Last week, I went to my first conference. It was Derbycon’s last year, and since I live in Louisville, it made sense. I managed to get tickets on the second wave of sales, so I got lucky there with how fast they sold out.
I’m going to be upfront here, I’m not the most social of people, nor am I that good with crowds. Definitely took a huge step going. It was completely worth it.
The talks were excellent. Two talks stood out in particular to me. Heather Smith did an amazing talk about how to communicate risks to upper management to help you ensure the security of the company. Link is here. Jayson Street did a great talk on physical security, here. There were some talks that sounded good on Sunday, but I’m going to have to watch them on Youtube. Managed to get ConFlu on Sunday, and didn’t make it.
More than the talks, there was so much else going on. I spent far too much money at the No Starch Press booth. I managed to get enough points to get a coin from the Bank of America CTF challenge. I met a lot of cool people. Even had some good conversations with vendors about their products and capabilities.
As someone who doesn’t really do well in large crowds, this turned out well. They had a quiet room which I used a few times to catch my breath. Also hung out with people in the quieter areas to work on the CTF.
I didn’t do the main CTF. I took a stab at it, and realized that it was far beyond me. Going to have to study up on tools and techniques and give it a try at the next con I go to.
All in all, it was a good experience, and I’m now looking forward to my next conference.