March 13, 2002

Teaching the Government to be Secure

This week I'm teaching a Unix and Linux security class for DISA, the Defense Intelligence Systems Agency. It's conventional, for some reason, to badmouth this Agency, but they have some incredibly smart people. As one friend said, "the longer you stand next to them, the dumber you feel".


So far we've covered the Unix basics and an overview of security. We spent this morning talking about TCP/IP security, a difficult subject to cover in a single morning, but Bob Cromwell, the course author, has done a great job of keeping the material at a high level but including useful references for those who want to understand in greater depth.


The new laptop is slowly getting fit to travel, though the DISA network doesn't seem to be as cooperative as it was the last time I was here, and that could be something to do with Internet settings. Certainly everything looks to be satisfactory. Not a matter needing urgent attention.

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