Network Security – With a Little Help from Our Friends Podcast

A couple of days ago Mike Qaissaunee and I had the chance to talk with Dr Sam Bowne, Professor of Computer Networking and Information Technology at City College of San Francisco. Mike and I have known Sam since 2004. He's one of the best in the country - a tremendous classroom instructor who brings his extensive expertise and passion for networking and network security to his students and his colleagues. Sam is also generous with his knowledge, making his lectures and classroom materials available to anyone who wants to learn. In what we hope will be a recurring role, Sam joined us in a podcast to share his thoughts on security and provide us with a snapshot of the latest and greatest developments in the field of network security.

Here's some of the questions Sam answers:

1. Sam, you have a BS and a PhD in Physics – how did you end up in networking and security?
2. You’ve been at CCSF since 2000 – what classes do you teach?
3. Ethical hacking? Sounds like an oxymoron – what do you mean by ethical hacking?
4. I know you’ve taken some of your students to DEFCON in Las Vegas. This conference of hackers is probably unlike anything our listeners have ever attended. Could you tell us a little about it?
5. Are most of the attendees self-taught or do they attend formal classes?
6. In terms of recent developments (threats, security solutions, and research), what’s been on your radar screen lately?
7. Sam, how do you keep up with all of this information?
8. What about your own skills and knowledge? How do you keep these up-to-date?
9. If a student is interested in learning more about networking – in particular securing a network, how would you advise them to get started? What sort of characteristics – in a student – would make them a good candidate for this type of work?
10. Now for something from a chat session with a student:

• my twitter account was hacked :( -- maybe i should hop on that security course just for some personal safety
• do you, yourself actually keep different passwords for everything?
• i'm freaked out and want to differentiate all my passwords
• but, that's crazy!

What advice can you give my student?

Sam's class content, email and lots of other great stuff can be found at http://samsclass.info/ Check him out - one of the best!

Here's how to listen:

To access show notes and audio of our 28 minute audio podcast with Sam titled Network Security – With a Little Help from Our Friends click here.

Listen to it directly in your web browser by clicking here.

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