Infosec conferences/talks redux

Don’t mind me, just poking my head in here to make sure the cobwebs haven’t taken over this place yet 😛
So yes – I’m going to be blogging waaay less then before because of, well, life? But I recently saw a post from Daniel Meissler who discussed how (in)effective are modern security talks at conferences are.
He’s bringing up a couple of great points, and talks about what a good talk in his mind would be. Figured I’d share my 2c on this based on a couple of conferences and talks I’ve been to and delivered.

So, neither approach is useful IMHO (i.e. essay, nor entertainment).
A Dan Geer style essay-reading has zero added value for the participants. Go read it yourself in your own pace and you’ll be better equipped to take something from it.

A handwaving “look at my marketing schtick” presentation has no value without any insights to the thought process behind it. Neither is a talk focused solely on the entertainment value. Even if it seems to veil itself as “but through which you’ll get awareness/education”. Especially if it’s mostly self-serving and designed to make you look good. Go away.

Slides that are visually appealing (cat pics), but that support the narrative of what the speaker is saying would be the best experience for me personally (given that there is actual content, and not just the same regurgitated BS that a lot of talks “innovate/research” with).

So, first – get something new in place.

Ok – go and google that shit. Double time. Because most of what’s been out there recently – from “unveiling” cyber criminal tools and forums, to “new” ways to avoid data exfiltration mitigations, is OLD FUCKING NEWS. You are supposed to be this OSINT Google-foo master. Prove it by not embarrassing yourself with a re-branding of old research.

Now, realizing that you may have no idea how to present this new thing, do two things:

  1. Write a paper that describes said new thing. Keep it fairly academic or white-paper style. This is the “essay” style you keep hearing about. DO NOT TRY TO PRESENT IT. It’ll be boring as fuck, and people will go into hibernation in the crowd.
  2. Start writing the story of how you found said new thing. Take note of the following:
    1. Why did you go out to invent/find said new thing? What was the motivation? What gap does this fill?
    2. How did you go about researching and finding the new thing? What challenges did you face doing so? What didn’t work through your process (much more interesting and relevant than what did work)?
    3. How do you use this new thing? How can I use it (assuming I don’t have to sell a kidney to do so. If so, pass this along to your marketing guys so they can get ready for RSA)?
    4. Show relevant data on how this new thing improved your life (professional life included). Show the situation before, and after new thing was applied. Data is cool, and you can’t argue with it (as opposed to “hey, look at me doing this thing one time with no context and no goal and how badass I am”).
    5. Give credit. Understanding that you are probably not alone researching new thing in complete void – give some props to the people/projects who have inspired you, helped you move along your research, or have done similar things, and you have build on their things to get to your new thing. (i.e. don’t be an asshole).
  3. Take this story now, and tell it. This is your talk. Find visuals that support the narrative of this story. These don’t have to be the text verbatim of what you are saying (please, for the love of god, stop it with the bullet wars). They can be cat pictures, then can be graphs, or funny graphics. Make sure there’s some context between your slides and your story narrative.
  4. Practice going through your talk and telling your story. After a couple of tries, try turning off the slides. Can you still make it work? Do you keep trying to read out from the slides (of course not, because they should only have minimal text on them).
  5. Go talk. It’s going to be great. You are going to stumble on your words sometimes, utter an “Ummm”, and an “Ahhh” from time to time. Nobody really cares. Because they are listening to your story, which is awesome, and interesting, and not reading out of your slides before you can recite them.
    1. (oh, and of course – don’t memorize the thing. You need to be able to tell that story again and again, and never sound the same. Otherwise you could have just sent a pre-recorded and edited copy of you doing this).

I guess it’s easier to say this from where I’m standing (here’s my bias declaration: I’ve done this many times, including bad presentations, and am about to deliver my last talks by the end of the month). But trust me – do yourself a favor and think about what you’d want to see/hear at a conference. It’s that simple. Don’t think about some “rock star” researcher and look up their presentation (they might suck at public speaking), just put yourself in the crowd and think “this is what would have worked for me if I’d want to learn about something”.


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