Garrett Gee

As you may have noticed, I have a new theme for this site. And while I was upgrading the system, I noticed that a majority of posts were related to information security. Which isn’t much of a surprise, since I love and work in that field. But my tagline was always ‘confessions of an information addict’. And I rarely posted on that subject!

So I decided to start a new blog just for the information security stuff - Infosec Events. The new blog is already in the Security Bloggers Network, and I just removed this blog from it. If you are here only for the infosec stuff, please subscribe to the Infosec Events feed.

What does it mean for ggee.org? This blog will be more about lifehacks and how to survive information overload. If you want to unsubscribe, I understand and wont be mad. But stick around and you might find the subject interesting.

Today there was news that Southwest Airlines had been operating several planes that hadn’t passed inspection, and are now grounded. This news wasn’t that much of a shock to me, because I had an interesting experience on my last trip to Las Vegas.

So here is my story on trying to get home from Vegas. Everyone boarded the plane, and we left the gates, ready to depart. But then a passenger noticed that there was a bolt loose on one of the wings! Eventually he got the attention of the pilot, who then confirmed the issue. How the heck can someone visually miss a bolt loose on the wing?! Did anyone even inspect the plane before it left the gates?

The pilot told us that there is a chance it could be repaired, so the plane moved back towards the gates, and we sat there for 30 minutes or so while the maintenance crew inspected the plane. Eventually they determined that the bolt wasn’t something they could easily just put back in, so we had to all exit the plane and find a new plane. Another hour later, we finally got a new plane and headed home safely.

I wonder if that bolt was loose for some time or it just happened recently. I wonder if there are any other stories like mine out there. I hope the FAA throws down the hammer to them. Or will it take a major incident before they start paying attention? Crazy huh?

The Internet Security Operations and Intelligence (ISOI) conference was recently held close by, and I had the opportunity to go and listen to all the interesting topics. It was an invite only conference, held under the Chatham House Rule.

I can’t say much on the technical details, but here are a few interesting online resources.

• ipmap / IPv4 ipmap / IPv4 Heatmaps - Hilbert Curve viz for IP
• ourmon - Network monitoring system
• Emerging Threats - Public blacklist
• Malware Domain Blocklist
• Gulp - Full GigE packet logger for linux with no patches required
• Click Scientific - Online tool to determine if a typo domain is registered

Overall…I love the format of the conference, and many of the speakers were leaders in their field. But because of the amount of speakers in a 2 day span, I often felt that they could have provided more information, and answer more questions if given more time. I hope I get invited back next year, and they don’t freak out when they see my camera again :)

Overall, I had a good time at the event. I did feel a bit lost, but that’s probably normal for a first timer. My pictures can be found on flickr, or with the tag ASW08. It was great meeting the various affiliates and marketers, and I hope I can do it again next year.

Paul Bourque and John Chow both have good overall Affiliate Summit summaries too.

I usually attend technical trade shows and conferences, so I was expecting a similar environment when going to the Affiliate Summit. Was I wrong in that one! I was amazed when I hit the exhibitors hall to see so many booth babes and everyone giving out free stuff.

And I didn’t get to any of the bigger SWAG items like a snowboard, skateboard, or RC car because I didn’t want to lug it back home. But even of the smaller SWAG items I got, they were of good quality. Why isn’t it like this in computer security industry? RSA is coming up, so we will see.

Ask the Experts - Large Site SEO

• Truncated rss feeds
• Protection from scrapers
• Given content is 500 words, 50-100 words excerpt is sweet spot
• Get a free SES pass so you can visit the Googleplex at night
• Video does not help in making conversation, just traffic

Super Affiliate Strategies that Work

• John Chow’s website started in Sept 2006, and 12 months later he makes 12k/month. Now he makes 30k/month.
• Amit - Selectively find a niche and build a site around it for the long term.
• Amit - PPC Landing pages - Only links are on the bottom in 10pt font, top has none.
• A keyword is a problem the person has, and the landing page is the solution. Describe and provide value.
• Trademarked terms - Lots of restriction on using them already.
• John Chow’s method of countering scrapers is to put ads on there so he still makes money from them.
• Amit - build a system so even if they scraped, they could only make a tiny percentage of what he normally makes.
• Make a little money from a bunch of small sites, and it all adds up
• Tons of money in social networks
• Amit - Best conversion rate - msn, yahoo, THEN google.
• For him, the target demographics is in msn.
• Google is more savvy users than msn/yahoo
• Amit - MSN has their own content network
• Not a lot of traffic, but good conversions.
• Amit - Sweet spot on google ads is positions 3 and 5.
• Each ad needs to be optimized for the position its in.
• Winneralert - a/b test - delete your loosing ad and create a new winner
• Efficient PPC
• AdWords Editor
• Date parting on ads
• Determine what days work and done
• Lower costs on dead times, max later

Tris and J. Botter both gave good recaps of this panel as well.