Mark Curphey - SecurityBuddha.com

Sure I am drinking the Microsoft “eau de vie” so don’t waste your time pointing out the obvious to me. Can’t a man still get excited by toys and life? Look for a long blog post from me on Mon - Tuesday with sneak previews (screen shots) of some software security tools and stuff I am doing as part of the ACE Team. I promise it will be one of the most juicy posts I have made to date!

I am just back from a two week trip to Redmond. For along time I have thought that we are products of our environments. I still live in the South of France (for a few more weeks at least) before which time we will be moving back t0 Brighton in the UK. If I am working from home and I walk up the lane with the dogs at lunchtime to get some air, I feel damn fine. This photo was taken from the back of the house not long ago. How can you not get inspired living in a place like this? Brighton is 90 miles away from the Microsoft campus in Thames Valley Park but I think its also an inspiring place to live with a thriving music and cultural scene. I would rather deal with a commute for the time I am not “on the road” and work partially from home when appropriate (something that’s encouraged by my team, in fact flexible working in encourage by Microsoft HR). Work life balance is key to firing on all cylinders.

My work environment is the best I have ever had. My team in the US have cool chill-out rooms like “Conference Room H” where “Commander Roo” will hand your ass to you on Halo 3.  We have the “Think Tank” below (these are official room names BTW).

I have some great technology to make my life easier.  My tanjay phone runs Communicator 2007 as does my cell phone so it’s all presence aware and hooked directly into Exchange 2007. Voice mails come through to my email as WAV files, I can query the AD via voice recognition from the car and send a note to the recipients that I am running late to a meeting etc. I can check my mail via voice from the car and a bunch of other stuff that I find genuinely useful. Well see if the novelty factor wears off in a few weeks of course. 

The UK campus is really nice. We have two good restaurants, loads of cafes, a wellness center for massage and health stuff, a kids creche (if you put your kids in they email you pictures during the day of what they are up to). Its a bit like you would imagine a really well funded University to be like. UK salary packages typically include a company car and being a  certified car nut I have a nice Audi TT Quattro 3.2 Coupe on order, although its a nine month manufacturing delay given all the geeky extras like satnav, Bose surround sound, iPod integration and traction control I ordered. The lady told me the red leather magma interior choice and phantom pearl black paint was not common. What the …….

All in all I am loving the work environment, both the toys (this post) and the people side (next post). I am feeling very inspired.

We have a few security code review and threat modeling jobs opening up in the UK next few weeks, so if you are a really good software security person with the experience and aptitude to boot and are interested in joining my team, drop me a line.