My first panel – about authentication – went surprisingly well. Surprisingly because as many have told me before the panel (but after the announcement) the panelists were a bit “exotic”.
The panel consisted of a technical part and a non-technical part. The second part being there to point out that authentication is not really (just) a technical problem. The number of visitors was quite big – supporting both camps on stage. Starting off with a bit of personal thoughts about authentication and its meaning to the panelists we touched a few issues that could as well have gotten their own talks. The questions went well but in retrospect left me a bit disappointed.
I expected the non-technical part of the audience to address more questions to the technical part. What I didn’t expect was that the technical part of the audience would address no questions to the non-technical part. In a way I understand this but what I hoped for was a bit more sense that this is a trust issue that has very little to do with technology and a lot with the way we perceive security and the exchange of information.
Thanks to everybody who came to the panel, I hope you learned something new. If you didn’t I hope it was at least interesting to see what other people think about the issue. Thanks to the panelists for being great, for coming and for sharing their views and expertise.
As the moderator I learned a few things I might point out in a post somewhere in the future.