n0where

For the past decade, I've been avoiding the RSA Conference like the plague, ever since I came to the realization that blinkenlights, booze, buzzwords, and booth babes don't actually solve security problems (i.e. when I first started working in computer/information security). But, all Good Things must come to an end, and so this past week it happened -- I attended the RSA Conference in San Francisco. Indulge me for a few moments while I discuss my thoughts, frustrations, and, yes, even hopes about this experience.

The Conference

I arrived at the Moscone Center (the conference venue) mid-morning. Check-in was fairly simple: walk up to a kiosk, enter your name, and the kiosk tells you which badge line to enter, where you present your ID and receive your badge (note: I tried to check in as Jon Oberheide, but he had already checked in...race condition exploit fail). I then proceeded downstairs to the "MOSCONE NORTH" area, only to enter a veritable warzone of suits and sales people. Words and phrases like "cloud", "governance", "identity", and "sweet ass" whizzed past my head like machine gun fire, SRSBZNSPPL shooting SRSBZNSTALK at one another.

Fear and loathing quickly engulfed me -- did I cross some threshold into the infosec twilight zone? If I put the schwag bag over my head, does it make all the badness go away? Sadly, the answer to both of those questions was "no."

I scurried along, dodging the verbal volleys, determined to keep my sanity intact (spoiler alert: I failed). I breathed a sigh of relief as I ran into someone I knew -- my friend (and podcast co-host) Martin McKeay, who detected my irritation and panic. As a veteran attendee of the RSA Conference, he assured me that it "only gets worse", motioning with a point and a head nod toward the hall leading to the expo area. And so my relief was swiftly dashed. "Good luck," Martin seemed to say, with his expression, as we parted ways.

The hall was lined with SRSBZNSPPL eating SRSBZNSBREAKFAST, but their buzzword-guns seemed faint, muffled by the high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden-jelly-filled pastries and SBUX coffee they shoved down their gullets.

"NomnomcloudnomnomAPTnom" was all I could hear. A welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve, knowing what I was about to encounter in "MOSCONE SOUTH". As I crossed the cafe area (that seemed to serve as the DMZ for the expo hall), the rata-tat-tat of the buzzword-guns was replaced by the loud, deep boom of buzzword bombs. I tightened the shoulder straps of my backpack, mouthed a quick prayer to FSM, and headed into the fray.

CCCCCCLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUDDDDDD-BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

No sooner than walking into the expo hall did I witness a buzzword bomb drop right before my eyes: a vendor touting their "cloud email security" product (which, upon further inspection, is really just the same hosted mail filtering they've done for years). I feared mental radiation poisoning, being so close to the buzzword explosion. (My friend, Alex Hutton, snapped a photo of one of a smaller-scale, tactical buzzword bomb a bit later in the week.)

As the smoke cleared, I surveyed the tarnished infosec landscape that was the RSA Conference Expo. Only a few minutes in, and my will was already beginning to break. But I knew I had to march on, look for survivors, for resistance, for hope.

(I'm all typed out for now, but stay "tuned" for more on my "experience" at RSA Conference 2011! Spoiler alert: lulz.)