BSidesNYC 0x03 interview with Huxley Barbee

hi Huxley how are you doing I'm doing very well pretty thank you so much for taking the time out to chat with me no problem so you are the man of the hour hosting Biz NYC can you briefly talk about yourself what do you do where do you work sure and your journey to cyber security yeah well I don't I really don't think it's about me right now it's about the the community here but yes I will indulge your question here I'm I'm my name is Huxley Barbie I'm the only Huxley Barbie that you'll ever meet and I am the security evangelist at runzer we are a cyber Asset Management solution that helps you find all of your devices on

your network okay whether they be it iot or OT but perhaps more relevant to this conversation I'm also the lead organizer for bites NYC nice very nice and what about besides NYC did you like so much that you wanted to reboot it yeah well you know I've been I've been doing something in security since the the mid 90s and I have gotten so much out of the industry and the community and there's a lot here about giving back but there's also a lot here about the the regional nature of it you you you take a look and you you know by some measure by some Dimension One could say that New York City is behind San

Francisco Las Vegas Austin and DC okay in terms of you know the the the vibrancy of the cyber security Community right I obviously there's lots going on here but on balance you know those other cities are the ones that come to mind first and you know that that really doesn't do you know our our region here uh justice I think and so yeah I was about to say this like that is not truly representative of the amount of cybercity professionals we have here the kind of work that that we're doing here 100% 100% And and you know my way of of dealing with that is you know rebooting this conference you know it it is it is

I believe you know based on the numbers perhaps the largest technical community-driven conference um yeah largest Technical Community Driven conference uh that's that's as accessible as possible right and so that um that is something that I think really helps you know bring across the the strength of the cyber security community in New York City absolutely I think today we heard that we had about 900 plus tickets sold and there were so many attendees across different diaspora entry level mid level senior level everybody was here to just come and share in the knowledge we also included a lot of people who um to to to make it more affordable for those people who cannot afford it so Kudos on that great

job yeah yeah tickets full price tickets were $15 which is super cheap but but if you're a student or if you have financial hardship we found ways to make it even affordable for you and yeah like you said uh over a th000 tickets sold we've had over 750 people check in so it's a pretty high attendance rate absolutely uh even even though tickets were so cheap yeah so it's from from that perspective it seems like it's it's a resounding success so far it is because it's been a while and we're coming back from a Hiatus and the fact that we put in a lot of word the community itself has spread the word that this is

happening so that's great how do you think the conference is going so far are you able to breathe it's it's so by the Numbers it's it's fantastic you know perhaps other numbers we want to share are the fact that we had 127 submissions for our cfp which is 50% more than our last conference so this 177% acceptance rate so which means the quality of our talks are are pretty high and we have speakers coming from as far as Sweden and Italy and and Israel so we're definitely attracting folks from from elsewhere as it's really a reflection of the the Cosmopolitan International nature of New York City as as it should be really uh but in terms of other things you know a

little more anecdotal right the as far as we can tell there have not been any sort of snfo or hiccups that uh you know might have created some sort of situation so it's all looking really really really good we have great sponsors great volunteers great uh attendees speakers and trainers and so on and so forth so you know off the top of my head there's nothing that comes to mind is like oh that was a huge problem there's always room for improvement but you know everything's just going really really well that's great to the point where I I'm actually not super stressed about anything wonderful that's how we want and and to your point about how Global

and how Global this event has been the Outreach I met a gentleman from Ireland I spoke with him and he was really excited to be here they even took pictures in front of the banner so that's great they actually want to say that we've come here we've been part of this community and we're taking something back yes and I think that truly embies the spirit of even having this conference 100% great y thank you I will let you go with this one last question for those who cannot make it this year but are really enthusiastic about attending it next year right what would you say how can they best make use of their time here at Biz NYC be it

entry-level professional somebody who's looking to get into security somebody who's already into security but wants to network better um somebody who is a veteran security but really wants to share their knowledge how do you think people should make the best use of their time yeah so if you're a veteran and you want to share your knowledge you there's going to be a call for papers so you know answer the call answer the call my friends and and and submit a talk um but if if you're somebody that's a little bit more earlier in career then obviously what you want to do is try and get as much out of the conference as possible get to know the conference

early right there's a lot of information that is posted on social media yes or if you want you can join our slack workspace and you know get engaged that way there's a lot of information that's shared as the conference gets closer and closer and of course the schedule can change at the last minute but there's a lot of information that you can get beforehand you can get to know who are the speakers that are coming the topics that they're going to discuss right let's say let's say it's a talk on you know security and ads Lamas right serverless serverless hacking maybe you can get more out of that talk by learning a little bit more about Cloud

security learning more about AWS lambdas or Azure functions so that when you attend that talk you are going to be starting from a place where you have more knowledge and you can get more out of talk just as an example I think the other thing is get your extroverted self in gear by the time you show up I don't care if you're introverted when you're here you know you're among friends you are with people that are like you and you know we strive very hard to make this conference as as inclusive as possible right so you can be your best self when you're here with like-minded folks and just be social get to know folks and you know continue to stay in

touch throughout the year between conferences I think that's great advice and if I may actually put a plug in here there are opportunities to volunteer as well that's also a way to get involved with the Comm Community a way to get access to people and all of this information was present on the website so for me it was very easy it was just going looking at the website joining a couple of slack channels monitoring conversations it's really effortless right so it doesn't take much effort to be informed but the initiative truly has to come from people yes yeah yeah you don't be the hacker that's behind the screen all the time you know get out

from the laptop from the laptop and and you know shake a hand you know there is life IRL yep absolutely and especially in New York City right it's always buly yep there you go great thank you so much for your time hoxley it was really nice uh talking to you and hearing your perspective on what made you create this conference reboot it and bring us all together once again appreciate it PR thank you so much thank you by