At the RSA Con­fer­ence in San Fran­cisco, I inter­viewed Andrew Hay (@andrewsmhay), a secu­rity blog­ger and Infor­ma­tion Secu­rity Ana­lyst at the Uni­ver­sity Leth­bridge in Alberta, Canada. Hay had keynoted the hip­per side secu­rity con­fer­ence known as Secu­rity B-Sides ear­lier this week.

One of the issues Hay talked about at B-Sides was that secu­rity blog­gers were becom­ing the voice of the secu­rity indus­try, and as a result, they had a respon­si­bil­ity to the indus­try. Hay said that secu­rity blog­ging first respon­si­bil­ity is to be edu­cat­ing every­one else and help­ing oth­ers under­stand the chal­lenges of secu­rity. Part of that involves engag­ing oth­ers on how to solve secu­rity prob­lems collaboratively.

Given that blog­gers are not beholden to an edi­tor or a pub­lisher, the secu­rity blog­ging com­mu­nity self-polices each other and hap­pily jump down each other’s back when they make mis­takes. Sure they’re in secu­rity, but they’re only human, so they do make mistakes.

Lastly, I asked Hay what’s the best way to com­mu­ni­cate with a secu­rity blog­ger if they say some­thing for which you don’t agree. He gave the most com­mon, and I believe cor­rect response, and that’s to not air your argu­ment out pub­licly online. Pick up the phone and have a con­ver­sa­tion. Find out what the core of the dis­pute is. Hay’s seen a lot of anger quelled by a sim­ple phone call.

Check out more of Tripwire’s cov­er­age from the 2010 RSA Con­fer­ence in San Fran­cisco.David Spark helps busi­nesses grow by devel­op­ing thought lead­er­ship through sto­ry­telling and cov­er­ing live events at Spark Media Solu­tions. He blogs at The Spark Minute and can be heard and seen reg­u­larly on ABC Radio, Cranky Geeks with John C. Dvo­rak, and KQED in San Fran­cisco. See his busi­ness pro­file, con­tact David, or leave a com­ment below.