Network Security Blog

I got a curious phone call yesterday. I wish I’d had more presence of mind to ask questions, but when you’re trying to herd your children, answering and asking questions is usually the last thing on your mind. The call came in the mid-afternoon, and it was a woman claiming to be a reporter for a number of Ziff-Davis publications. She wanted to ask me questions about Windows XP SP2. When I told her that I didn’t have any direct experience yet, she started to ask about what I’d heard from other security professionals. That’s when I told her I needed to cut the call short and deal with children. I’m not willing to speculate on much of anything by way of third hand information.

I’m going to assume that the call was real, since the lady sounded a bit too bored and disinterested to be some one running a scam. I wish I’d thought of getting a phone number to call her back at (since caller ID was blocked), and some sort of proof she actually worked for ZDNet. I also want to know where she got my phone number. It probably wasn’t too hard, since I’m one of those people who include my cellphone number with every email I send out. I am guessing she may have pulled my name out of Google from a search on something like “XP Security”, or she followed a link to my site.

I’m like most people, and I feel somewhat honored to have someone from the press asking my opinion on, well, on anything to tell the truth. On the other hand, I’m a network security professional, and more than slightly paranoid too boot. If I ever recieve another call like this, I’m going to have to pay a lot more attention from the get go. Anyone else recieve calls like this, either lately or in general? How do you respond to them? I don’t think I’m in too much danger of becoming a quoted name in the industry, but having a blog does raise my visibility level somewhat.