It’s October – Progress Report

So far you’ve probably seen SCMunk’s work through the blog posts and his fun ideas for the EDC bag.

This is my first update to the blog.  I’m Kevin (ADubiousDude).

Over the last few months we’ve engaged volunteers, sponsors, and presenters through various venues and found support in thoughts, planning, work, funds, goodies for our attendees.  We’ve found partners (The EdneyDC423, ISSA) who are local and some who are international.  Most have been new to us … and that’s the idea of BSides.  The point is to build the infosec community away from the commercial; in comfort and candor, where we can relax and share.

The topics you, the community, are offering to share with each other cover red and blue; appsec, phishing, and IoT.  You’ve offered to share your knowledge and experience (and we trust you’ve gotten your organization’s approval) to speak to things you know about incidents and encryption.  We even have a future-vision presentation geared to machine learning in cyber security.

We have sponsors (Hacker Arsenal) providing fun hacking gadgets for giveaways, another (FoxPick) will bring hardware to show you physical security and even another who is going to supply for our lunch!  Chris Sanders is partnering with us to provide a great way to give back to the community through the Rural Technology Fund.  We have more who are working with us on the details of other giveaway goodness for our attendees.  We will have a placement partner on-site to help you if you are just wanting to get into cyber security as a career move.

In short, we’ve made a lot of moves, out of sight, that we are starting to announce.

Our goal remains to setup a solid foundation for you to connect with other infosec professionals around the Chattanooga area.  We’re bringing BSides’ format, the presenters are committing to bringing the content, the sponsors are already shipping stuff in and providing funds to make BSides Chattanooga a great place.  Now what we’re looking for is you to spend a few hours next March and take a chance on meeting some new people in our area.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow, Sunday, October 1st.  We know it’s several months away so you have time to make plans.  We’re scheduled so you can enjoy our nearby partner cons, BSides Nashville and BSides Knoxville.