In security, we tend to focus on the big events like the DefCons and BlackHats of the worlds. However, not everyone can afford the air fairs, Las Vegas hotel room bills and a week off work. Globally there is another set of conferences … much lower cost entry and local to you. This movement is called BSides … there is a fantastic history behind this event and I’d encourage you to go and read about it.
On a foggy Friday in the North of England, being picked up at 7am by @AppSecBloke and @Andrew_Ward77 it was an hour trek Eastwards to the strange land of Yorkshire and more importantly to the Land of Leeds.
This BSides has @LargeCardinal at the helm and a fabulous goon crew and there was no @ministraitor … I appreciate that probably needs some explaining!
y’Who da what?
In reverse order … At these events each talk is recorded and uploaded to Youtube. One dedicated member of our community (Cooper alias @Ministraitor) has a load of camera gear, cabling, microphones, computers .. pretty much an entire TV company in boxes. He then sets up all the rooms being used, trains up a set of helpers who then man the cameras all day. Understandably with our incredibly busy infosec calendar of events, Coops cannot be everywhere at once and so this year he is trying to set up a set of remote rigs that can be called on to video these conferences for us.
So my plea is
Toss a coin to your Cooper
Oh hackers of BSides
Next comes that term goons – I appreciate it probably sounds like an insult that you’d throw out. Actually a BSides Goon is a proud position to be and there is no insult at all. A BSides Goon is a helper, there to police, direct, help, hold …you get the idea. BSides Leeds has a fantastic set of Goons and are all really helpful and supportive. Massive thank you to that team.
Last but not least is Mark alias @LargeCardinal and once heard (especially singing), you’ll understand the large part of that title! Man that guy does not need a microphone!
The format of this BSides was Opening Talk by Mark, coffee, talks, lunch, talks, coffee, closing talk, beer – sounds like a good day out!!
Why should I go to BSides Leeds?
I think the biggest thing is definitely the attendees. This is not the kind of conference where you go and see the same old faces. You will always meet someone new.
Secondly, they also focus on mental health a lot. So if you are a bit worried about attending your first conference, have issues, there is space for you to go to and people to talk to and having that support there is great.
Lastly, it is so well organised. You can feel it. It feels like everything has been planned to the n’th degree and so you can attend without any drama.
What is there to do
Between a set of fabulous talks split over 3 rooms, there was als Car hacking, Career hacking, Mental Health, Workshops … plus just generally sat chatting with people in the open areas. What’s not to love about that for a line-up!
Notable Speakers
There were three speakers for me that really shone out from the excellent schedule.
Dan Cuthbert – Keynote
He for me articulated well the way that technology is becoming weaponised by the adversary. You have a Security Tool, the malicious criminal uses it to probe potential victims and so on. This really struck a chord when he talked about NSO Group and their actions. Fascinating stuff. Look it up on the Youtube account for BSides Leeds when it comes out.
Glenn Pegden – Hacker Stories
What a great premise … so much happened in 90s hacking but we were too busy having fun etc, that we never really documented this quite important part of hacker history and it needs documenting before they get lost the memory banks. BBS bulletin boards, 2600 Meetups, Gerald instrument set-top hacking, HackHull and a post talk chat about Blobby Disks.
Andy Gill – Car Hacking
This was an inpromptu, unplanned talk by Andy about what he had done to his car (apart from bricking it at least 8 times and breaking bits). I got to learn a lot about the simple things we can all do to our cars legally to actually make them better:
- Brakes
- Wheels
- ECU
Love Andy’s talks anyway, always very genuine and spoken like a true hacker.
The After Party
Unfortunately this year I missed the after party which I was pretty gutted about but my consolation was spending another hour in the car with @AppSecbloke which I think is a fair swap to be fair!
Was it worth it?
I ask this after any event. It was a pretty big distraction of a day and being on a Friday took a bit of juggling with holidays and workloads.. so from a return on investment perspective it has to balance otherwise there’s no point in going.
I learned a lot and made some good connections as well as having a good chill out with some old friends and that definitely makes it worthwhile for me.
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