There are still tickets left if you haven't committed. Should be the best security event all year, possibly ever. Check it out at Derbycon.com

DerbyCon 2011 - A new hackercon from David Kennedy on Vimeo.

Went to the 2010 RSA conference last week....

The opening keynotes were interesting. Whitfield Diffie recieved a lifetime achievement award.

There was a bit of saber rattling during the crypto panel this year (video here)

You'll be happy to know that Microsoft is making the Internet safer and more trusted....

"Cloud Computing" was a big theme, complete this year with threat of thunderstorms...

The "Codebreakers Bash" was a big fail. The venue was City Hall which is nice, but not nearly large enough. There were very few tables, food and beverage availability was big problem.

The closing "Hugh Thompson Show" was very enjoyable. Guests were Craig Newmark (of craigslist), Bob Sullivan, and Steve Wozniak. After it was over and they left the stage, Steve came back on stage with a huge grin on his face and a t-shirt launcher. The shirts said "Iwoz" on them. Wish I would have snagged one.

Sadly, the most interesting thing I found at the exhibition hall was a display of scorpions and Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

The beat-box guy with the theremin player also ranked very high.

The lamest exhibit award goes to none other than RSA for recycling another vendor's slogan from last year (TippingPoint).

Speaking of recycling... I did turn a very nice shade of green last week in San Fran.

The thermostat in my room was so "green" that I couldn't cool my room.

Fortunately at the ISC2 reception I got a USB fan which helped out. I felt bad about all of the USB power I selfishly used though...

The coffee cups at the conference had lids made from potatoes. I did appreciate them, but worried about my starch intake.

Fortunately there was a recycle bin in my room for properly disposing of all of the vendor propoganda.

I also probably saved an entire species by not requesting that my bed linens be changed all week. You have to put this card on the bed if you want that done.

The water flow restrictor was so strict I almost couldn't get the soap off of my hands. I must have saved a zillion gallons over the entire week though.

There were also green Prius cabs to be had.

Here is a picture of me on the Golden Gate Bridge next to the crisis counseling hotline.

Louisville Metro InfoSec 2009 is now history. There were many outstanding presentations. We had more sponsors, speakers, cool prizes, and attendees than ever. Registrations had to be cut off due to being over capacity. The event went off extremely well I think, and feedback so far has been very positive.

It was a great event, but I am glad it is over. There are sooo... many details to cover for an event like this. Being chair person was quite an experience.

Take for instance the 'swag' we gave out. We had some nifty trinkets produced to hand out to everyone. We did a springy pen thing with louisvilleinfosec.com printed on them. We also gave out coffee mugs with geeky sayings on both sides. One side says...

Switch
00000010
Security

and the other side has...

I'm
00000100
Security

If you don't understand the sayings, let me explain. There are 10 types of people.... Ok, never mind, just ask a geek.... :)

The other item we had made up were mouse pads. They are kinda cool, except that THEY REEKED OF NEW CAR TIRE SMELL! I had them in my trunk for about 3 days and it still smells like tires. I decided to air them out a bit before the conference. Ever seen 325 mouse pads on a deck...???

They were filming the moving Secretariat while we were there which was kinda cool....

I'm sure this will look like a zillion pepople when the film comes out....

If you wanted to be there and couldn't, I plan to have video up soon on the conference web site. louisvilleinfosec.com

Pictures are here

Somehow I ended up being one of the fortunate ones that landed a ticket to Shmoocon

I didn't use any scripts or anything, just a couple of browsers up trying repeatedly with a co-worker doing the same (thanks Mark...!). The website was completely overwhelmed and I just kept getting timeouts. I eventually got through and purchased a barcode, only to find out later that payments didn't get processed for anyone. It took a couple of days for them to sort things out. They have handled it well though, and everyone has been able to 're-purchase' a barcode.