Past Chief Software Officer of the US Space Force and Air Force Nic Chaillan is back on the Cold Star Project. Over the past year, Nic has developed his own learning platform, Learn With Nic. He has also hosted his own show, In The Nic Of Time. Host Jason Kanigan asks Nic:

• What have you learned in running your own show, In The Nic Of Time?


• What have you learned about the general state of software security in the US from your guests? Did this confirm what you already were aware of, or did they add any detail?


• If you could wave a magic wand and have leaders and developers realize some fundamentals of DevSecOps that are practical to implement as well as effective, what would a couple of those be?


• Are you still convinced we’re lagging and that China is going to overtake and “beat” us? How do you define that: simply economically, or technologically, militarily? What can we do about it, and are you seeing any evidence of leadership attempting to take action?


• I hear more and more Americans becoming concerned about TikTok, even leaders in fields I thought would be far away from the edges of national security. I believe we should be more explicit about what can be done with TikTok, beyond “they’re collecting all our data!”. Have your thoughts about TikTok evolved over the past year? 


• What’s your opinion about the InfraGard hack? To me this seems like “the security guys got hacked”. What could have been done to stop this from happening? Is it symptomatic of a condition or just bad luck? What other kinds of software-based platforms should we be worried about the security of? 


• Teach us a couple of DevSecOps terms that are probably new to us.   

USEFUL LINKS:  

Learn With Nic platform: https://www.learnwithnic.com/ 

OpEx Society: https://www.opexsociety.org 

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Talk to Cold Star: https://coldstartech.com/talktous