Crystal Ball 2008 in Montreal

The Computer Research Institute of Montreal (CRIM) has organized another spectacular IT conference in my home town of Montreal, Feb. 26-27 in the Palais des Congres, a big conference center in the heart of the city. The conference will be completely bilingual, with invited speakers addressing the 1,000+ audience in either English or French with simultaneous translation into the other official language of Canada.

The themes of the conference are available in full on the Web. Some of the most interesting highlights for readers of this column are likely to include the following:

Exploring and Assessing Recent Trends in Information Technology
* Michael Dell of Dell Computers
* Sophie Vandebroek of Xerox
* Panel: Industrial and commercial potential of IT innovations
* Panel: IT innovation and corporate financing

I always find it stimulating to hear intelligent speakers with real-world experience discussing their views of critical factors that will be affecting our work in the coming years. Because security ought to be recognized as an integral component of strategic planning, we security folks can contribute by thinking about the security implications of what we hear and then speaking up if we realize that industry leaders are failing to take our concerns into account.

Now, my interest in the next topic is seriously warped:

Security: Governance and Service Assurance in an Open Environment
* Greg Garcia: Assistant Secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security
* M. E. Kabay (that’s me!): Information Security in an Open Network Environment

In my own lecture, I will address the following topics:
* Company Web sites
* Data leakage
* Trade secrets
* Defamation
* E-mail using the name of the company: distribution and content
* Moderated and unmoderated lists
* Professional behavior
* Personal blogs
* Social networks
* Selling products and services in an acceptable manner
* Spam
* Responsibility for infringement of criminal law

In addition, on Thursday Feb. 28, I’ll be teaching a one-day workshop in Montreal at the CRIM center; the topic will be human factors in information assurance management. The workshop will also be simulcast to a center in Quebec City. Topics include:
* Guidelines for security policies
* Security awareness
* Employment practices and policies
* Operations security
* Applying social psychology
* Developing security policies

You can get a sense of the content if you like: Visit my “IS342 Management of Information Assurance” Web page to check out the relevant PowerPoint slides.

Finally, there’s an exciting information security competition for teams from colleges and universities with C$5,000 in prizes; for more details, download the PDF description, which I’ve uploaded for you to download until the end of February on my YouSendIt account.

I would be thrilled to meet readers at the conference. Please come introduce yourselves. A bientot! (“See you soon.”)

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP, specializes in security and operations management consulting services and teaching. He is Chief Technical Officer of Adaptive Cyber Security Instruments, Inc. and Associate Professor of Information Assurance in the School of Business and Management at Norwich University. Visit his Web site for white papers and course materials.