A recap for Eve and Gillis

I often shoot myself in the foot by agreeing to doing things and then realizing it eats up a lot more of my time than I’d originally anticipated which is why I haven’t been blogging or making videos much recently.

Some of the things that have been consuming my life lately have included (cue fast-paced soundtrack)

I travelled to Las Vegas to attend Guidance Software’s CEIC conference.

I must say, Vegas is very different outside of Blackhat / Defcon / Bsides season and I did miss not seeing an ocean of black shirts and wonderful hair styles. Although, I did get to find a shisha bar – so it wasn’t all bad.

For non-shihsa related news, my 451 Research colleague David Horrigan and I co-wrote a writeup on the conference which can be obtained here free of charge and registration.

Oh, and I also got to hang out with the goodDoctor Krypt3ia

In June, the good folk atEskenzi held their annual event. The first day consists of analyst / vendor meetings where I got to speed date a whole host of vendors. The second day consisted of a CISO roundtable – which in theory should have played out like the hunger games. Three sides converged, CISO’s, vendors and analysts – I was hoping for fireworks, nasty comments and backhanded digs. But this is London and despite the efforts of some of our American guests, the proceedings remained rather civilized.

And I got to hang out with and pick the brilliant mind of Mike Rothman.

The next day it was the RANTConference – where I donned my Host Unknown mask. We had a great time, and my nail file swag was definitely the highlight. You can see the video here:http://youtu.be/XlhgKlmc7K8?list=UUTwY3LNRujMskBDbQvKoiBw

ACG put on their London conference. It was the first time I’d attended an ACG and it was extremely good. I was lucky to moderate a panel entitled, “is Anti Virus dead?” – the summary outcome was ‘yes’.

There was the inaugural Bsides Manchester which was brilliant. Matt Summers who was instrumental in setting up the first Bsides London invited me to MC the main track and I couldn’t say no to him. After all, he’s the man who imported Bsides into the UK… he’s kind of like Jack Daniel, except younger, with no facial hair, not as much style, class or interesting… but you get the idea. It did afford me the luxury of getting selfies from the front whenever I wanted.

As the old adage goes, you wait for one new and cool conference up north and suddenly you get two. Steelcon was held in Sheffield and organised by Robin Wood. This was a special conference for me as not only was it the first time that I’d been invited to give the opening keynote – but I was invited to deliver it along with my daughter, Girl Cynic. I’ve been meaning to put up a video of our experience which I may do so in the future, but suffice to say it went well. There was a kid’s track which the children all seemed to really enjoy and the whole day was really well put together.

My final trip came a couple of weeks ago when I attended McAfee’s analyst event in Amsterdam. It was an enjoyable whirlwind 36 hours in the Dam, where I got to spend some time with the ever-elusiveRaj Samani.

So with all these events and travelling happening in the last few months – I had to tap out and not go to Blackhat, Defcon or BsidesLV this year. Maybe now Eve and Gillis will stop this online campaign of terror! J