The RSA Security conference organizers are clearly secure in their own relationships. The conference starts today (Valentine’s Day) in San Francisco and either a) attendees brought their significant others along to celebrate this most Hallmark holidays of Hallmark holidays; or b) attendees have an agreement just to celebrate anniversaries, birthdays and end of year holidays or c) attendees are “still looking to find that special someone” and prefer to have a conference to attend rather than face another Valentine’s day without a date. I’m guessing it is a combination of the three.

There will be plenty of Cisco participation (Cisco President and CEO John Chambers presents on Wednesday) and our own Adam Golodner will be blogging with some of his thoughts on the conference each day. More information on the conference here.

Interesting article on what EU is doing on holistic security program(me), including “protection of networked systems, such as communication systems, utilities, transports systems against electronic or physical threats.”

Interesting comment in the article from Commission Vice-President G?Verheugen “The Preparatory Action is forging the way towards a comprehensive European Security Research Programme as the basis for all security-related research in support of EU policies. The objectives of security research are clearly to enhance the security of European citizens and at the same time increase competitiveness in the relevant industrial sectors.” Full article here.

I’m Adam Golodner, Director of Global Security Policy for Cisco. I’m based in Washington, DC and work with our business leaders on security policy issues. Security has been and continues to be a core issue for Cisco — we continue to build security into our own networks, help our customers protect theirs, and support efforts to strengthen critical public infrastructure. The market is the most powerful driver of innovation and we are focused on meeting the security demands of our customers, and market-based solutions will provide the best results for them. With this blog, I will attempt to let you know what I think is important that is going on in security policy. I will report my thoughts from conferences, from news reports and whatever I think might be of interest to those following the security policy debate. I welcome feedback.

Cisco’s official security policy can be viewed in full at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/about/gov/networks/security.html.

Thought you all might be interested in a former reporter’s take on Michael Chertoff for DSH Secretary and how he dealt with being asked to release confidential information. Article is in eWeek.

We’d like to welcome you Cisco’s first ever external web log (blog). At Cisco, all employees and groups are tasked with using the Internet to better do our jobs, to increase our productivity and to serve our customers. Fundamentally, Cisco’s mission is to shape the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners.

WWGA’s vision is to use this blog to share our staff’s knowledge and opinions about government policy, legislation and regulation and the environment in which it is created. WWGA team members globally will be participating in this forum. We hope you find our blog useful and informative.

Our first blogger will be Adam Golodner, Director of Global Security Public Policy. We invite you to post your feedback and questions. Above all, we hope that we can, in some small way, help you better understand the technology policies that are being talked about, debated and voted upon -- whether that is through our own postings or from discussions that are created on this site.

If you have questions on our blog policies or want more information about any of our bloggers, please contact John Earnhardt at john.earnhardt@cisco.com.

Best,

Laura Ipsen
Vice President
Cisco Worldwide Government Affairs