Recently, during the Q&A at a local event, I was asked by a member of audience how a non-technical person can stay up to date on breech events which might affect them. This was a great question given the rise in high profile breaches that are affecting not just large corporate entities, but everyday consumers as well. Everyone should be taking not just an interest in security related news, but also taking an active role in maintaining the safety of their data.
And therein lies the rub. I have never committed a line of code to an open source project - despite my ongoing efforts, I am not yet a programmer. Because I cannot point to a code repository and say “I did that. I contributed”, I don’t feel a part of the mythical monolithic open source community, or part of any smaller open source community.
I’m new to being a speaker. It’s exciting and a little surreal. I’ve had so many good, nay great, experiences that I’m hesitant to mention the negative experiences. Because, really - there haven’t been many at all. Perhaps more often, I’ve just wished that things were... better. And they can be! So, in the spirit of constructive criticism, I’d like to talk about the things that I, as a speaker who is also a member of a minority group within my field, would like to see on conference websites, Call For Proposal(CFP) landing pages and CFP forms.
For me, PyConAu was a phenomenal mix of travel, new faces, frazzled nerves and fun! I had a wonderful time and learned a lot of truly interesting things.
The first of which is that the Python community is super welcoming, even to someone from the other side of the world who has only touched their toes into the great Python waters!
This was my first conference as a speaker - I was convinced to submit a proposal off the recommendation of a friend, @vmbrasseur. I arrived Tuesday morning a big ball of nerves.
Violence is a complicated topic. For most people, it’s spoken about in terms of physical aggression - the use (or threat thereof) of force. However, the philosopher Slavoj Zizek also acknowledges “objective” violence - with no clear perpetrator, which is often widespread. Violence isn’t just force - at its most basic, it’s the removal of agency. In this post, I’d like to explore this broadening of the concept of violence and how it pertains to the United State’s culture of surveillance, as enacted by the NSA. More so, how that surveillance acts to remove the agency of the citizens it claims to protect.
I will be delivering my talk, Security Starts with You: Social Engineering, at 2:30 on the 22nd of June.
There will be a lot of talented individuals delivering some really interesting talks during the conference.
