Are South Africans aliens from another planet?

They must be, at least this is what we think after being invited to hold a keynote speech at the ITWeb Security Summary 2008, (Johannesburg - South Africa), and after having checked the reaction of the attendees at the end of it.

Let us get it straight: the speech was about WabiSabiLabi's marketplace project and it was held in front of a crowd of 400 attendees.
At the end of the speech, the conference host fired up a question to the crowd:"Who think that WSL is doing the right thing in providing a marketplace for security research, raise the hand".
We panicked waiting for the response but then ... 399 hands attached to security professionals' bodies were raised.
To counter-check, the host asked then: "Who is against such initiative?". Only one hand up.

Are we THAT good in selling ideas? Or maybe it's just the marketplace idea itself that, when supported by proper motivations, doesn't find any difficulties in being adopted or even supported by security professionals?

Or is it that South Africans are aliens from another planet? We are still wondering...

Meanwhile, a few words about the ITWeb conference. We are always bragging how good the Swiss are in organizing things. Well, they have indeed some good competitors in South Africa. The ITWeb conference is a top international event, period.

Pros, Cons and Kudos

Pros:
Symantec's "free of charge" espresso coffee machine at their booth. Finally, some good hardware.
Thanks a lot, from the deep bottom of an Italian heart.







Cons:
ITWeb's catering service. We have the proof that aliens don't know how to properly cook pasta.
Yes, boiling it for less than two and a half hours will also help to spare Africa's energy resources and will contribute to lessen the power outages.


Kudos:
Johnny Long for his fabulous speech and his charity initiative. People, vendors...what are you waiting for to support it?
Johnny Cache, for being so... smurky. He knows what we mean ;)
Dino Covotsos, for being a good friend and for sponsoring through his company Johnny Long's charity initiative.
Kudos also to the Serbian community, Paul, Janine, Alissa, Mariette, Ilva and all the new and old friends we found over there.

Final round of kudos to South Africa, for giving us such dramatic sunsets.




From Earth, over.