Cyber crime

I spent a good part of Friday at an event sponsored by the Internet Society. It was billed as a conference on Cyber Surveillance and its impact on the Valley they call Silicon.

But, see, to me, a “conference” implies something with a point, and some degree of organization. And from 0900 until 1430 I never really deduced the former, and the latter…well.

I was actually pleased that I understood pretty much all the two journalists were talking about with respect to cryptography. I’ve done some reading and I’ve spoken with someone who’s an expert, who got down to words of one syllable for me.

And lunch was interesting—I got to listen to some moke with a name tag proclaiming him “Director” at NBC Universal as he pontificated about how their parent company Comcast doesn’t throttle streaming feeds from competitors. It’s really down to the fact that Comcast never planned on having the kinds of traffic streaming brings, so we should just watch what they program for us.

I must have been wearing a particularly gullible face that he thought I'd swallow that hogwash.

(I didn’t mention anything about NBC’s Olympics coverage in either London or Sochi. But you’ll recall that #NBCfail was trending pretty heavily throughout both.)

But it was when we got back into the auditorium and they trotted out a post-prandial panel of four people to talk policy that things really went to hell. Because having a lawyer, a policy analyst and a law professor isn’t bad enough; they dragged on a social scientist. Who spent about three minutes introducing herself with every academic credential she’s ever had (or possibly thought about).

And then she lit into…well, I’m not sure. Because she was spewing the most convoluted, multiple-clause sentences I’ve ever heard. I mean they looped back and forth around themselves like the Gordian Knot. For all I know, she may still be trying to finish one.

I’m serious: if you straightened them out and laid them end to end they’d circumnavigate the Equator several times.

So, that was kind of interesting in a horrid-fascination kind of way. But I was sat there between Ms. Dr. Very Special-Person and a guy behind me who was snoring. So I left.

And thereby missed two more panel presentations (because there never was anything that resembled a discussion). I’ll just have to take that hit, though.