Steve Schear[SMTP:schear@attbi.com]

This year's RSA show was, like it predecessors, mostly a schmooze event. Shrunk at least 1/3 in floor space from the 2001/2 events, it certainly reflected the changes in this industry.

Steve: [Don't take this as an Official RSA Statement - it's just my personal opinion. -pt] 1. The floor space - the north half of Moscone - was identical to last year. We sold out the booths months ahead of time. 2. Attendence was up over last year, well over 10,000, with 3,000+ full memberships - again up over last year.

I was surprised and a bit dismayed that I saw few familiar faces. A brief

talk with Stacy Cannan, of L.J. Kushner, the leading security industry recruiter, confirmed my suspicions that many senior level people had left the industry in the past two years. The booths were mostly manned with the latest generation of newly graduated fodder. There didn't seem to be much activity (or smiles for that matter) in most booths. This is probably reflecting the exit/acquisition of some early players, decreased level of IT spending, and the increasing impact of open source security solutions. About the most amusing thing was receiving a "Regime change begins at home" button from one of the executives.

steve

I've been going to the conference almost since the start, and while it did not match the euphoria of the dot.com boom period, the atmosphere felt more upbeat than last year (which was just a few months post-911). There is turnover, of course. But many of the old players are still there. I got my 'regime change' button from Bruce Schneier, along with an dedicated copy of 'Secrets and Lies'. (Trivia alert: Bruce was actually the very first vendor at the RSA Conference. At the second one (11 years ago) he set up a card table in the hall and peddled copies of the first edition of "Applied Cryptography".) Peter Trei