Jason Dean - Currently employed by the Minnesota Department of Health, in St. Paul, MN, Jason Dean he has been working in Information Technology for 12 years, focusing on application security for the past 3. A veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard trained in both physical and information security, he held a secret security clearance and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology Management from American Military University. He keeps himself busy managing a ColdFusion User Group at the Department of Health, sitting on the board of the Twin Cities ColdFusion User Group, speaking at conferences and user groups, training, writing, and blogging at http://www.12robots.com.
CFUnited session: Practical Ajax Security
Understanding Security in Adobe AIR Applications
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?
I have not. This will be my first time. I am very excited about it.
2. Why should people attend your sessions?
Security is an important topic, and, all too often, it is considered as an afterthought in the development process. My goal is to help people think about how security affects their applications and how it should be built in from the very beginning.
I will be talking about Ajax security and AIR security. Both Ajax and AIR are relatively new in the Web 2.0 (bleh) world and there are security considerations that developers may not even know exist.
3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited?
Maybe. Too early to be certain.
4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to?
The topics I am most interested in are: Mike Henke's "ColdFusion on Wheels" (I want to see what all the hype is about), Jeff Tapper's "Flex 4 for Flex 3 Developers", and Jim Priest's "Digging into the Developer Toolbox".
That said, I have actually seen several of the other presentations and I can say that Bob Silverberg's "What Your Mother Never Told You About ColdFusion 9 ORM", Daryl Banttari's "How to Read a Stack Trace", Kurt Wiersma's "Real World ColdSpring" and Shannon Hick's "Searching with Apache Solr" are all fantastic presentations and are sure to delight the audience.
5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions?
Of course I always love to talk about security, but I would also like to see topics on OO, input validation, TDD, and accessibility.
6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?
Anywhere but in my room. I will be at sessions and BoFs, and I am usually in the bar well past midnight. I love to talk, so no one should hesitate to say "Hi".
7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited?
I started grad school this year, so I have been very busy with that. I am working toward an M.S. in Information Assurance and Security. Also, I am writing a column for the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update called "Let's Talk Security" where I discuss different application security topics in greater detail than what I have in my blog posts or presentations.
8. What is unique about CFUnited?
CFUnited is HUGE! Last year was the first time I attended, and I could not believe how many people were there. I have only attended smaller conferences in the past, so it was really great to meet so many people and to see so many old friends. It was hard to make time for everyone I wanted to see, but it was also nice that there was never a lack of good company.
9. What do you like to do in your free time?
In my what?
With work, school, training, presentations, blogging, and writing, I find very little extra time for anything other than my wife (who is a full-time culinary arts student) and my two children, Elizabeth (7) and James (3).
