Why "Between Two Firewalls?"

For the past several years I've been doing more speaking events for work, more guest spots on podcasts, even a few radio spots. I started spitballing with friends and coworkers about starting a podcast. The title I decided on was Between Two Firewalls.There were two primary drivers behind that name.

The first, was a nod back to my first role in cybersecurity (we called it information security back then, but I'm dating myself aren't I?) was as a firewall and network security engineer. Much of my time was spent focusing on protecting our web servers and protecting the database servers behind them. Network security at the time was designed around the idea of the DMZ, one of the early cybersecurity terms taken from the military. This demilitarized zone was literally the area between the external firewall and the internal firewall, as the somewhat untrusted zone where you put your systems that allowed inbound connections from the Internet at large, and they had limited opportunity to connect inbound to the "trusted" systems. So this area was where a lot of my attention was focused, between those two firewalls.

The other inspiration is owed to Zach Galifianakis, and his Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis web talk show. I'll admit I had no intention of modeling his interview style, I just liked the simplicity and humor of the title. Though I did troll online auctions for now ancient Cisco PIX 515 firewalls to use as potential props on both sides of the set.

The podcast hasn't, as of yet, materialized, but this has. And I see no reason to waste a perfectly good name just because I'm not using it for what I had originally intended, do you?