Day 3: What a writeoff.

Me, that is, not the conference . Having poured copious quantities of Corona down my throat at the RSA post-awards party Tues evening (& well into the wee hrs of next day), I was one very sore & sorry punter the next morning.

So I dragged my very sorry ass into AusCert, having missed many of the pressos I’d circled the day before as “must see”. For that, I apologise to all & sundry, but hey – ya get what ya pay for here at borb.com. Anyway, why the hell does AusCert leave some of the best presentations till the last day?

But all was not lost. I caught a fantastic presentation by Eugene Kaspersky, who told us about a very serious idea of his – that we should all have internet licences.

(Whenever I listen to Eugene, I get the feeling I’m hearing the thoughts of a crazy, brilliant mind. Ya know, a sort of mad scientist whose mind is working on the edge of what we mortal plebs call “sanity”.)

The basis of his internet licensing idea was that this would (somehow) cut down on internet crime, similar to the way in which having a drivers’ license (or not) may assist to cut down on road offences. Like I’ve said, it was crazy stuff, but somehow, scarily believable.

And since we would all need an internet license in order to log on, he said, we would also need an internet police force to enforce the laws of the internet, and a global internet government to make the laws of the internet.

Of course, we were all wondering what would happen to the internet crooks captured by the internet cops in Eugene’s brave new world of internet licensing. He had an answer for that too: “i-Catraz” (with powerpoint graphic of alcatraz). “This is where we put all the world’s internet criminals”, said Eugene, laughing loudly & kind’ve crazily at his own humor. (We all laughed along too, but it was probably due to his infectious crazy laugh rather than the idea, maybe both.)

“Don’t ask me how this will all work, or for the details” he said, throwing his hands wildly into the air. “I just think of the big ideas. Its up to the others to fill in the detail.”

Lastly, in question time, The Big Galoot himself asked Eugene, “Eugene, why did ya cut of your ponytail, mate?” The answer ? Well, I’m still scratching my head to comprehend what he said, but he alluded to a various muddled, crazy, strangely funny combination of Russian black bears, fish, living in the forest, and finishing a project, whatever that all means, but I’m sure there was a good reason in there somehere.

Like I said, Eugene’s probably crazy, but he’s somehow brilliant at the same time. What a boring old world it would be without the Eugene Kasperskys of society.

So I take it there was somewhat less hanging on the beach this year than other years Big Galoot.