Funny thing happened as I was waiting in the lobby and contemplating my badge, I ran into Bruce Schneier.

He’s a very energetic and upbeat guy in person. We discussed the return fees and a couple ideas for how to debate/blog about the badge policy. I’m getting more and more pissed about the whole situation, while he seemed playful and curious.

I started to dismantle my badge to find the chip, but realized I might actually end up paying full registration fees for a little bit of useless knowledge. Perhaps that’s the difference between a real security identity, who is paid to attend and doesn’t even need an ID, and just some nobody conference attendee who had to pay money to get access, like me. I need to be careful.

The odd thing, as Bruce put it, is that RSA is able to transfer the liability entirely to the end user. I added how unfortunate it is that we just accept it as part of the deal, and that RSA doesn’t take the opporuntity to innovate/experiment with identity cards.

Well, more on this topic later.

I also mentioned I was surprised Monterey Bay restaurants were not in his guide to eating since they have the best fresh squid, to which he replied “Japan has the best squid”. Somehow I could actually see him start to defend that position (oh yeah, well let’s just hop in our jet and pop over to Japan for dinner to decide this right now, shall we?) so I dropped the subject.