Goa has become a yearly ritual for me. Not for the beach vacation version of Goa, but for the relaxation & exploration of the intellectual kind @ NULLCON. This year it was Information Security Media Group (ISMG) show and Sanjay Kalra, Varun Haran, Rahul Neel Mani Geetha Nandikotkur & team did a splendid job
A lot of us end up meeting only once or twice a year, and in India the two big touchpoints are usually Nullcon and c0c0n. So many conversations become status updates. What are you building, what broke, what changed, what are you excited about, what are you worried about.
Many years ago I made a pledge to myself that I do not want to attend a conference unless I am actively involved. that means I am never free all the time. As a review board member, I am always a little bummed that I cannot attend all the sessions I want to. Over the three days, I was on the other side of the room more often than I was in the chair.
Day 0: I was on a fireside chat with Saikat Datta, focused on the onslaught of AI tools & their impact on the security industry. Twenty minutes cannot do justice, so I ended up writing a full blog post on my thoughts: https://blog.anantshri.info/vendors-sell-suites-teams-need-slices-ai-made-it-cheap/ Another older post of mine that I highly recommend when people talk about LLMs: https://blog.anantshri.info/what-llms-teach-me-about-my-own-brain/
Day 1: I moderated a panel on software supply chain security with Sumeet Khokhani, Mihirr P Thaker & Ajit Hatti. It is one of those areas where the cost of being wrong shows up months later, not immediately, hearing different perspectives from CISOs as well as product manufacturers was a delight. I have been spending a lot of time in this space, and it is one of my core research areas: https://cyfinoid.com/research/software-supply-chain-security/
Day 2: I did resume clinic along with Amol Naik, Neelu Tripathy, Prashant Mahajan, Abhisek Datta, Sumeet Khokhani, Shailendra Fuloria, PhD, Gigi Joseph, and Dr. Jagannath Sahoo. Resumes are the first impression in a lot of scenarios, but in a resume clinic I usually do not spend time on beautification. I try to understand what the person wants to achieve with the session, and help them think in that direction. Over the years I have collected a lot of notes around these topics. They are here: https://blog.anantshri.info/career-notes-references/
The real Nullcon happens in the corridor. Debates that start with 1 question & end with 3 project ideas. Late night un-conferences have a feel of their own. (Hitesh Madhwani, Aseem Jakhar, Murtuja Bharmal, Manu Zacharia, Shubham Mittal, Amol Naik, Jatin Singhla, Ankur Bhargava, Kumar Ashwin & many more.) Moments when discussions result in laptops being pulled to show the newest unreleased work (Abhisek Datta, Avkash Kathiriya & more)
I met more people than I can count, had spirited debates & still missed meeting many folks (and missed tagging here)
#Nullcon #InfoSec #Community #Bhopal