Re: BlackHat and Defcon 2023

["A.P. Delchi via Dailydave" <dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org>]

What was cool for me was DEF CON HDA ( Hackers with Disabilities ) --
seeing the members of the community that are hacking away at things like
mobility scooters, using eye-tracking keyboards , and the general community
that is building in that regard. DEF CON this year had 3 rooms assigned to
assisting / presenting to ADA needs.



On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 7:10 AM Ryan Naraine via Dailydave <
dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org> wrote:

> > > > I brought my kids this year and it helps to be able to see through the
> chaos with new eyes. What's "cool" I asked?
>
> What was the answer?
>
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 3:36 PM Dave Aitel via Dailydave <
> dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org> wrote:
>
> > The Vegas security conferences used to feel like diving into a river.
> > While yes, you networked and made deals and talked about exploits, you also
> > felt for currents and tried to get a prediction of what the future held. A
> > lot of this was what the talks were about. But you went to booths to see
> > what was selling, or what people thought was selling, at least.
> >
> > But it doesn't matter anymore what the talks are about. The talks are
> > about everything. There's a million of them and they cover every possible
> > topic under the sun. And the big corpo booths are all the same. People want
> > to sell you XDR, and what that means for them is a per-seat or per-IP
> > charge. When there's no differentiation in billing, there's no
> > differentiation in product.
> >
> > That doesn't mean there aren't a million smaller start-ups with tiny
> > cubicles in the booth-space, like pebbles on a beach. Hunting through them
> > is like searching for shells - for every Thinkst Canary there's a hundred
> > newly AI-enabled compliance engines.
> >
> > DefCon and Blackhat in some ways used to be more international as well -
> > but a lot of the more interesting speakers can't get visas anymore or
> > aren't allowed to talk publicly by their home countries.
> >
> > If you've been in this business for a while, you have a dreadful fear of
> > being in your own bubble. To not swim forward is to suffocate. This is what
> > drove you to sit in the front row of as many talks as possible at these two
> > huge conferences, hung over, dehydrated, confused by foreign terminology in
> > a difficult accent.
> >
> > But now you can't dive in to make forward progress. Vegas is even more of
> > a forbidding dystopia, overloaded with crowds so heavy it can no longer
> > feed them or even provide a contiguous space for the ameba-like host to
> > gather. Talks echo and muddle in cavernous rooms with the general acoustics
> > of a high school gymnasium. You are left with snapshots and fragmented
> > memories instead of a whole picture.
> >
> > For me, one such moment was a Senate Staffer, full of enthusiasm, crowing
> > about how smart the other people working on policy and walking the halls of
> > Congress were - experts and geniuses at healthcare, for example! But if our
> > cyber security policy matches our success at a health system we are doomed.
> >
> > I brought my kids this year and it helps to be able to see through the
> > chaos with new eyes. What's "cool" I asked? in the most boomery way
> > possible. Because I know Jailbreaking an AI to say bad things is not it,
> > even though it had all the political spotlights in the world focused on
> > examining the "issue".
> >
> > The more crowded the field gets, the less immersion you have. Instead of
> > diving in you are holding your palm against the surface of the water,
> > hoping to sense the primordial tube worms at the sea vents feeding on raw
> > data leagues below you. "Take me to the beginning, again" you say to them,
> > through whatever connection you can muster.
> >
> > -dave
> >
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>
> --
> Ryan Naraine
> Twitter: @ryanaraine <https://twitter.com/ryanaraine>
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