The laziest talk I've ever done.

Tonight, when this post goes live, I'll be presenting my laziest talk ever. It is entitled "Security horror stories". I can't share any of the content, but I can share how it came to be.

DC151 (@_dc151 on X) meets in Leeds and try to attend when I can. One night I was having a chat with Ollie ( @grimhacker ) about a penetration test I'd organised but had gone wrong. Not an uncommon occurrence. Half way through I was thinking this would be a good topic for a talk.

So, my next problem... I have a few stories but there are reasons I can't talk about all of them. Some may affect my employer, some may affect other companies. Some may even be under NDA. Also, I didn't really have that many stories to tell. So, I needed a way to tell these stories anonymously in the pub. Fortunately, DC151 has Chatham house rules, so I can talk freely. The talk won't be recorded and never repeated. It is essentially a one off fire side chat in a pub.

The only other issue to sort was getting more stories. How can I collect more than just my own? Enter Fesshole (@fesshole).

Fesshole uses a form to collect submissions anonymously and then reposts them to X / twitter. Simple enough, and I have done the same. All I then needed to do was publicise it and wait. And in came those stories....

In addition, I'm going to dress up as the devil for this. I remember "tales from the crypt" and thought that would be quite cool as a style. October does end with Halloween, after all.

In addition to being my laziest talk, it's now spawned my laziest blog ever too :)

About the author

Tim Wilkes is a UK-based security architect with over 15 years of experience in electronics, Linux, and Unix systems administration. Since 2021, he's been designing secure systems for a telecom company while indulging his passions for programming, automation, and 3D printing. Tim shares his projects, tinkering adventures, and tech insights here - partly as a personal log, and partly in the hopes that others will find them useful.

Want to connect or follow along?

LinkedIn: [phpsytems]
Twitter / X: [@timmehwimmy]
Mastodon: [@timmehwimmy@infosec.exchange]


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