hat and Def Con events are getting two for the price of one this year.

The Black Hat story was arguably a tempest in a teapot with journalist-on-journalist spying. What unfolded at Def Con today is the real thing. A judge in Massachussets barred students from the prestigious Massachussets Institute of Technology from presenting on a hack of RFID-based transportation tags that are used in Boston to pay for the local subway system known as the "T."

The undergraduate students had been scheduled to give a presentation Sunday afternoon in which they planned to describe "several attacks to completely break the CharlieCard," according to a CNET News.com report. The students also planned to release card-hacking software they had created, but canceled both the presentation and the release of the software.

Hacks of RFID systems used for public transit have become popular, possibly more popular than the passport hacks of the past years. In Europe the payment tags used in systems across the continent have come under heavy scrutiny from security experts. In my home country of The Netherlands, for example, the OV Chipkaart is said to have been compromised.

What all of this shows is that, once again, organisations are rushing to implement new technologies--RFID in this case--without fully considering the security impacts ahead of time. It is critical, now more than ever, to do a solid security review before commercializing any type of technology. I am sure that many of the "hackers" at Def Con and Black Hat could be hired for such services.

No Black Hat Without Drama

It seems the annual Black Hat and Def Con security conferences in Las Vegas just aren't complete without some kind of drama that reporters can sink their teeth into. However, the drama that plays out keep getting closer and closer to home for the journalist crowd.

Last year a TV reporter was expelled from Def Con for not being appropriately accredited and asking questions without identifying herself as press. The collective media jumped on the story of how their peer was cheating the Def Con rules and operating under cover in an attempt to do a story on hackers.

This year it was the reporters themselves who got hacked, by other reporters. According to the buzz around the Black Hat press room the sanctity of the local area network set up specifically for media was breached by a couple of French journalists who sniffed the network and were able to capture the apparent user credentials for reporters from eWeek and CNET.

"I feel personally violated," one of the reporters in question said later on Thursday night. This was after this year's Black Hat drama had unfolded to the extend of a press conference with lawyers from EFF and the ejection of the French journalists from the event two hours before it was to end.

I've attended many Black Hat and Def Con events over the years and have always distrusted the networks at the events. BYOI or BYOC is my philosophy (Bring Your Own Internet -- Bring Your Own Connectivity.)

I do feel for my former colleagues though. I've been hacked in the past and I am sure it will happen again and it isn't much fun when your data either disappears or gets put out in the open. The somewhat incestuous nature of the Black Hat dramas over the past two years is kind of odd though. What happened to the good old days of Michael Lynn and Cisco-gate?

Bluetooth Risks

California drivers since the beginning of this month are no longer allowed to talk on the phone and drive at the same time. As a result, the market for handsfree headsets is booming. When a similar law was introduced in the Netherlands years back everyone bought corded handsfree sets or had expensive kits built into their cars, now Bluetooth is everywhere so cordless headsets are selling like hotcakes.

But opening up the wireless connection on your phone could allow for more than just handsfree talking. If you don't set your phone up right you may provide an avenue for miscreants or pranksters to access your phone and in the worst case copy your data, including phone book, e-mail messages and pictures.

Scott Budman of the Bay Area's NBC 11 News did a nice piece on potential security risks associated with Bluetooth. He came to McAfee and talked to me. You can see the short segment from the broadcast below. It aired on the evening news and shorter versions also aired again durint two morning news shows on NBC 11.

Personal Shopper

If you're shopping for a number of outfits in one go, or even one outfit that matches nicely, and you're not keen on fighting the crowds at Macy's, Bloomingdale's or another large department store, here's something I highly recommend: Use the store's personal shopping service.

Before heading to New York (you can read all about that in an earlier post) I went to the Macy's Men's Store at Valley Fair in San Jose to get a couple of new business outfits. It seemed smart to buy some new suits rather than wear the same suits that I have had in my closet for weddings, funerals, christenings and other formal events.

But Valley Fair on a Saturday is not my idea of fun. The crowds, the people grabbing clothes, navigating from one rack of shirts, pants, suits, ties, shoes to the other in a large department store, it is not my idea of a good time. Let alone the searching for the right size, tracking down a store employee to find a size somewhere in the back. That's a nightmare!

The solution is the personal shopper, and it is free. My new best friend at Macy's knows my size, knows my taste and will pull clothes off racks throughout the store, go into storage rooms and bring me all things that I might like while I try it on in a comfortable dressing room. The personal shopper even has her own, large and quiet dressing rooms for the exclusive use of her customers. Now that's the right way to shop for clothes!

I actually had two helpers this time. My good friend Jessica (from power shopping 1.0) came along and helped pick colors and fits. I went home with three suits, four shirts and four new ties as well as a new pair of shoes. And all of this only took about two and a half hours. Macy's also was able to tailor my pants within 24 hours, I'll be back!

Interop

In my previous life as a reporter I've seen many keynote speeches and have sat in the audience for countless speeches, good ones and bad ones. At one point I burned Bill Gates in a piece on his keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas because he didn't announce anything new. (He didn't he was on his "magic of software" tour and repeated things Microsoft had been saying for months.)

Now I am closely involved in creating keynotes. McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt spoke at Interop in Las Vegas on April 30 and I was there as part of his entourage. This time I was one of the people who went back stage with the speaker and one of the people who made sure the presentation was locked and loaded before the presenter went up on stage. Feedback on the keynote was mostly good, though there will always be critics.

More Interop pictures are available on Flickr.

(After his keynote, DeWalt met with TechWeb and did a Q&A with CRN.)

Closing Bell

Time to catch up on blogging. A lot has happened in the past weeks. One highlight: on May 8 I walked the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). I had previously been to the the visitor gallery, but never actually had been on the floor where traders run from booth to booth and yell orders at each other.

I was at the exchange with McAfee's executive team. CEO Dave DeWalt was going to ring the closing bell to end the day's trading. DeWalt and his execs would be up on the balcony to do those honors, while I watched from the trading floor with a couple of other McAfee employees. (A video of the bell ringing is available here.



Prior to the bell ringing and right after CNBC and Bloomberg News interviewed Dave DeWalt on live TV and MarketWatch.com taped a segment that has since aired. It was quite an experience to be on the set of Closing Bell (CNBC's show from the NYSE floor). The interview is available on the CNBC Web site, if you're interested.

The day of the bell ringing was preceded by McAfee's investor and financial analyst meeting, an annual event in New York. Our IT team did a fantastic job putting together that meeting, with some help from the communications team.

One thing I noticed at the NYSE is that Wall St. in front of the building is now essentially closed to traffic. When I was there years ago it was a street filled with cars. Changing times, that I expect have to do with another sad sight I passed by in New York on the way to the Mecca of capitalism: Ground Zero.

Spam's big 3-0

Thirty years ago the first spam e-mail was sent over the Arpanet, the front runner of the Internet. The message was sent to about 400 people on the West Coast of the U.S. by a marketing person at Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) to advertise new computer hardware.

DEC has since been absorbed by other companies, but spam has grown and clogs e-mail boxes around the world. As many as nine of every 10 e-mails on the Net are spam. CBS 5, a local San Francisco Bay Area TV station wanted to talk about the anniversary of spam and they called McAfee on Saturday evening. I talked to Dan Knapp about how spam has gone from an annoyance to a serious threat.

Snow

Please pardon the radio silence, it has been a busy couple of weeks with little time to blog. I just couldn't resist posting this picture though, it came from my uncle Peike in Holland. On Easter Sunday he shot this out of his window and decided to go back to bed. I don't blame him. Snow in Holland in late March, wow. I don't think that's happened since I was a little kid. (I am headed to Holland soon, I hope the weather clears up a bit before then.)


Meanwhile I just came back from a fantastic four day break in Tahoe, skiing everyday under a blue sky with loads of sunshine. Spring skiing at its best. Here's a colleague doing a trick on his board. (We had a work ski day on Thursday, thanks McAfee!)

Croissants

Friday morning I stopped at Starbucks on my way into the office. I picked up a latte and the Starbucks version of a "pain au chocolat." The coffee was fine, but that chocolate croissant was horrible. No crunch to it at all, just a bland, sticky piece of dough with chocolate chunks stuffed into it. Disgusting. Friday afternoon I took off for France, via Germany as you may have read below. I arrived in Cannes on Saturday night and had two lovely breakfasts since then. Freshly baked croissants, perfectly crunchy, and strong cups of coffee. Both times with a view of the Mediterranean. Cannes is great, a true old French city with some nice narrow streets and beautiful buildings. Some pictures so you can see for yourself:

Unlock your iPhone?

Walking around Cannes I came across a cell phone store advertising unlocking services for GSM phones and iPhones. One might think that's illegal, but it isn't and this store is located on a main thoroughfare, right across from a police station. (For those unfamiliar with "locked" cell phones: mobile operators typically subsidize phones and to guard their investment lock the devices to their networks. The phones can typically be unlocked by entering special codes or tweaking the memory, a service provided by the unlock shops.)

The end of an era at CNET

In the past week CNET Networks announced that Jai Singh will leave the company. Jai was the founder/creator of CNET News.com and in the past couple of years was the overall editorial head for all of CNET's "red ball" Web sites including CNET.com, Download.com and News.com.

Jai started News.com back in 1996, when writers still used the word "nascent" along with "Web" and the bulk of the people around the world still had to discover the Internet. Jai was instrumental in making News.com the world's No. 1 tech news Web site. I was super proud when CNET hired me in 2005 to come work for News.com. Jai was one of the people I interviewed with.

It hasn't been easy for CNET in recent years. The "different kind of media compay" faces strong competition from sites such as Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch and Valleywag, not to mention all the tech pages in traditional media such as daily news papers and magazines. CNET has been working to reinvent itself, with News.com in particular joining the blogging fray and broading its coverage much beyond the hard core tech it used to focus on.

I left News.com last year and had a farewell lunch with Jai. We talked at length about News.com's course and competing with the blogosphere. Jai and I didn't agree, but the lunch was amicable. It will be interesting to see where News.com and CNET head now. The battle for the company's board and the call from outside the organization to focus, once again, on pure technology are fascinating.

I will always love CNET, watch where Dan Farber directs News.com. Dan is taking over News.com from Jai as editor in chief. Have fun Dan!

Holiday Parties

It's that that of the year again. People are throwing lots of holiday parties. This year I plan to attend three. That means, two down and one to go. Last week I joined my friend Christel to the AR Edelman holiday party in a hip club in San Francisco. There was food, drink, a raffle and fun discussion, including updates on gossip related to Microsoft's executives.

Picture courtesy of Christel

On Saturday I experienced my first McAfee holiday party at the posh Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. There was food, plenty of deserts, drink and also a raffle. This party was bigger, as McAfee has substantially more employees than AR Edelman. There was also dancing, though I was a wall flower and socialized with colleagues and their partners.

I must say, the CNET holiday parties from previous years were actually more laid back and plain fun than the two I have been to so far. But I guess that's the difference between two corporations and CNET Networks, the "different kind of media company."

The upcoming week I'll be out at the Friends For Youth Holiday Social, graciously hosted by one of my fellow board members in her beautiful house in Menlo Park. This will be a small gathering, a pot luck.

It is a busy week, because on Saturday I am moving to San Jose!

A Department Store With an Airport

I have always dreaded having to transfer through London's Heathrow, the world's busiest airport. My biggest complaint is having to take a bus from one terminal to another through something called the "Flight Connections Center." There you typically stand in a long line to go through security (after having gone through it before at the place of origin) and then you have to wait for the bus to take you to your connecting terminal.

Today, the security line was short, but the bus was overloaded with sweaty, coughing, smelly people. I'd much rather walk through the wide hallways of a San Francisco or Amsterdam airport.

After arriving at Terminal 3 I had to walk through small hallways with a crowd of people. The halls didn't have any windows, there were signs everywhere warning for uneven flooring and the floors were uncarpeted, that's because they are working on making this an "airport London can be proud of," according to signs posted everywhere as well.

Then I ended up in a department store, complete with the fragrance and make-up section. It is like Macy's in the U.S. I have been locked up in the department store for several hours now. You're not told a gate number until about an hour prior to departure. If you venture out to any gates seeking the peace and quiet of a waiting area not surrounced by shops, the scent of the latest aftershave or tons of restaurants, you're stopped and told go to back to store area to wait until a gate is posted.

So, while the shops may please a lot of travelers, I once again prefer SFO or AMS where you can choose to be in an area with shops, or in a quieter zone without that circus all around you. A good reason to avoid traveling through Heathrow in the future.

Jerk?

On the way to a fantastic Vietnamese/French restaurant called Bambou in London we passed this place:

Maybe for next time :-)

London

There wasn't a cloud in the sky this morning in London as I walked from Paddington through Hyde Park to meet an old colleague and current freelance writer for breakfast at the Wolseley. On the way, I passed this colorful piece of art in Hyde Park.

Later in the morning, on the way to lunch with a reporter, I had a chance to see London's ferriswheel and Big Ben and the houses of Parliament across the river Thames. Those landmarks are a good reminder that I am actually in London.

NBA

Two truths about Americans and America: Americans like a show and in America (nearly) everything is a giant commercial.

Take professional sports, for example. If you think people go to sports game just for the sports, you're wrong. Also, commercialism is everywhere.

I've been to major league baseball games where the audience is entertained between innings by mascots and all kinds of games played with the audience. These games are typically sponsored by companies.

Last week I went to see an NBA game, a new experience. It was at the U.S. Airways Center in Phoenix where the Phoenix Suns took on the LA Lakers. There were the typical ads everywhere around the arena and shows whenever there was a time out or at the end of each 12 minute quarter.


The shows included barely dressed cheerleaders/dancers, drummers and acrobats jumping off a a trampoline in rapid succession, dunking balls in the basket after doing a flip. Games played with audience members included guessing the "Right Guard" (get it, Right Guard, the deodorant), taking a "lucky shot" on the basket from one of three different distances, with prize money increasing the further out the shooter went (sponsored by a Casino.)


In between all that the Suns lost to the Lakers.

It was a lot of fun and I recommend that if you visit the States, you go see a basketball game. It is much quicker than baseball games, which can take forever. Plus there is much more action going on in the game as well as during those breaks. If you're lucky, you will win a prize.

I also thoroughly enjoyed myself because of the company, the fun people at Henkel, including a 10-year-old smart ass :-)

Back to School

It had been a while since I saw the inside of a class room and actually was a student. More recently I have been the one teaching classes, rather than taking in information. But that's just what I did last week, when a colleague and I attended a three-day course on communications at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, AZ (near Phoenix.)

I had never heard of Thunderbird before, but it has won many accolades and people who got their degrees there speak very highly of it. (Though who in their right mind would bash their school, it would make their degree and education worth much less.) The campus is smallish and reminds me more of a U.S. high school than a place of higher learning. Still, the auditorium-style class rooms are nice and well-equipped and the care for their corporate clients is good, with fresh coffee, fruit and snacks continuously available.

This was the first time Thunderbird ran the "Leadership Communication" program. The class was small, 10 students, and the professors were very engaged and engaging. I really liked the content of about three-quarters of the program, which focused on stakeholder engagement, framing messages, communicating change and change management. The other 25 percent could be classified as PR 101, which the PR pros in the room already knew.

Still, it is always nice to be able to break away from everyday work and stake a step back and reflect. I enjoyed working through the case studies with the fellow course attendees and reading about the successes and failures of other companies. Also, I got to see my first NBA game thanks to the communications team at Henkel, also in the class. More on that in a later blog.

Dallas Weather

Prior to joining McAfee I had never been to Texas. Now I am a regular visitor. What never ceases to amaze me here is the weather. On every visit I have seen the most amazing thunderstorms. You can be soaked in seconds and moments later the sun will be out.

On final approach last night the pilot said we'd have to be in a holding pattern for 20 minutes to avoid heavy weather at the airport. This morning a colleague reported that there was a major storm just a few blocks from downtown with flying patio furniture and tiles from a nearby roof as dangerous projectiles.

So, I am happy to be working in my hotel room this morning. I'll see how I get to where I need to be later this afternoon, probably a taxi instead of a healthy walk. Don't want to be hit by flying debri.

Bad rep for DEF CON?

NBC's Dateline may have gotten just what it wanted today when the organizers of DEF CON decided to "out" a reporter who had registered as a regular person, instead of as media for the annual hacker event in Las Vegas.

DEF CON organizer Jeff Moss (also known as Dark Tangent) climbed on stage in a packed room at the Riviera Hotel and Casino and announced to the crowd that an "undercover reporter" was among them. He stated that press is welcome at DEF CON, but needs to apply for special credentials and wear a different colored conference badge. "We like to know when we're speaking to the media," he said. (DEF CON does traditionally have strict media policies, such as not allowing reporters to film or take pictures at free will.)

Moss/Dark Tangent then proceeded to announce a new DEF CON contest: "Spot the undercover reporter." The crowd roared. He asked what should happen to the reporter if she was spotted, should she be ejected from the event? The crowd roared "Yes!"

What happened then shocked me. Moss pinpointed the reporter, an associate producer at Dateline NBC who was in the room. She was subsequently chased out of the room, out of the hotel, all the way to her car and off the Riviera property by about 150 overheated DEF CON attendees and the properly-badged media contingent at the show. (Okay, maybe she decided to leave the room herself first and was subsequently followed by a running mob, but what would you do if a large hall full of people had just roared for your removal?)

So, what did the hidden NBC cameras capture (if there were in fact any) and what did their reporter experience? They captured a large crowd of "hackers" in a dark room and most of them in dark clothing. These all roared to protect their elite club from the prying eyes of a reporter who doesn't want to be identified as such. Also, they showed the crowd will go through extremes to call out the reporter and chase her down to the parking lot and off the terrain. Quite a scary scene.

That's one great image for DEF CON and the security community at large. If the community and DEF CON had gone a bit mainstream in the past years and shown their softer side, now Dateline has the imagery to show the group as everything but welcoming. Maybe hackers are indeed a scary bunch of people with a lack of social skills? (That's at least what the NBC video could show.)

Analyzing this situation with my new PR hat on, this could ultimately be bad for DEF CON and the hacker community in terms of perception and public relations. Unless the folks at DEF CON planned it that way to show that the organization is still as bad-ass as it was reputed to be years ago--they turned this into a media stunt by inviting all attending, properly-registered journalists to come to the ejection ceremony.

We'll have to see if NBC decides to go that route.

Harry Potter vs DLP

At McAfee I hear a lot about Data Loss Prevention. It is one of those hot new areas in the security space, technology designed to help organizations keep their data secure. Information is your biggest asset, so it makes sense to protect it.

McAfee is the only big-name security company to sell DLP products, the others are still catching up. But while it may help a business prevent leakage via a USB drive or Web-based e-mail, I don't think a DLP product can help prevent the kind of leak being reported today: photographing every single page of a book and posting those pictures to the Internet.

Talk about a low-tech hack! That's what reportedly happened to the latest Harry Potter book. (Reportedly, because I have not downloaded the images myself, I am waiting for my Amazon.com shipment on Saturday.) It has to have been an inside job, since the book isn't out yet. No matter how tightly controlled the books are though, the circle of insiders has grown significantly as the book was shipped worldwide to retailers to sell to the Potter fans, who no doubt will be lining up starting on Friday. No DLP product will shield you against this kind of leakage. There won't be too much harm done though, I am sure the great majority of Hogwarts fans will still buy a hard copy of the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

On CNET again!

Okay, this is really the last one.

On Tuesday CNET News.com published a Q&A that I did several months ago with Raimund Genes, the CTO of Trend Micro. It is a bit odd that the Q&A got published now, since I am currently employed by McAfee, one of Trend's rivals.

However, this article was a leftover of my time at CNET and the former colleagues there liked it so much that they decided to run it instead of discard it, and they gave me the byline.

The piece is doing well, it looks like it was the hottest story on the site today. Another case for a full time security reporter at CNET. Security is a hot topic and deserves at least one, if not two or more, full time writers at a tech heavy site like News.com.

Wardens of the Web

No, I have not returned to CNET. That's a statement I had to make several times a few weeks ago when News.com ran a series I had written just before leaving. The pieces were part of a week-long special report called "Wardens of the Web." In it, I profiled the three top security guys at Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, the three biggest Web companies.

The Special Report was my farewell gift to CNET, so to speak. It was very fun to report and write, though I have to give a shout out to the editors at CNET who did a great job at making the pieces shine.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft gave unprecedented access to me to report this piece. Their security heads typically shun the spotlight, but I was able to win their trust and get them to share their stories. While some folks have told me that I should have been tougher on the men and take them to task for not doing enough when it comes to security, I feel the purpose of these pieces was to profile them and show a piece of their world, rather than being critical. However, in the podcast that is also part of the series I do critically review the three big Web companies with a trio of security experts.


I recommend you read it and also take a listen to the podcast and also the podcast recorded by Robert Vamosi where he interviews me as a guest on Security Bites, our old show :-)

CNET is being bloggified

If you closely watch CNET News.com and CNET.com you must have seen some changes over the past weeks: CNET is being bloggified. (If that's even a word.)

Blogs are rapidly gaining in prominence on the tech Web site. One day this week the front page of CNET News.com highlighted three blog posts. While previously used for stories or short pieces that reporters and editors felt didn't really matter, blogs are now replacing the traditional short news story at CNET.

It is an interesting move in a rapidly changing online news environment where traditional outlets such as CNET feel the competition from bloggers. Joining the bloggers is one way to respond. ZDNET, also owned by CNET Networks, has been successful in doing so. Now CNET is going for it as well. (Earlier CNET launched Webware and Crave, a Web 2.0 and gadget blog, respectively.)

I wish my friends at CNET luck as they take on the blogosphere with the CNET blog network, a group of bloggers to add content to CNET's Web sites including News.com. The blog network was quietly launched last week.

Two weeks on the job

My blog has gone silent while I kept busy with a short break in between jobs on the East Coast, hosting my parents, camping for Memorial Day weekend and, of course, starting at McAfee.

The first two weeks on the job have been intense. A new environment and a new role for me, but also for the company. This means that not only do I have to get used to the new surroundings and responsibilities, but so do the people I work with. So far, I feel, this has gone very well. (This picture was taken at my desk at McAfee in Santa Clara, CA.)



For now my goal is to meet key people within the organization and come up with ways we can improve public relations at McAfee, become more open, transparent and raise the company's profile. It is a nice challenge that is already bearing some fruit. I can't say much about it publicly though. (That's another big change, my job as a reporter obviously used to be all about telling things publicly.)

My blog will be a personal journal, primarily meant for friends and family to get a peek at my life in the U.S. I don't expect to be writing much about work.

An alumni dinner with IDGNS

That's not a school, that's IDG News Service, the world's only 24-hour dedicated technology news wire.

I have many good memories from my years at IDG News Service, from covering large conventions with fellow IDGNS-ers in Las Vegas (Comdex, CES) and Germany (CeBIT) to working with some great colleagues in a virtual global newsroom.

The jet setting team landed in San Francisco this week for the annual IDGNS off-site meeting. Editors Elizabeth, James and Marc invited old-timers Elinor, Nial and myself to dinner. We had fabulous Burmese food at Burma Superstar on Clement Street, recommended by Elinor. (If you go, arrive early, it does fill up.)

Victory for journalism: McCracken back at PC World

In a move that's great for journalism everywhere, Harry McCracken is back as editor-in-chief of PC World. McCracken suddenly quit last week after a clash with PC World CEO Colin Crawford, who will now leave PC World and rejoin the management team at IDG, PC World's parent, as executive vice president for online.

McCracken resigned on April 30 after Crawford refused to allow publication of a story entitled "10 Things We Hate About Apple." The PC World veteran said that the story was pulled because Crawford was worried about the impact it would have on Apple advertising. The story is now running on PCWorld.com.

PC World is continuing its search for a new CEO to lead PC World and Macworld. Leaders with high integrity are encouraged to apply :-)

PC World EIC Resigns

For two years I worked only a few feet away from Harry McCracken's office at the IDG building on 501 2nd Street in San Francisco. Harry has been with PC World forever, he's an icon and much-loved by the people who work on the magazine. But now he's gone.

From what I hear Harry resigned on Wednesday over a dispute with senior management at PC World regarding an online story about Apple. The story, headlined "Ten Things We Hate About Apple," would have irked a major advertised and was pulled.

"I spent 12 years at PC World; it's been incredibly good to me," McCracken told my colleague Tom Krazit at CNET News.com.

Wired's Kim Zetter broke the news on Harry's departure. She writes that IDG executive Colin Crawford told editors that product reviews in PC World were too critical of vendors, especially ones who advertise in the magazine, and that they had to start being nicer to advertisers.

I commend Harry. It takes guts to make such a move. He's taking one for the team and I hope PC World and IDG executives realize that editorial integrity is a big thing. If you let that go, your readership will find out and soon you won't have anyone buying your magazines or going to your Web site. After that the advertisers will be gone as well.

Earthquake!

Another one I didn't feel, though this one was probably closer than any previous temblors. According to the U.S. Geological Survey there was a magnitude 3.0 quake in Berkeley this morning. I'm in the South of Market district in San Francisco, near the Bay Bridge on the sixth and top floor of the CNET building. Some co-workers said the blinds were swinging. I didn't notice anything, sitting on my chair and typing away while listening to the Counting Crows. Maybe I'll feel the next one. (Being careful though what I wish for.)

Going to the 'Dark Side'

Or you may call it hopping the fence, from hack to flack, or whatever other expression you can come up with.

After about a decade of being a reporter both in Europe and the U.S., I am joining McAfee on May 21 as director of public relations. That means I won't be reporting on security or receiving pitches anymore, instead I will be working behind the scenes at McAfee helping its PR efforts as it enters exciting times under new CEO Dave DeWalt.

I will surely miss being part of the excellent team at CNET News.com and appreciate the many opportunities the company has given me over the past years. I'm happy to say though that I will still be in touch with many of the people I have gotten to know as a reporter, especially the fellow security writers, albeit in a different capacity.

McAfee gave me an opportunity I could not refuse at the right time in my career. I am eager to take on the challenges ahead and working with the ambitious and fun-loving people at McAfee. Also, I will still have a byline on my own blog and perhaps even on a McAfee blog, stay tuned.

To the reporters: Don't hesitate to contact me anytime and I welcome your thoughts on what I could do to improve PR at McAfee from a reporter's perspective. Also, ping me if you happen to know anyone experienced in reporting on security and looking for a new outlet, I'll be glad to pass the details on to the right people at CNET.

For the next two weeks I will still be at CNET, but obviously not covering anything related to McAfee or its competitors.

MacBook hacked at CanSecWest

You'll see my ski post and pic below, but the primary reason I was up in Vancouver was to attend the CanSecWest security conference. I wrote several stories about the event on News.com. The big headline came at the end of the week as a security researcher, with the help of a buddy, was able to breach a MacBook Pro through a vulnerability in QuickTime. The piece I wrote on that was the big hitter over the weekend. Its always interesting to see how such stories stir heated conversations in TalkBack, some with attacks on me and CNET. I won't take it personal.

And a shout out to fellow security reporters Rob Lemos, Ryan Naraine and Dan Goodin (in no particular order), its always fun to hang out with those guys at a Con, even if they talk about their families. Turns out I'm the only single guy of the bunch :)

Here's MacBook co-hacker Shane Macaulay doing his thing:

Gray Skies in Vancouver

Vancouver is only a two hour flight from San Francisco, yet it sounds so far away. Don't know why, perhaps the notion of being in a different country than the U.S., with money that actually has more colors than just green. Anyway, I am rambling from my room in Vancouver, looking out over Robson street, the downtown shopping strip here. The picture shows the intersection of Robson and Thurlow streets. This morning I discovered Tim Hortons for a quick and cheap breakfast, that should please the folks at CNET who have to pay my expenses.

Off to Vancouver!

The ski season has been cut somewhat short and has been snow-deprived in the California Sierra Nevada. However, I am heading up north to Vancouver for the CanSecWest security confab and am staying through the weekend to enjoy the spring skiing up at Whistler/Blackcomb. This will be my first time up in the Canadian snow. People have told me lots of great things about the resort though. Stay tuned for some more snow pictures, then its on to camping and mountains in the sun. (Image source: Ski Canada.)

Sunset in San Francisco

The view from the sixth floor at CNET this afternoon. Simply amazing.

The view from my desk at CNET

Being on the top (6th) floor and at a window has its advantages :-)