INFOSEK 2009 is over! This is the first time I have visited it and I am more than just pleasantly surprised!
Usually, going to professional conferences is not exactly entertaining event. A lot of technical people, a lot of people that are sent there by their department heads and do not want to be there and people who are not interested in the topics, perhaps here and there some know-it-alls strutting around in three piece suits.
INFOSEK is everything but your average ICT professionals’ conference!
The first thing that distinguishes it from other conferences is the team. PALSIT company, the organizer, is just amazing. The conference is organized by Mr. Aleksander Sinigoj and his team of people – among whom I want to mention Ms. Masa Arcon, Ms. Tanja Grdina and Ms. Jasmina Vrtovec, but also a team of temps (students) that made sure everything is fine. There were some changes in the conference agenda due to illness and absence of some lecturers, but it did not detract from the conference’s appeal!
PRE-CONFERENCE DAY
I have arrived to Hotel Perla on the pre-conference day and met Palsit team and was immediately surprised how professional they are – all the time they were with the guests and presenters and I cannot remember how many times I was asked by Jasmina for opinion and is everything OK! The first day I have attended presentations from Mr. Richard Mayall (Acuity Risk Management LLP, United Kingdom) who has presented how his company’s risk management software STREAM functions in real life and the presentation by Mr. Daniel Blander (Infosecuritylab Inc., California, USA) who spoke in details on managed security services and importance of raising security awareness in corporations. After them, I had my own presentation, Forensic computer crime proceedings of ICT court experts and legislative requirements – Croatian experience. During the whole first day there was a parallel hacking workshop held by Mr. Zubair Khan.
On the evening of the pre-conference day, we were taken on a surprise trip to Sveta Gora just outside Gorica, where we have visited a local church on the top of the hill where we were driven by a safe hand of a bus driver through a series of amazing tight bends leading to the mountain top. After the visit to the church run by Franciscan Brothers, we have spent the rest of the evening in a local restaurant where we tasted some amazing Slovenian traditional meals.
The biggest surprise was Aleksander’s hidden talent as a tourist guide and his tireless entertainment aimed towards all of us guests!
1ST CONFERENCE DAY
The first conference day I have attended Biometrics and Privacy Invasion lecture by Mr. Zubair Khan, Tranchulas, Pakistan and Social Engineering lecture by the same author. There we were shown how it is possible to remotely hack and clone EU passports without any particular problems and surprisingly, it was not possible to hack Pakistani passport because they have included social security number in the code, thus making hacking very problematic. In the afternoon I had my second lecture, Intricacies of integral security in upstream oil and gas sector. Unfortunately, not many people have attended it considering it was quite late in the afternoon, but I was asked many questions at the end of the session and was even told that this was one of the best presentations of the conference.
In the evening we were invited to a local club just beside the hotel called Marco Polo, where we were offered a buffet of Slovenian meals called “Hacker Menu” and many Slovenian wines and liquors. The entertainment provided during the evening was just short of amazing: Aleksander was again in the spotlight with his entertainer qualities, among many things offered there was body painting session and even contest where the visitors were involved and had to paint three “living canvases”, show by one of the Slovenia’s most famous bartender, dancing contest and even lectures, go go dancers and oriental belly dancers! I was literally *entertained to death* and went back to hotel around 11.30 pm and I hear that the atmosphere was so good that people stayed there after 2 am!
2ND CONFERENCE DAY
During the 2nd, final day, I have attended one more lecture by Mr. Daniel Blander who has presented two case studies of successful implementation of some of his risk management techniques in one retail store chain and aviation company.
During the conference we have received many gifts and freebies from PALSIT, ranging from PALSIT socks to special farewell gift! I even won the lottery award of the 1st day, a dinner for two persons in one village restaurant in the valley of the Vipava river!
I have met many interesting people during the conference including whole PALSIT team, Mr. Janko Savnik, member of the council of experts of the Slovenian Institute for Forensics  of Information Technology, Mr. Peter Perdich, Channel Account Manager Eastern Europe from Austrian company phion AG, Mr. Peter Dolinar, sales manager of Slovenian ITsec company astec and Mr. Danijel Starman, voice administrator of Croatian ISP company Iskon Internet, whose services I am daily using at work and last but not least, Mr. Marko Potokar, CISO of Bankart company, who is also a Master of ICT in the field of operational research and speaks perfect Croatian language.
I will be at the cover page of the November issue of Varnostni Forum, Slovenian ITsec magazine, so soon I will post scans of the front page and the interview on the ICT forensics. Also, Mr. Blander, Mr. Porada, Mr. Mayall, Mr. Kjell Kalmelid from ENISA and myself were discussing the conference with a panel of Slovenian news reporters during the first day and there was also Slovenian TV crew present at the conference.
I can only say the best about INFOSEK 2009 and people who have attended it and hope to be able to present at INFOSEK 2010 too! I understand that the next event organized by Palsit will be in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with main topic being Business Continuity at the end of January 2010.
Once again, many thanks to Mr. Aleksander Sinigoj, Ms. Masa Arcon, Ms. Tanja Grdina and Ms. Jasmina Vrtovec for organizing this marvelous event and bringing together ITsec specialists from all over the world to share their experience!
Here are some pictures to show what was INFOSEK atmosphere like.
