Philip Wylie and Michael Gough sharing their reviews about BSides Albuquerque 2023

so so it's good to see you again Michael we see each other quite a bit in yeah we see each other it's it's kind of funny because we go to conferences and I just look around to see if I see you you and also uh Steven Bernstein's another person pyic nerd it's like you go everywhere you see these guys and so if you go somewhere and don't see them it seems like something's wrong but uh awesome talk by the way today and uh good to see you sharing your passion of white dude so uh you know we were kind of been talking about the conference and it's pretty impressive what they did you know first year conference I did not

know this was first year so I'm looking around going oh they've got their stuff together they've got the everything's organized and well done I can tell you from my first year it was you know a challenge and so yeah they they've done a great job I'm I love the venue I guess there's some parking issues but you know every venue has it we had it with pides Austin as well the parking lot wasn't big as big as we thought the attendees were going to be and some of the attendees so it happens but that's minor yeah yeah when it comes to conference putting on a conference that's mine yeah I was really impressed with the stage

and the sound and you know that they're actually videoing first time around and production production quality of the video looks like it should be very good so that's yeah Fred and nerd right Fred and stepen did it for me and bides events and you know Iron geek stoned some for others and and so yeah recording this and making it available for people that cannot attend is always a good thing because you know someone hears oh you spoke at be I want see that they recorded it so you know I often tell people hey go to Iron Gate at the website or go to you know so and so you know sad nerd would paste them on his

and it's awesome to have it recorded because then the people who can't attend or couldn't attend or even people that are clear across the country can now do it like a podcast right we download we listen to it anywhere and people anywhere the cons not not that easy if I can't attend I can't attend and that's one of the nice things that came about from the pandemic some of the virtual stuff made things more available so it's good to see conferences that are continuing to provide that availability for people that can't be there I struggled with the virtual conferences right so I did the the open source forensics conference and the Sans conference I did the third conference

it's the interaction that's lacking in the virtual side so we have a need for an in-person conference people need to come and there is good material like webinar for those sort of things but it's the interaction it's the questions we'll get afterwards it's you know again we can meet and talk now that we can't do uh virtual and so I I do like the imperson stuff I missed it um glad to be back to be going on in person let's hope we don't have any more disruptions hopefully not hopefully we don't have any more pandemics for a long time because you know you figure I know like I don't know about Grandparents well probably not grandparents but you think

about how many generations of your family that had may have not gone through a pandemic my parents had passed so they didn't get to go through this so you think about how many generations back some people's family experienced the pandemic my grandmother did in past just before Co so yeah those are good examples my grandmother's entire life she saw as a child and yet never saw the co thing which I'm sure would have been a big thing so yeah it definitely impacted our industry some cons went away so we've lost some really good cons over over co uh and just you know people moving on to do different things different jobs Etc uh you know obviously

our industry is changing in that aspect a lot of us have gone remote I'm remote pretty much fulltime now and so yeah the con industry has changed a lot of cons that I used to present that are no longer there it's too bad some of them are fantastic cons and so the bsides events like Albuquerque you know Year One I will definitely be uh submitting every year cuz I will be a future resident of the state of New Mexico at some point and so yeah I definitely want to get to know the community here and and maybe help out with something down in Las Cruses and so you know I would expect everybody who who is a sponsor or

anybody else look at the bides because you literally can talk directly to the people that attend big confer like Defcon black hat unless you go to a booth you know which is what 10% of the total big conon will actually visit booths yeah so yeah you you get more interaction here I think I think it's more valuable to really see what's going on for for sponsors as well as people looking for jobs or learning or how do I get into infosec or how do I change from a sock to being an IR guy I really like it and so they can actually come up and talk to me that was the whole purpose of why bite started is get us Clos closer

to the speakers and a lot of people have good content that just don't seem to write good you know submissions don't get accepted the big cons this is the con for everybody else yeah so for some of the people that are watching this that aren't familiar with you that are new if you kind of explain your background an involvement with with bsides conferences yeah so Austin was one of the first five locations for bsides so Jack Daniel and I got together and and put on the second year of bides in a bigger venue expanded it uh I then took that over it was a two-day con so we always did a Friday Saturday uh conference it was a bit of a struggle

did we go Thursday Friday do we do you know Friday Saturday Etc we were associated with South by Southwest uh not with the conference that we were trying to be next to them because people were coming so therefore we could get more attendance that way and try to helped spread the bsides name and and watched it Grow from I think our first bsides was 16 30 people and you know now is well over a thousand um then Michelle Clinger and I got together because Texas is so big that we have regions within Texas for for sponsors and so Michelle Clinger and I and Cy Jones then David balkar for his one year in Houston said

okay we're going to do a conference a quarter and we created What's called the bze Texas enti and in order to allow the the sponsors to give us one chunk of money for all four conferences um and that that's how we were able to expand that conference and make it so big uh it was taken over uh in by Isaac in Dallas again Co interrupt I think his big time the school actually got torn down so I don't know what he's doing there haven't kept track um and San Antonio is still going on so adic nerd is running that with his group of people uh Fred and I are working on a project that's coming

out here shortly uh so yeah the bside stuff has introduced us to people that have continued um I ran it for about 7even years got turned over to uh Matt and Janice and so they're running it out of the UT um pickle Center and I think they went back for the first time in person this year so it's still continuing in a different slant and you know being able to to do that to the community um I was also the first besides to charge was $5 um but it had a lot of benefits so when you wonder why besides you know it's Community Driven venues cost money and so there is some charge that should occur and they also

want to make sure you guarantee it so there were some things that we learned in putting on the early bsides that Michelle was able to take back to the bsides entity in Vegas and you know educate people as well and so it was it was quite rewarding it's a lot of work um so please thank sponsors of events like this uh you don't understand it's a volunteer they don't get paid for it they might get some free swag may get taken out to lunch by a sponsor or whatever but uh really it's we're contributing the community right it takes a community to raise a security warri it's that simple yeah for anyone listening to that uh these conference is

are low free to low cost and usually if there's any charge just to cover any of the cost that maybe sponsors weren't able to you take some of these bigger cities like San Francisco it's kind of hard to come up with enough money to be able to fully sponsor that so same with Vegas yeah it's not cheap to you know rent a small hotels Conference Center but then it's a lot better than spending you know $200 $300 to go to a conference and one of the things I like about it too is it seems to be more friendly to the new people trying to break into the industry just the community of it compared some of these bigger

conferences you go into you're by yourself unless you know people there you're not really probably intentionally alienated but you know the bides conferences people are welcoming and bring people in it's a more comfortable environment so if you're someone new to the industry trying to break in you kind of need that you know Community Driven for sure and you know that's another important Point uh is the attendees right so if you're a student or military reach out to your local bsides event ask for free attendance ship I'm pretty sure almost all of them if not all of them will allow you to come we want students to come so if you're a student watching this at you UNM is that how you properly

say un UNM or uh New Mexico State down in Los crus uh you know reach out and say Hey I want to come if you're an instructor that has a computer science class or even an IT class please require your students to come give them some somewhere extion credit we do not see enough of college students coming uh that is needed I I can tell you as a person who interviews hir Ed for for incident response blue team stuff if you don't attend these things as a college student you have almost no chance of getting hired so there's a tip for the attendees who are looking at this going what's in it for me you might get hired

because you attended a bsides conference believe it or not yeah that networking piece is important for anyone starting out that's the easiest way to get a job because you have all these people you're competing against and if you go the general way of trying to to apply online your resume not ever be found but if you know someone you can get that resume to the hiring manager or meet the hiring manager your chances are a lot better and there's sometimes resume crafting some of the cons we had one I had uh uh one in Austin where we talked about what kinds of things are you seeing that are good on resumés what are things that are

bad and so we had one of those to try to help the young Community because again it was recorded sotic had it recorded so people were able to read it um but we've had resumé helping sessions in some of the cons I've seen that in some of the bides definitely some of the cons in Texas we've seen as well have these little workshops and you know again we're at a university so I bring that up because University guy says but I have no experience okay if you can give me a resume that shows here's my interest and you've attended these bsides events for one two three years in the course of your studies and have worked on the

special project outside of school that is a resume believe it or not so that's my encouragement there to do that and just for anyone just starting out too if you can if you can write a talk and present at a conference that that's a big help there we've had people in our local community like a recent College grade at he presented our Defcon group did a talk on malware analysis A hiring manager from City group was there asked for his resume and he got a job he kind of got like an inperson interview by presenting Yeah by presenting yeah I agree Rihanna I was real impressed colleague friend of mine that's downstairs uh friend of his that he used

to work with and you know she's young and you know I'm I'm we're older we're seasoned yeah and so to see some of these young people standing up we want you to submit to bides if you're an organizer and you see this person and we sometimes look him up cuzz we've never heard of you again we're not just about the names we look at the content we're like well let's take a look at it um you know put on there that you're a student put on there that your you know second year in infos because we want to help you that's the whole purpose of bides is the uncon is the ability to get people

who might have a really good subject that will never get selected for a big con to actually get and speak and you'll get mentors like myself I reached out to a couple I talked to Rihanna and I said hey you know think about this think about that um she doesn't not leading a lot of work and she's only 24 yeah it's amazing so yeah it's it's a great place to you know try it out try out see if you're even any good at it there's sometimes speed talks at these like we had those at bide fire talks uh speed talks whatever where there's you know five minutes pick a subject sort of like the uh the Defcon Community sometimes do

and they have those five or 10 Mill blurps as were required to by the Austin hacker haha group in Austin if you show you've got to speak so yeah it's a place to learn and test that and as far as like the volunteers that's a great effort for students to be able to network also you get credits in school sometimes for doing it uh in addition is I love to see that in resume volunteer to besides whatever that's the stuff I'm looking for because believe it or not our industry requires passion so if you don't have passion I need to see that that's that's that's the kind of people I want it's people that learn they're going to be

sponges and I want to train 10 people so when I retire I said there's 10 more than when I got in here cuz I think there were a handful of us when we we got started yeah my first conference was in San Jose the day in there were like 200 people that was the only security conference in California so I'm old it's one of the nice things about the B sites conference is seeing that grow just you know the past five years how the expansion has been pretty amazing yeah yeah and I know I know once you know the co role happens and people start up again you know like Albuquerque being the first year which is shocking um but

those of us who've done bsides reach out to them reach out to the main group and say hey I'm thinking about starting a bides I want to volunteer with besides I want to know more about it you reach out to the group you go to Security besides. Org U it is security bites.org my bad besides security Google it it'll get you there and and reach out to them and say Hey I want to talk about this that or other thing or you know can you put me in touch with the organizer besides Albuquerque is there one or lost crues is there anybody thinking about it if that's the case you can reach out to me

I know somebody here that's that lives in Los crues is thinking about doing it down there uh but yeah that's how you do that's how you do it and get involved volunteer it's good for your resume it's good for your college creds it's good for exposure it's good for confidence it's good for do I know something hey you me something to learn because I will give homework to people literally tell them hey you want to do blue team stuff I'm going to give you a great example you know go get cheat sheets go sign up for free humo or crowds log scale account apply those get the file beat log you know win log beat agents or Mac

agents and and and go to it and learn how to do that uh there's a side project you can do that will definitely impress a lot of first- timers will work in a sock that you've done that so yeah there's a lot of networking that occurs it's great for students yeah and on that same note anyone is looking for employees these are great places to recruit I've seen a lot of good companies take advantage of this they go to the bides maybe you're not selling a lot of product in certain categories but there's opportunity to recruit and I think people you know I really respect companies that support the bsides conferences the sponsorship so I think

that really goes a long way to show the community and the people out there you're trying to recruit that you care about cyber security and supporting these types of conferences yeah I know besid Texas enti we had several sponsors say they had more bang for their buck with our foron plan that we had for to sponsor the four plans uh so that way they can do one bucket of money and get all four of us and and even the ones that did the individual cons because they were locals and what not said they get more bang for the buck sponsoring bsides than they do spending 10 times more money in a big conference uh they

they find people to hire they find you know more active engage engagements they can get involved earlier because they meet the people that that are actually telling their bosses hey we we need to look into this and you know who's your boss Etc you get more time with them it's not just a big cluster of 5 10 15,000 people I don't know how big deon's gotten to now but yeah good luck finding somebody it's more like hey as you're passing him in the hallway cuz you you can't stop or wave of people just run you over the nice thing about the smaller conferences is easier to meet people and I think it's really good for people that are introverts it's it's

a lot easier to come to a bsides than go to you're not overwhelmed by just the sheer volum people that could be very overwhelming if you you know if you're introverted Y and believe it or not we will answer questions we're both speakers approach us we're approachable and we will share our knowledge that is whole purpose and as he mentioned mentoring most of us doing this is because we we're trying to support the community and support other people coming up and that's why we do it so always feel free to ask questions of anyone people out there they're doing this because they're wanting to help others uh uh we're all very approachable well we learned we we didn't have a lot

of these resources we had to literally you know accidentally run into them in the hallway at some conference say can I send you an email and talk to you about something and now it's much easier with besid you literally can walk the speaker afterwards ask a question you know hey can I get some advice from you I don't think any speaker will tell you no no yeah if they do they just really really really really really busy or really shy themselves but most cases and that's one of the things definitely about being back in person is the interaction with people because online you know through Discord or slack you really didn't get that much interaction but it's amazing when you

get in person how different that is and a good example uh was kind of like at some of the I conferences I was working for a vendor we were doing some demo sessions online never got questions no interaction the first time we went in person you got all sorts of interaction yep that's how I actually met some of your guys and we did a test oh cool so yeah yeah that's wild was acing F that's I met your folks so yeah the the interaction of in person or virtuals definitely there what do you guys think specifically of the Albuquerque besides this first one that we've had this year I I put on seven so I've been doing this

a while I I'm retired I haven't done one in probably five years but uh I did not think I'm shocked that this is your first one nothing indicates first con here the venue is great that's always B you have a really good venue it makes it so much easier for us planners and organizers but the front desk organization the volunteers you had the screen the platform the you know everything was not a first year kind of experience so fantastic and I applaud you guys for how good a job you did because uh and doing not just did but doing because you're going to continue this um yeah great job and I've already talked to some of your folks as well and

shared my insights that I even told them I'm shocked this is the first year I did not know this was the first year any other things anything that we could do better for next year extra large shirts I'm tall I cannot wear large it's not girth it's l if I go like this and it's yeah um better is subjective right everybody has their own opinion um I'm a blue teamer and so I you know he works for a company that makes red team software uh so our opinions of what a con should be are much different I I do see a lot of cons that don't have context to the application of the attendee meaning is

this a blue talk is this a red talk and I did talk to your folks about this too um a lot of cons don't have a criteria of let's label it is this a blue talk is it a red talk is it a purple talk or other because there's a lot of categories are just others like there's a you know mental health talk that occurred in some of our events you know it's another scenario um a resume enhancement event whatever like I had besides Austin there's the other category and try to address both parties cuz remember most of the jobs are in the blue side and so you want to make sure you have a balance and I I think that's

probably a fla not I see across a lot of cons and as a blue teamer who's trying to educate more blue teamers it should stick out that it's a blue talk or red talk label it um for the attendees it might help the people evaluating the cons as well as you build the teams that evaluate to make sure you have the diversity across there as well because again me if I'm evaluting blue talks I'm going to lean towards blue talks so I'm going to have four or five stars in those if they're any good and I'll have two or three stars in a red he's going to be the opposite um so it might help

you at least say okay you know Mike you gave this red talk a three well yeah I can see a lot of blue perspective here so there's a potential for asking question so let's label it and then uh because again if you're doing holcon which a lot of us do we were just doing it earlier as before this that you can then not attend a talk that just has no interest to you and go out and find the speaker and have the conversation so I think it helps the attendees so I would like to see more that but it's not not your guys it's it's across the board yeah like I Hado his comments on

firsttime conference I've seen some conferences that ran for a while that wasn't as well set up and run like the stages cuz some of the stages are are are you know pretty basic and just having the elevated platform that's easier for the audience to see you don't have to worry about trying to look over someone's shoulder uh you're able to hear well because there's been some conferences I've been to that some of the venues they've been in the Acoustics weren't good and you really couldn't hear I experienced that at a conference last year there's a lot of complaint around that so all that plus also that it's a large enough space because you get into some some of the conferences

that some of the rooms are kind of tight so there's plenty of space for people that makes more comfortable for introverts as well people are still Co shy um you know it's still a real concern so it's nice that you have space there um I did mention something about the 30 minute talk um all con should consider changing the format to something more than 30 minutes I know Sans was a big starter of that but uh some again bides can go into detail so let's let's look at having options for a speaker to pick how long they want their talk for um you know you guys have training rooms how about training yeah that was the thing that

we're planning on doing I will volunteer for a m Discovery class copy copy there's materials so you have to charge for those uh any final thoughts cuz I know you have a panel discussion in a few minutes so I was just wondering if you guys have any final thoughts anything else you would like thank you for taking this on and creating it in New Mexico being a to be moving here I'll have some cons locally I won't have to drive all the way back to Texas cuz it's a long way so yeah thank you for that it' be a lot closer for me to go cus gone now too but yeah thank you for that I applaud all the the

sponsors the volunteers the organizers planners and I'm here for any advice being a long termer and so thank you for that put the effort on just like to to thank you guys to offering this to New Mexico although I'm not a citizen as the overall cyber security landscape we need the skills and the talent and being in a town where you've got a university there's a good pool that you can bring people in from so just giving people that opportunity because where I understand there's not a security uh Community here so hopefully that can help build security conference University in lasas there's this University there's a lot of research around here there is some tall buildings

downtown there's you know clearly could be a community yes it's a matter of of building it besides helps that CU it brings people they start to talk and next thing you know something else occurs and happens magic happens yeah so kudos for that great first probably the best first year I've ever seen damn okay okay that's high price I've been a lot it's either High pra you cheated because you got a really good Vue that's true that's true that's true that's on us heck yeah well thank you guys so so much and yeah I I think that's I got more than enough content I think I'm chilling heck yeah