InnoTech Austin 2026

I checked out a book of essays by Kurt Vonnegut from my local library. Speaking at college graduation ceremonies through the 1990s, Kurt Vonnegut said that you need about fifty people in your life, not “electronic ghosts” but real people. So, I had an additional reason to attend InnoTech Austin. I had not been to an InnoTech conference in too many years. (See “Previously” below.) Celebrating the start of its third decade, this year’s convention was for computer security professionals. I had a great time meeting people and their companies, and talking with them about their products and services. 

This year’s host was The HT Group, a recruiting,
staffing, and management consulting agency.
They had three tables. 

"In one focused day, Austin InnoTech creates an environment where education, innovation, peer-to-peer networking, and the latest technology and business solutions are all available specifically for IT & security professionals."

Entering the hall, the first people I met were Hannah Webster
and Will Arnett from Alias Digital Forensics.

Among the team sent by Genius Road of Dallas was
Associate Account Manager, Catherine Diaz.

To encourage circulation, there was a “Passport” game.
Completed itineraries were dropped into box from which
randomly selected winners were dawn.

Loren Woeber, VP at WiCyS: Women in Cyber Security
greeted many interested visitors.

Diane Kenyon and Jazmen Wright from 
Austin Women in Technology
 staffed a table at the Entrance. 

Red Hat was a major sponsor.
They handed out red leis that were popular. 

They say, "Apex sits at the center
of retail investing infrastructure,
supporting millions of accounts across hundreds of clients.
We see what investors buy, sell, and hold—in real time,
across four generational cohorts." Apex FinTech Solutions
cites $265 Billion in assets under custody,
over 40 million brokerage accounts plus another
119 million cost-based accounts. 

There was a lot of active listening.

Contrary to the assertion of Google's AI Overview, the 
conference was held at the PALMER EVENT CENTER at
Barton Springs Road and Riverside Drive.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

InnoTech Austin 2015  

BSides Austin 2023 

Austin Astro Public Star Party

ArmadilloCon 47 Part 3 

(ISC)^2 Holiday Dinner 2018 

(ISC)^2 Holiday Dinner 2018

Indeed hosted this year's holiday party for the Austin chapter of (ISC)^2. About 50 people attended and enjoyed a surprising German menu with sausages, sauerkraut, potato pancakes, and chocolate tort.

The computer security community here in Austin centers on OWASP, the Open Web Application Security Project. They host two conferences a year, BSides and LASCON. For over five years they have held weekly lunchtime study cells in space provided by National Instruments. With OWASP, the key word is "open." I am a member of OWASP and I am a technical writer. I volunteer to work the conventions and have even presented. But I hold no certifications in computer security. These people do. The CISSP certification from (ISC)^2 is the gold standard of competence in information security.

The International Information Systems Security
Certification Consortium
https://www.isc2.org/Certifications

Austin boasts one of the largest computer security communities in the world. Fortune 500 companies and multinational corporations that are headquartered elsewhere put their IT departments in Austin.  The US Army Futures Command is here. But as large as it is, the infosec crowd is just another village and pretty soon everyone knows everyone. Parties like these are how we exchange cultural knowledge.

In addition to those large enterprises and governmental organizations, we have no shortage of start-ups. People here solve problems by advancing ideas, building technologies, and delivering solutions.

Austin has three epicenters of information technology: the north side, the hill country, and downtown. Downtown includes both the Congress Avenue corridor and the University of Texas.  The hill country runs west and north off the 360 and Farm to Market 2222 at the iconic Pennybacker Bridge. The north side, north of old Tech Ridge is where you find Dell, HP, GM, and many others. But tech is everywhere here. AMD is on Southwest Parkway. Freescale just moved from there to the Airport area where you can find competing server farms.

Indeed also hosted the launch of the Austin Security Alliance. Over a dozen groups sent representatives to create an ecosystem that will respond, adapt, grow, replicate. and evolve solutions to information security. It goes beyond mere firewalls, important as they are. The technology of trust is how we all sign a hundred contracts a day without even thinking about it. Every time you swipe a card, every time you log in, every time you visit a page, you authenticate by swapping secure tokens.

The most revealing facts were the ones not mentioned. For all of the vulnerability scans, red team - blue team, packet sniffing, threat assessments, responses and remediations, I never heard anyone actually say what they did. The tech talk was fairly abstract. There were no war stories. They did talk about other people's problems because huge data breaches are always in the news.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
READABILITY IS THE ONLY METRIC
AUSTIN B-SIDES 2016
LASCON 2014
CHARLES BABBAGE: CODE BREAKER

Austin Security Alliance

On Monday, December 11, 2017, members of 14 computer security organizations met at Indeed headquarters to launch the Austin Security Alliance. ISSA's president, Larry Moore, was the tip of the spear: this was his idea. But very many people were involved because they saw the wisdom in the project. With 20,000 to 30,000 professionals employed in computer security, Austin intends to be declared the Computer Security Capital of America.

DON'T PANIC was the cover band: classic 50s to urban.

As Larry and a dozen other organization officers and leaders explained in the opening presentation, the purpose of the ASA is to enable and facilitate cooperation across specialties. ASA maintains no membership of its own  and collects no dues. My perception is that it works. I should have intuited but did not know that we have a local ASIS chapter. It was nice to meet them. I was a national member for two years. Now, I have a reason to renew.

ASA MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

• ASIS International
• Association of Continuity Professionals – Capital of Texas Chapter
• Austin Hackers Anonymous (AHA!)
• Cloud Security Alliance – Austin Chapter
• Electronic Frontier Foundation – Austin
• Hackformers
• Infragard
• Information Systems Audit & Control Association (ISACA)
• International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC)² – Austin Chapter
• Information Systems & Security Association (ISSA) – Capitol of Texas Chapter
• Longhorn Lockpicking Club
• Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)
• Secure Austin
• Texas CISO Council

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
TDEM 2017
BSIDES Austin 2016
InnoTech 2015
LASCON 2014
BSides Austin 2013
Securing Your Viper Against Cylons

BSides Austin 2016

The seventh annual BSides Austin computer security conference ran March 31-April 1, 2016. I served as a Host for breakout sessions, introducing speakers, and keeping track of time. It was an overflow crowd of 350 with 150 turned away at the door, or denied a slot on the wait list. In addition, several student groups could not be accommodated at all. 

 

Breakfast with the Sponsors.

We had two tracks on Thursday and three on Friday. You can find the full schedule on the conference website here.  Many of the sessions were easy to label. “I am a Software Developer. What do you mean I’m on the Blue Team?” by Aaron Poffenberger was clearly for the Blue Team. “It’s not About the Technology. It is About the Psychology” by Dr. Hend Ezzeddine and Flora Moon was easy to label for Social Engineering.

 

32 Formal Technical Sessions
The first night also included open mike
"Fire Marshall Talks"

But many others crossed several lines on the corporate org chart, and the sessions were not narrowly defined. You had to pick your presentations. That said, all of the hands-on workshops were held in the same room on the same day.

 

Rapper "Dual Core"

Each track had a Host and a room Monitor.  The monitors counted the room three times (beginning, middle, end) and interfaced with the hotel staff when needed.

 

Waiting for the Keynote by Ed Skoudis from SANS.

The convention would have cost ten times as much to attend were it not for the sponsors. 

Digital Defense, Rapid 7, SANS, and Splunk were gold sponsors this year. 

The silver sponsors were RSA, Log-MD, ISSA, Pluralsight, Checkmarx,
Anomali, and Netskope.

The five core sponsors were Velocitystorm, Expressworks,
Fusion-X (thanks for the beer!),
No Starch Press, and Pentester Academy.

As a technical writer, my interests are more general. I am seldom held accountable for information security, except as we all are. These were among my take-aways:

• The best lockpicking tools for the money are the Sparrow Tuxedo ($40) and the Tremendous Twelve by Toools from Southern Specialties ($30). 
• The best locks are biaxials from Medeco and the Schlage Primus. You can spend $75 for one of these and secure your servers, or you can buy a dozen others at $5.95 each and let us all have access to your servers.
• For a knowledge worker your credibility is your product. 
• The highest priorities for information security should be Asset and Inventory Management, Decision and Remediation Workflows, and Visualization and Metrics. The lowest priorities are vulnerability assessment and scanning, penetration testing, and buying cool tools. 
• Work the OWASP Top Ten vulnerabilities. 
• Amateurs target systems. Professionals target people. 
• Security will not be accepted until and unless IT is made personal: it is you in your home who will be violated by your release of company information at work.

Basic security

They call it “BSides” in honor of the old rock ‘n’ roll 45 rpm single releases of the 1950s and 60s. The producer picked a hit for Side A and put something else (usually mediocre) on Side B. Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel” was an exception. The Beatles releases were all exceptions.

Presentations crossed organization lines

The concept began in the US in 2009 with Mike Dahn, Jack Daniel, and some others because the CFP [Capture the Flag: computer intrusion challenge – MEM] for Black Hat Vegas or DEF CON was oversubscribed and those unable to present decided to hold their own conference on the 'b side'. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSides

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Brian Krebs’ Spam Nation  

Your Cell Phone is Not Safe 

BSides Austin 2015 

LASCON: The Lonestar Application Security Conference 2014 

BSides Austin 2013 

Locksporting 

InnoTech 2015

On Thursday, October 8, I spent the morning at the 13th annual InnoTech computer security conference. Seventy-nine vendors filled the floor. I only had time to meet a fraction of them. My tour was facilitated by a "passport" sheet that listed ten sponsors. Track them down, get them to sign their square, and drop the completed form in a box for a drawing.  It was "must be present to win" but I did not stay for that. I met some friends, colleagues from OWASP, and recruiters who sponsor our happy hours.

"Technology Navigators is a technical staffing firm,
specialized in recruiting skilled individuals
for project-oriented consulting and contract positions.
We’ve been firmly rooted in the Austin technology community since 1999,
and have been providing companies that
develop, build, and use technology
with the people they need to grow their business for over 15 years."

"Knight Security Systems has built its reputation over three decades
as one of the country’s leading providers of security system solutions.
With over 4,000 systems since 1983, Knight Security Systems has assisted
our customers in reducing internal and external, loss, legal liability,
employee liability, increasing productivity, safety compliance,
customer satisfaction and bottom line profits."

"Headspring is much more than a provider of
enterprise software strategy and development ...
We are motivated by our daily opportunity
to create a real impact in the world,
and to enable our employees, our clients
and our community
to achieve beyond their perceived potential."

"Bridgepoint Consulting provides
management consulting services
that help organizations optimize financial operations
and information technology
while mitigating organizational risks.
Whether a company needs assistance with strategy,
process improvement,
technology or regulatory compliance—
or simply has resource gaps,
our team of professionals deliver measurable results."

"By partnering with our customers,
Future Com [www.myfuturecom.com]
can give them a competitive advantage
in terms of everything from implementation times
and resources required during deployments
to lowering the total cost of ownership
of technology and solutions as a whole."

PC Magazine Best Antivirus Software 2015.
Available for Macintosh.
Enterprise solutions also available.
"Bitdefender protects its users’ privacy,
as well as the as their devices.
Our award-winning security technologies protect against
all cyber-threats today,
from annoying adware
to dangerous malware
that infiltrates to steal data, intercept online payments,
spy, or hold your information for ransom."

"M-Files is document management the way it should be:
simple to install and learn, reliable, powerful and secure –
without breaking your budget.
Improve workflow, increase information reuse, eliminate redundancy,
securely control content, and avoid conflicts and data loss –
all in a single document management solution
that integrates with Windows Explorer."

"Everything transacts on the wire: 

from raw packets to the payloads of all application transactions. 

Wire data is a deep and rich source that contains 

every conversation occurring on the network. 

Wire data provides an objective, "outside-looking-in" view 

across the entire application delivery chain. 

It serves as the most unbiased source of truth about 

the performance, effectiveness, and security 

of enterprise IT environments." -- Extrahop Networks

"For thirty years,
New Horizons Computer Learning Centers
has provided practical and innovative
corporate training solutions
to help organizations overcome operational challenges
and take advantage of emerging opportunities."

"Advanced communications and cloud solutions
from Time Warner Cable Business Class
can enable your Enterprise to be more successful
in today’s market. ... Time Warner Cable Business Class
delivers reliable and scalable voice and data solutions
over our advanced, fiber-rich IP network."

"...Veeam has pioneered a new market of Availability for the Modern Data Center™
by helping organizations meet
recovery time and point objectives (RTPO™)
of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data,
through a fundamentally new kind of solution
that delivers high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance,
verified protection, leveraged data and complete visibility."

"Keep your home connected
with powerful High-Speed Internet, Digital TV, Phone Service.
Services designed for business ranging from
home/small offices up to 50 employees,
including Internet Solutions, Phone Services,
and 24/7 Technical Support.
Enterprise-class data, voice, network and cloud solutions
designed to meet the unique needs of your business."

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

BSides Austin 2015

LASCON 2014

Innotech 2012

Documentation is Specification

Brian Krebs' Spam Nation

Available on Slideshare

Physical Security for Data Centers

Bleeding Data: SXSW Interactive Proposal

With new data breaches appearing in the news every day, how can anyone protect their information? With a few simple tools - which we will demonstrate - you can dramatically improve the privacy of your personal information. 

Among the tools that we will provide and explain are Secunia PSI; KeePass Password Manager; and OpenDNS.

We chose those and other tools because they have high reputational value in the computer security community. They are easy to use. They specifically protect the most vulnerable aspects of your information flow. 

We will guide the workshop attendees through the installation and use of the tools. Tutors from the Austin computer security community will be on hand to provide individual instruction.

Selection of SXSW Interactive workshops and panels is, in part, by open voting. To vote and view the proposal video click here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/50060

You can view the video directly on YouTube here:

You can read more about how to protect your personal information on Laurel's blog, IntentionalPrivacy.

Also on NecessaryFacts:

Open Secrets

The Code Book

A Successful Imitation of Alan Turing

Basic: Turing's Truth