Rational Survivability

Yo!  BeanSec! is once again upon us.  Wednesday, August 15th, 2007.

BeanSec! is an informal meetup of information security
professionals, researchers and academics in the Greater Boston area
that meets the third Wednesday of each month. 

I say again, BeanSec! is hosted the third Wednesday of every month.  Add it to your calendar.

Come get your grub on.  Lots of good people show up.  Really.

Unlike other meetings, you will not be expected to pay dues, “join
up”, present a zero-day exploit, or defend your dissertation to attend.
Map to the Enormous Room in Cambridge. 

Enormous Room: 567 Mass Ave, Cambridge 02139.  Look for the Elephant
on the left door next to the Central Kitchen entrance.  Come upstairs.
We sit on the left hand side…

Don’t worry about being "late" because most people just show up when they can.  6:30 is a good time to aim for.  We’ll try and save you a seat.  There is a parking garage across the street and 1 block down or you can try the streets (or take the T)

In case you’re wondering, we’re getting about 30-40 people on average per BeanSec!  Weld, 0Day and I have been at this for just over a year and without actually *doing* anything, it’s turned out swell.

We’ve had some really interesting people of note attend lately (I’m not going to tell you who…you’ll just have to come and find out.)  At around 9:00pm or so, the DJ shows up…as do the rather nice looking people from the Cambridge area, so if that’s your scene, you can geek out first and then get your thang on.

The food selection is basically high-end finger-food appetizers and the drinks are really good; an attentive staff and eclectic clientèle make the joint fun for people watching.  I’ll generally annoy you into participating somehow, even if it’s just fetching napkins. 😉

See you there.

/Hoff

Yo!  BeanSec! 11 is upon us.  Wednesday, July 18th, 2007.

BeanSec! is an informal meetup of information security
professionals, researchers and academics in the Greater Boston area
that meets the third Wednesday of each month.

Come get your grub on.  Lots of good people show up.  Really.

Unlike other meetings, you will not be expected to pay dues, “join
up”, present a zero-day exploit, or defend your dissertation to attend.
Map to the Enormous Room in Cambridge.

Enormous Room: 567 Mass Ave, Cambridge 02139

Yo!  BeanSec! 10 is upon us.

BeanSec! is an informal meetup of information security
professionals, researchers and academics in the Greater Boston area
that meets the third Wednesday of each month.

Come get your grub on.  Lots of good people show up.  Really.

Unlike other meetings, you will not be expected to pay dues, “join
up”, present a zero-day exploit, or defend your dissertation to attend.
Map to the Enormous Room in Cambridge.

Enormous Room: 567 Mass Ave, Cambridge 02139

ALERT!:  I Apologize as once again I have will not be able to attend.  I am traveling tomorrow and won’t  be able to make it.  If you’re looking for free food/booze like when I’m there…um, well…
next time? ;(

Yo!  BeanSec! 9 is upon us.

BeanSec! is an informal meetup of information security professionals, researchers and academics in the Greater Boston area that meets the third Wednesday of each month.  When I’m able to attend (and that’s most of the time) I buy the booze and appetizers.  It’s how we roll.

Come get your grub on.  Lots of good people show up.  Really.

Unlike other meetings, you will not be expected to pay dues, “join up”, present a zero-day exploit, or defend your dissertation to attend.
Map to the Enormous Room in Cambridge.

Enormous Room: 567 Mass Ave, Cambridge 02139

It’s not the sordid tale of lust, information security and circus midgets you might have been expecting from the title, but instead the highlights of a couple of evenings spent entertaining a wayward analyst soul from Phoenix.

Rich Mogull, Gartner analyst and data protection mercenary, was in town for a couple of evenings, and I played cruise ship entertainment director.  It’s what I do.  If a fellow blogger or security wonk comes to my town, has a few minutes to spare, it’s my self-appointed duty to make damned sure they have a good time.

I’m all about the full disclosure.  It’s how we roll. 

As Rich so kindly nominated me for "Best Host for Security Geeks in Boston" I must suggest that he plays the role of visiting team quite well.  Damned good head on his shoulders, fun dude to talk with and listen to, and should you ever need saving on the side of a snow-covered mountain, it seems that he’s all you’ll ever need.

We had a great dinner at the Naked Fish (which incidentally has nothing to do with my tattoos,) and then ended up closing that down in favor of the hotel bar in Bedford in which we most certainly were the worst dressed amongst the crowd.  We executed on the wild tech. guy role very well using every free napkin in the house to scribble the solutions to every known security problem currently defined.

I called Shimmy because whilst late, I suggested I could do his podcast drunk with Rich adding beatbox sound effects in the background.  Alan listened to me ramble for 10 minutes before he asked "Who the hell is this!?"

The next night we hit BeanSec! and hooked up with Mike Murray, 78% of Veracode’s employees (except for Wysopal who is now finally too l33t to hang with us) and 46% of Crossbeam’s staff.

I tried for an analyst trifecta:

Jaquith was invited but he was in Utah gettin’ all Mormon’d up.  Rothman was, well, not there because BeanSec! is not pragmatic enough.  Stiennon was busy securing the network fabric of the entire nation state of Haiti and nobody @ IDC would answer my calls.  Ah well.

Despite that, a good time was had by all.

Good seeing you, Rich.  Come back sometime…as soon as you add me to your BlogRoll, that is. 😉

/Hoff

(P.S. Just to be clear, a "Grassy Knee" is one of the specialty drinks at the Enormous Room in Cambridge where we hold BeanSec!  along with the "Bad Babysitter" and "God in Little Pieces."  Any other imaginative definition is your own fault, you perv.  That is all.)

Yo!  BeanSec! 7 is upon us.

BeanSec! is an informal meetup of information security professionals, researchers
and academics in the Greater Boston area. Unlike other meetings, you
will not be expected to pay dues, “join up”, present a zero-day
exploit, or defend your dissertation to attend.

Map to the Enormous Room in Cambridge. 

Enormous Room: 567 Mass Ave, Cambridge 02139

BeanSec! #2 is scheduled for Wednesday, September 27th:

An informal meetup of information security professionals and academics
in the Cambridge/Boston area. Unlike other meetings, you will not be
expected to pay dues, “join up”, present a zero-day exploit, or defend
your dissertation to attend.

The location is the Enormous Room (map) in Cambridge.   I believe we’re going to start @ 6PM again.

Please subscribe to the BeanSec! Mailing list.

Chris

In the fine tradition started by the boys over @ Matasano, Oliver Day and I (well, Oliver did all the work) as well as Chris Wysopal have conspired to bring you BeanSec! 1.  The event is detailed here, but the relevant description is as follows:

An informal meetup of information security professionals and academics
in the Cambridge/Boston area. Unlike other meetings, you will not be
expected to pay dues, “join up”, present a zero-day exploit, or defend
your dissertation to attend. (… but Oliver, my dissertation rules!)

The location is the Enormous Room (map) in Cambridge.  6PM.

Unfortunately, I have to go out of town so I cannot attend, but I know Oliver has picked a kick-ass place and the event should be great for those in the Boston area!

Be(an) there or be…well, attending an ISSA event instead, I guess…