Today on the show we welcome with Christian Folini of ModSecurity. Christian is the author of The Modsecurity Handbook (2nd edition) and Co-Lead of the OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set project. He is also the program chair of the Swiss Cyber Storm conference, Vice-President of Swiss Cyber Experts and a partner and consultant at netnea.com. In this episode, we discuss Christian’s interesting path from PhD in Medieval History to becoming an expert in computer science. He also shares his fascinating work with the Swiss voting system and how E-voting is alive and happening in that country today. Will a system like this ever be possible in the US? We get into that too. We also get into some interesting discussions drawing parallels between Medieval social history and the what is happening with the internet today, in terms of open source technology. He also explains (in a way your grandparents will even understand) how a firewall works, whitelisting, blacklisting, IP addresses and malicious and non-malicious traffic. We also hear more about his strategies for reverse proxy and stopping D-DOS. A background in humanities has really served Christian well in the art of explanation, making this episode full of great imagery, good humor and information that even the dog next door might appreciate.

Cyber Security Dispatch

Andy Anderson & CSD Staff

On The Internet, Nobody Knows If You’re A Dog - An Interview with Christian Folini

JAN 3, 201956 MIN
Cyber Security Dispatch

On The Internet, Nobody Knows If You’re A Dog - An Interview with Christian Folini

JAN 3, 201956 MIN

Description

Key Points From This Episode:
How Christian came to study both Medieval History and Computer Science.
Learn more about Christian’s unique PhD in German Mysticism.
Christian shares his unique passion for global cyber security theory.
Are their links between Medieval history and what is happening with the internet today?
Discover more about the balkanization of the internet and net neutrality.
Parallels between Medieval social connections and internet social connections.
Christian’s view on open source and how the ModSecurity Project fits into that.
Christian explains how a firewall works and the two main types of firewall.
Top five things that might make traffic look malicious or none malicious.
Whitelisting, blacklisting and IP addresses: Can they really be trusted?
E-voting: Why Switzerland is going all in while the rest of the world backs out.
Is it possible to fully secure identification in an E-voting system?
Why the world appears to be falling back on a physical verification process.
Christian walks us through what an E-voting process looks like.
Learn more about Christian’s strategies for reverse proxy and D-DOS.
And much more!