Wow! Thank you all very much for attending my Penetration Testing the Cloud sessions at VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas.

With nearly 500 people in the audience I was very thankful just to have a great turnout, but your feedback is proving to be even better. Last year I was at 4.23 out of 5 and the highest ranked speaker in the cloud track. This year’s tally is now in and my presentation was scored overall at 4.63 (4.72 for effectiveness). And many people came up afterwards to tell me in person it was the best presentation of the entire conference…your positive feedback inspires me to go all out and see how close I can get to the impossible 5.0.

I look forward to seeing you at the next event and please let me know if there is anything missing, or that you would argue with or change.

The presentation is available through the VMworld 2011 website, for registered attendees. Of course you should contact me directly if you have specific questions. I soon will be emailing everyone who gave me a card.

As I mentioned in my presentation the ultimate reward for me is to see a positive and long-term shift in the breach data. We definitely have a lot we can do as civilians to improve security and reduce the frequency and severity of breaches.

• “Excellent! Similar sessions needed,there’s a lot to cover!”
• “Need more like this.”
• “Great material, a lot too look into after session.”
• “The instructor exceeded my expectations. His knowledge of the subject was deep and his passion for it also showed. Great stuff!”
• “Excellent material. Speaker researched and developed the information exceptionally well. Extremely well presented.”
• “This had to be one of the best sessions I have had at VMworld.”
• “Very useful and applicable to my current situation.”
• “This guy was an awesome speaker.”
• “Great speaker – good use of real world examples / humor. Kept crowd engaged”
• “Great speaker. Good insights. Need more speakers with this kind of technical content.”

A US federal judge has denied a warrant request for GPS data when “not to collect evidence of a crime, but solely to locate a charged defendant”.

The warrant asked for “unlimited location data at any time on demand during a 30-day period”. The defense attorney argued that a search warrant requires proof of “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” A suspect, in other words, does not automatically lose the right to privacy — unless there is a flight risk the data on all movement by a suspect is not sufficient on its own to justify a warrant.

The NYT reports that the US Supreme Court also is about to hear similar arguments for using GPS data to track a suspect.

In April, Judge Diane P. Wood of the federal appeals court in Chicago wrote that surveillance using global positioning system devices would “make the system that George Orwell depicted in his famous novel, ‘1984,’ seem clumsy.” In a similar case last year, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the federal appeals court in San Francisco wrote that “1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it’s here at last.”

Last month, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn turned down a government request for 113 days of location data from cellphone towers, citing “Orwellian intrusion” and saying the courts must “begin to address whether revolutionary changes in technology require changes to existing Fourth Amendment doctrine.”

The Supreme Court is about to do just that. In November, it will hear arguments in United States v. Jones, No. 10-1259, the most important Fourth Amendment case in a decade. The justices will address a question that has divided the lower courts: Do the police need a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and track its movements for weeks at a time?

[…]

The Jones case will address not only whether the placement of a space-age tracking device on the outside of a vehicle without a warrant qualifies as a search, but also whether the intensive monitoring it allows is different in kind from conventional surveillance by police officers who stake out suspects and tail their cars.

The ruling could also affect how warrants are applied to other location-aware technology used by large service providers. I will discuss it Tuesday in my presentation on “Trends in Cloud Forensics” at the High Technology Crime Investigation Association International Conference. Hope to see you there.

Apparently impersonating police officers, searching homes without a warrant, and threatening immigrants has not worked very well for the giant media/technology company:

Calderón told us that six badge-wearing visitors came to his home in July to inquire about the phone. Calderón said none of them acknowledged being employed by Apple, and one of them offered him $300, and a promise that the owner of the phone would not press charges, if he would return the device.

The visitors also allegedly threatened him and his family, asking questions about their immigration status. “One of the officers is like, ‘Is everyone in this house an American citizen?’ They said we were all going to get into trouble,” Calderón said.

One of the officers left a phone number with him, which SF Weekly traced to Anthony Colon, an [ex San Jose police officer and] investigator employed at Apple, who declined to comment when we reached him.

Apple must have finally tasted some of the pickle they are in or maybe it’s just a coincidence that they now are hiring a security manager to oversee new products. Note the tone of the qualifications in the “proven record” of their “ideal candidate”.

Simultaneously working with multiple constituencies, balancing disparate priorities, problem solving in high-demand situations, defining and establishing attainable measures of success, and regularly achieving positive outcomes in large-scale business environments.

Translation: You will be responsible for convincing others who probably do not even get along with each other, and who see you as an impediment to their success, to follow what you say. Also known as experience marketing a very low bar as success because advocating too high a bar would just make everyone align even more against security.

Accurately assessing physical and logical security implementations and making actionable risk management recommendations that consider impact on corporate culture, business operations, system architectures, manufacturing processes, and employee workflows.

Translation: Experience not getting in they way; knowledge of how to let the business make the final decision on the amount of risk they will run while leaving the responsibility of risk (e.g. your reputation as a security “manager”) on you.

Formulating, and successfully implementing, a variety of security technologies utilizing industry-recommended practices and/or risk frameworks.

Translation: Experience buying and implementing security controls three or four years after they already should have been in place.

Looks like an excellent opportunity and a much-needed role. The question is how effective it can be if they are constantly emphasizing in the job spec that they want someone who will not push them too much too soon. Apple could see a significant turnaround if they find the right person, but a manager-level role could be argued as too little too late to alter course from where they appear to be headed.

It reminds me of the patient who will only work with a doctor under certain conditions. The patient, for example, might accept advice but disallow being told what to do and forbid any intervention, even to save their life. The medical profession seems to call this the “difficult” patient problem.

Doctors report that about one in six patients is “difficult.” […] The data suggest that some doctors may simply have a shorter fuse when it comes to dealing with a challenging patient. The researchers noted that older, more experienced practitioners are likely better at dealing with unhappy patients and may be less likely to view patient visits as difficult, even when they’re not perfect. […] An editorial suggested…doctors need better training to cope with the psychological challenges of caring for patients…doctors are advised to rise to the challenge of working with a difficult patient.

Who will rise to the challenge of working with Apple?