OK I am out of Orlando and Infosec World and now in DC for some meetings in this week's version of the Shimel world tour.  I wanted to put some finishing touches on the trade show though and some previous posts. 

First on the issue of Air Defense spoofing SSIDs to direct people to their site which I wrote about yesterday. Several people wrote to me privately and confirmed that indeed this is something that the Air Defense people have been doing for several years evidently at trade shows. They also agreed that while showing what their product can do, it is a pretty sleazy way of doing business and they are turning off more people than they win over doing it.  Real life example is someone tried to show someone a web site and were unable to do so initially because their machine would automatically log into the spoofed SSID of the Air Defense WAP. I have someone sending me a picture showing the spoofing in action in case anyone disputes that Air Defense actually stooped this low.  In fact let me tell you what I did on this one.

I went over to the Air Defense booth when there was no one else around.  I pulled the guy over and told him that I know what they were doing and I think it is pretty sleazy and they should stop spoofing SSIDs as it made them look sleazy.  At first the Air Defense dude played dumb and said he was not aware they were doing that.  Than I pointed out to him that the laptops they had set up right next to their WAP at the booth were showing the same Air Defense we have hijacked your wireless page that others were getting. I asked him to show me what SSIDs they were attaching to, to get to that page. He realized at that point that I had called BS on his story and said he would correct it. 

Now my young friend from Air Defense did not realize that when I walked away from his booth, I stopped just a both or two down and watched.  I saw him go over and tell his other booth buddy about what I said, they laughed like they were quite the hot stuff and didn't do a darn thing about it, as I checked the SSIDs a few minutes later.  That is OK a word to the show organizers about other exhibitors having problems with connectivity due to Air Defense's sleazy ways will put an end to them doing that in the future.  In fact I encourage my many security vendor readers to make sure and make show organizers aware of what Air Defense does at these shows and put an end to it once and for all. If they can't police themselves and act in a decent manner, I guess we will have to do it for them.

Other shows news - We had a booth next to Ken Belva launching his new info sec blog magazine which I wrote about they other day. I never met Ken in person before, it was good to meet both him and his dad. Always fun to spend some time with fellow NY'ers. Also, it always amazes me at the end of shows when the "adult trick or treaters" come out with their shopping bags looking to load up on chachkis.  Whether it be a foam little computer, StillSecure branded chap stick (that was a big hit this show) or anything else not nailed down, these people have no interest in your products or anything, they just want to know what they can bring home for free.  There is always a big competition for our fit balls which have become a trademark of ours over the years.  We are the company with big (fit) balls.

All in all, it was a great show.  Good catching up with folks, meeting new ones and keeping abreast of security news. Not sure why they "pit bull of self help" was a key note speaker but he was interesting if not security related per se.  This show has me really looking forward to RSA!