Posts By Bob Gourley

Open Government Dead – Pass the Beer Nuts…

Editor’s Note: The piece below is reprinted with permission. It was written by the highly regarded observer of federal technology trends Steve O’Keeffe at the MeriTalk blog, and has resulted in quite a bit of discussion at that site. Open Government Dead – Pass the Beer Nuts… The date on the tombstone – September 15.OpenRead… Read more »

The Evolving Enterprise Threat Environment

This won’t work anymore The second interview for IDG on Monday, September 12, featured Andrzej Kawalec, HP‘s CTO of Enterprise Security along with Bob Gourley. The two first discussed changes in the enterprise threat environment, which have been dramatic. They agreed on three major emerging challenges in enterprise cybersecurity. The first is simply the natureRead… Read more »

Facebook devours Twitter…a simple strategy

Facebook is about to eat Twitter for lunch. I’m slowly recognizing that more and more of my activity is migrating from Twitter to Facebook. I’ve also been wondering if Apples upcoming IOS 5 integration with Twitter is a strategic mistake on Apple’s part? What will it take for Facebook to finish Twitter off? Here’s myRead… Read more »

Social Media Mimicry in the Workplace

Let‘s face it: the social media that many enterprises hail also pose big problems. Employee use of the Internet–particularly social networks–is a big timewaster. A new Nielsen study found that Americans spend 23% of their online time on social networks, with an increasing amount of that browsing time spend spent on mobile apps. Like theRead… Read more »

Small Ecosystems and Security

Anthropologist Robin Dunbar famously observed that most people can only maintain relationships at one time with 150 people. The average on Facebook is 120-230. And of that, only a fraction really matter to us. Penetrating a small circle is usually very difficult, especially if they are members of a network based around a tie thatRead… Read more »

Bob Gourley Discusses Big Data Security With IDG

Photo Credit smartdatacollective.com On Monday, September 12, 2011, Crucial Point‘s own Bob Gourley met with cyber security industry leaders at the National Harbor Gaylord Convention Center near Washington D.C. The event was coincident with the HP Protect 2011 conference for Cyber security and enterprise software. The full interview will air soon through HP, but weRead… Read more »

Geo-based Content Processing Using HBase

Another great use case for Hadoop and HBase is explained in this video from the Chicago Data Summit on April 26 by NAVTEQ on how HBase can be used to process geographical content on a massive scale. NAVTEQ is “the leading map provider” for location-enabled devices such as vehicle navigation systems and smartphone maps. TheyRead… Read more »

Information Warfare: A Historical Approach

Information warfare is thought to be a product of what, broadly speaking, is considered the ”information” era. However, if we correctly understand what information war is, we can see that it stretches back to the dawn of organized conflict itself. Dorothy Denning defines information warfare (IW) as “operations that target or exploit information resources.” InformationRead… Read more »

From the Death of the PC to the Death of the Device

Enterprise security was once based entirely around the personal computer. A computer was the primary venue from which employees communicated, produced and exchanged data, and opened the company to risk. Now the widespread use of mobile computing devices for both work and pleasure has created security problems that we have previously explored. Thus, accepting theRead… Read more »

Beer, Bikinis, and Insider Hacks

Say you’re chilling out at your local watering hole, enjoying burgers and beers served by waitresses who could double as extras from The Dukes of Hazzard. For many people, it might be the aftermath of a successful night out at the town or yet another post-work happy hour. For David Palmer, it was the perfectRead… Read more »