IT Insights Blog — cybersecurity

Earlier today two of my colleagues were engaged in a skirmish in the long-running battle of defense versus offense. In the end, they both agreed that defense is important to winning a championship. Indeed, most people accept as a truism that “defense wins championships.” Just bringing up the topic causes pundits of all stripes to regularly roll out stats and charts proving the primacy of defense.

Columns, or pillars, have been an architectural staple since as early as 2600 B.C. Every significant civilization of the Iron Age (1300 B.C. to 100 B.C.) used pillars in their architecture. Even to this day, in many instances, those pillars of the Iron Age have proven to withstand the test of time.

One of my favorite actors is Paul Giamatti. His performances John Adams and Cinderella Man are spot on. Whether screaming pugilistic encouragement to Russell Crowe or reluctantly accepting acting advice from a family of cinephiles, he always seems to sum the situation up with a sentence or two. In the 2015 disaster flick, San Andreas, Giamatti (son of former baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti) plays Caltech seismologist, Dr. Lawrence Hayes.

Over the last two weeks, America has witnessed the rise and subsequent fall of a cultural icon by the name of Ken Bone. We were introduced to Ken on the night of the second presidential debate between POTUS hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Ken stood up in a white shirt, white tie and red sweater to ask a straightforward question about the energy crisis. Hours later he was a celebrity.

I was at a high-school football game the other evening watching the home-town team get beat like a rented mule. They were down by 30 points at the half and it didn’t look like things were going to get any better for them. One of the coaches gathered the defense and led them in a cheer: “Good, better and best. Never stop trying until the good is better and the better is best!” The players seemed to respond like a different team. They completely shut down the opposing offense, giving up just two first downs the entire second half, and coming back to make a game of it.