CircleCityCon: A great new con with a big future

   

For those who have read my blog before, you know I have a passion for "local" cons. BSides Nashville, AIDE, Hack3rCon, SkyDogCon, DerbyCon...I like them all. Now there is one more to add to the list. The inaugural CircleCityCon was held this weekend in Indianapolis, IN. I feel honored that they allowed me to volunteer as an IronGeek video jockey and selected my daughter as a speaker. The organizers are familiar faces who I have seen at many other regional cons.
     The format of the con is the familiar setup of speaker halls (2x), high quality training (free), a CTF, lock pick village, and something new to me, a book exchange. The lineup of speakers was top notch and the training, I was told, was professional.
     Of special note was the feel of the con. It reminded me of DerbyCon. I did not witness any drunken stupidity or general d-baggery. I look forward to seeing everyone again next year.

Now...how do I get to GrrCon?

Here is the link to our presentation. (Thanks as usual Adrian!)

BSides Nashville: The wrap-up

Elvis is in the building!

     Yep, that happened. Not only did BSides Nashville have world class speakers, free ribs for lunch, and a healthy turnout of first time con-goers (round 70% said it was their first con), they had this guy! The only negative comment I have about the whole thing is that my work laptop - with my presentation - crashed. This didn't affect me too much since I had my presentation saved in multiple places and only had to recreate about an hour worth of work.

     If you want to watch my presentation, click here. As always, thanks to Adrian for donating his time and energy to recording the talks. Also, thanks to the organizers for allowing me to help Adrian. You should all volunteer at least once at a con. There is no easier way, to give back to the community.
 
Here are the things I messed up in my presentation that I want to call out:  
1. Totally butchered the meaning of Confidentiality. I got caught up in the moment.
2. I didn't come up with the tag line on the sticker.
3. The "small cons that don't mean anything" line was the result of my sending a CFP to a large, well known conference. They responded by my query by saying that line.
4. The $80 I spent for the RachelPi was raised by Emily.
5. Not EVERY presentation in the military has a Sun Tzu quote. Just the ones given by the rear echelon people.
6. I do know what a "belt and suspenders" DMZ is, I just haven't seen one in a while.
7. My buddy that calls people "business units" is from Spain so he doesn't have a mastery of English.

Thanks for your time and I hope to see you at Circle City Con in Indianapolis.

ISSA Kentuckiana NMAP Workshop

What do you get when you combine hacking with charity? Hackers for Charity of course. On May 10th, the Kentuckiana Chapter of ISSA once again showed their heart when they offered an NMAP class for all levels of hackers. The price of this well done class was a paltry $40 donation to "The Long Journey to Africa" of Hackers for Charity.

The instructors were well known and well respected industry experts Jeremy Druin (@webpwnized), Adrian Crenshaw (@irongeek_adc), and Martin Bos (@purehate_).  

I would like to also thank Sullivan College of Technology and Design for allowing the use of their facilities.

If you are interested in watching the presentation, Adrian will post it on his training and education server at irongeek.com.

BSides Nashville: There is an app for that!

Looks like the founders of BSides Nashville have kicked it up a notch (again!). Today in the Twitterverse I noticed they were pushing an app that enables con-goers to carry their program on their cellphone. Check out the tweet:

After downloading the Eventjoy app I was able to see maps of the con, the speaker list, speaker bios, sponsor information, and notifications (as well as other things). The coolest thing about the app was the ability to build "My Agenda" from the "Schedule" menu with a simple click.

The app rocks and BSides Nashville should be commended on having the foresight to use it.

Which begs the question, why aren't more cons using these kind of tools to enhance the con experience?

B-Sides Nashville: Another excellent con (I'm sure)

     Another installment of B-Sides with a touch of Southern charm. From what I understand it came in as reason #26 in a recent top 25 reasons to visit Nashville. From all the chatter, it appears to be a reunion of sorts for the many of the people that attended SkyDogCon last year.
 
     This is the first con I have ever submitted a CFP to where I didn't get selected. Am I bitter. Heck NO! Not when you see a lineup of presenters like Jack Daniel, Paul Coggin, Rafal Los, Jason Street, and others. This first year con is STACKED! Add to this lineup a Metasploit class (only $300) by Georgia Weidman and you have what promises to be a great couple of days.

     If you can make it on May 17th, feel free to stop by and say "Hi." I have decided to volunteer for the video crew. If you have never met me, I will be the handsome but portly fellow behind one of the cameras.

     Feel free to check out their website http://www.bsidesnash.org/ It is one of the best B-Sides websites I have ever seen. Perhaps a bit of foreshadowing?

P.S. This blog was meant to post in April but didn't due to operator error. I decided to leave it intact but add an update. I was asked to present! Woo hoo! Make sure you come to my presentation: Sun Tzu was a punk! Confucius was an InfoSec rockstar!

AIDE 2014: Emily steps up her game!

     Are you going to be in the Huntington, WV area next week? If so, stop by the Appalachian Institute of Digital Evidence annual conference. What you will get is a week long training and presentation conference that only costs $60. This will be my 3rd time to attend and I am proud to say, my 2nd time selected to speak. This time I will be sharing the stage with my daughter Emily. We will be giving a first hand account of building and deploying a RachelPi educational computer to Kenya. In addition to this, we will give an update of our return trip.

     Check out the AIDE website at www.appyide.org What you will find is an organization dedicated to forensics, e-discovery, and Information Security.

     I hope to see you all there!

A short (musical) history of my life in IT

1980's: Listened to "Alternative" music on my boombox while playing on my TRS80 Color Computer 2

1990's: Listened to "Grunge" on my Walkman while installing computers and pulling cables

Late 1990's: Listened to "Rock" streaming on my computer while installing and managing Cisco routers

2000's: Listened to "progressive-house music" streaming on my computer while pentesting and doing reverse MALWARE analysis

2010's: Listen to blues, classical, and jazz while writing security policy

I think I may be going down hill...