Emerge PR had the opportunity to support the MIS Training Institute for their annual InfoSec Conference in March where high-profile former political figures John Ashcroft and Oliver North gave keynotes on security issues. Ashcroft addressed the need to protect both information and the right to privacy and focused on biometrics as a solution to the most pressing information security issues. While journalists and even some attendees enjoyed the irony of Ret. Lieutenant Col. Oliver North presenting best practices in national security, the speech also sparked controversy as North suggested US companies hire Iraq war veterans for information security jobs.

Emerge was also at RSA in San Francisco last week, with clients Burton Group and Tizor Systems.  RSA attracts its own cast of characters, including Al Gore and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff (nothing goes together like politics and security). In fact, Government has always been at the center of security technology from Turing's WW2 code breaker showcased at this year's conference to Chertoff's suggestion for a new "Manhattan Project" to combat today's cyber terrorism threat. Besides the press lock out of Gore's speech on Friday, others (media, attendees, and myself) were disappointed to hear so many vendors saying the same thing. It's going to take some pretty clever messaging to differentiate yourselves folks! Call us ;) In addition to "aligning security with business strategy," "persistent encryption," "end-to-end trust" and "service-oriented security," many vendors were telling a virtualization story. Thankfully, Burton Analyst Pete Lindstrom is around to demystify some of the marketing buzz. 

Host and RSA chief Art Coviello even promoted the idea that security will be built into information-technology infrastructure - I thought it already was?

Next stop, Nantucket please - for the Wine Festival that is!