Jesse Schibilia

This is the first post in what will hopefully be many regarding information security. As previously mentioned, my interview with an Information Security division is fast approaching. I was thinking today about what actually makes me interested in information security and why I don’t think I will lose interest in the subject. I would like to share some of my thoughts.

1. I have actually read some really good books about information security. Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon is an amazing book that centers around code breaking during World War II. Cryptography during this time was essential during the war. Potential reactions to a broken code were taken very seriously. If Germany, for example, realized that their efforts were being thwarted too often, they might change the encryption key, fearing that their enemies were intercepting and decrypting their transmissions. If they did this, it meant alot more work for the Allied Forces to decrypt any new code. The Allied Forces had to pick carefully which transmissions they reacted to; lives hung in the balance. This was an exciting book by a great author. I am in the middle of Snow Crash, one of his other works. I highly recommend his books to any other geek out there.
2. The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll is another exciting book regarding information security. I believe it takes place at UC Berkley in the 1970’s. The main character in this story is working at an astrophysics lab during the earlier times of the Internet when it was primarily used by educational and government institutions. A small accounting error in one of the log files clues him to a hacking attempt and he spends the next several years of his life trying to track down the hacker on the other end of the line. I read this thriller in two days, it really kept me hooked.
3. The market for information security is so hot right now. There are a lot of holes out there that need to be fixed or watched. People need assurance that their data will not be compromised. Any company doing business on the web cannot afford to lose their data in an attack. Some of the fines for negligence with credit card data, for example, are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per incident. Even internally, companies need to be careful how their employees handle customer data as well as company secrets. There have been a few companies in the recent past who have caught a lot of flak for an employee losing a laptop with customer data on it. Companies need to set strict policies regarding how data is handled.

So I guess you can say that I am attracted to the opportunities within the discipline. I can see myself concentrating on policy development later on down the line. It seems like I will be doing a lot of auditing early on to get my feet wet. I can’t wait until I get my first certification.

I may soon be gainfully employed! I am interviewing with a company’s Information Security division next week, and if all goes well, I could be learning network forensics by the middle of June! Wish me luck, the interview is June 1st.

Scott and I just finished our final project for our Information Visualization class. We decided to do a Google Maps Mashup for restaurants around New Brunswick. The final product turned out really nice. Scott did 95% of the javascript and I did 95% of the styling/conceptual stuff. If anyone wants to use what we’ve done and build upon it, feel free. Just make sure to give us our credit.

One thing that we wanted to implement was a scroll back to center feature. After you close an info window, there is a drastic shift away from the markers. If you can figure this out (its pretty easy) let us know.

We haven’t really tested it in IE or Safari, but it works fine in Firefox.

[Discriminating Taste, New Brunswick]

I just finished my last few assignments last Friday. I only took three classes this semester, but it was still a ton of work. I have already confirmed one official A, and one unofficial A. That gives me six straight A’s in the last two semesters, which makes my mother very proud!