Influences from Outside of Cybersecurity with Peter Schawacker

This week, Allan is joined by Peter Schawacker, CEO @ Nearshore Cyber, former CISO, advisor to MSPs, etc.  Another one of Allan's illustrious guests with 25 years in cyber.  (https://www.linkedin.com/in/schawacker/).  The topic started as all that the two have learned outside of cybersecurity that has helped them in cyber.  But it gets way more esoteric than that, and quickly.  Detailed show notes and links are provided below because this show is all over the place!

02:11 Point MOOt, Texas: MOO-based virtual city with virtual economy, virtual stock market, various political models of governance and high preponderance of highly interactive bots used for practical and administrative purposes.
http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9405/moo.html
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/leonard-bots.html

04:49 A fast tour of the the age of the universe, Planet Earth, and humans' presence on the planet, industrial revolution and the Internet

05:45 The Annex BBS in LA
https://annex.net/about-us/

05:28 IRC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat

06:12 - Arthur C. Clarke - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
https://lab.cccb.org/en/arthur-c-clarke-any-sufficiently-advanced-technology-is-indistinguishable-from-magic/

07:12 - Iranian refugees, educated folks who spoke 5 languages and had 4 passports

07:49 - Dungeons and Dragons
https://dnd.wizards.com/

08:05 - Life demands more of us than just having a job

08:16 - Karl Marx, Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Poetry

08:43 - TI-99 4A and the BASIC language on the Commodore PET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-99/4A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET

09:02 - Earthlink
https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/earthlink-inc#:~:text=Earthlink%20Network%20was%20founded%20in,would%20be%20providing%20customer%20service.

09:24 - Tech Writing and List Making

09:41 - Running a SOC for Citi

10:20 - Jack of all trades and the value of curiosity and love, surprises and exploration

11:04 - There is no one cybersecurity - we don't even know what it is yet

11:40 - Cyber as nascent field with great opportunity to leverage other disciplines

13:02 - TOGAF and the CIO's organization and functions and the CISO reporting into the CIO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Group_Architecture_Framework

14:02 - Nobody knows what a CISO does

14:39 - We can't have it both ways - to have a seat at the table we must own risk and have accountability.  Authority can't exist without accountability.

15:13 - Do CISOs know how to buy stuff?  Lack of budgeting process.

15:45 - Eff around and find out - security incidents - order out of chaos - crisis management

16:34 - Pen testing as games (game theory):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

17:11 - The influence of playing music

18:48 - Wagner's invention of instruments
https://www.californiasymphony.org/2018-19-season/epic-bruckner/whats-a-wagner-tuba/

19:12 - The influence of getting sober

19:30 - Chuck Anderson - Best guitar teacher on the planet?
https://truefire.com/educators/chuck-anderson/e4187

19:45 - Dissonance and consonance; inverse ratio between complexity and power

20:17 - Entrepreneurial spirit in the music business and an illegal booking company

20:48 - Everything applies everywhere; metaphor and the origins of ideas

21:21 - Marx and Engels - revolutions get stuff done

21:43 - Rothko's artwork compared to The Ramones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko#:~:text=Mark%20Rothko%20(%2F%CB%88r%C9%92,a%20Latvian%2DAmerican%20abstract%20painter.

22:14 - The subconscious produces genius; we are all geniuses

22:51 - The mathematical concept of Aleph-0 and George Cantor as inventor of discrete math
https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Aleph-0.html#:~:text=is%20often%20pronounced%20%22aleph%2Dnull,spelled%20%22aleph%2Dnought.%22

23:40 - Wittgenstein's refutation of Cantor despite computing being based on discrete math
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

24:05 - Divine revelation or bipolar disorder?

24:33 - "The Aleph" short story by Jorge Luis Borges
https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/borgesaleph.pdf

25:13 - "Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners Lee and Borges foreshadowing hyperlinks
https://www.amazon.com/Weaving-Web-Original-Ultimate-Destiny/dp/006251587X

25:51 - We need heroes - mentoring without heroes is not possible

27:08 - Learning from the masters in cybersecurity; maybe we will be in history books

29:42 - Gaining sobriety, learning to reach out for help - valuable in cybersecurity

31:10 - Raising children; paternalism and cyber careers

32:32 - Edward de Bono - Lateral Thinking
https://www.amazon.com/Lateral-Thinking-Creativity-Step/dp/0060903252

33:13 - "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics-ebook/dp/B000W94FE6