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To me, some of the fun of the RSA conference is running into Security Celebrities! My personal goal this year was to get some selfies with a few of them. Sometimes I just couldn’t though but was able to snap a few pics of them.

Rami Malek from Mr. Robot at the Qualys booth, RSA Conference 2016

Mr. Robot is an entertaining show, I like it. It’s a little bit “Fight Club” and a little bit “Hackers” mixed together with a large serving of drama. The description of the show from IMDB is:
A young computer programmer who suffers from social anxiety disorder and forms connections through hacking. He’s recruited by a mysterious anarchist, who calls himself Mr. Robot.

James Lyne, RSA Conference 2016

When I started researching those passionate about their craft, James Lyne’s videos really interested me. The first video I saw with James Lyne was about cryptography and the power of randomness.

Jack Jones, RSA Conference 2016

I first met Jack Jones about 12 years ago when we were both at Nationwide Insurance Companies… Well, I was at a subsidiary of Nationwide at the time as a contractor. Jack was one of the many people who interviewed me for an FTE position and eventually, as his risk quantification analysis methodology developed, I was one of the many in the company that was taught by him. I held on to his methodology and used his examples to raise the knowledge of my peers and impress future bosses.

Dr. Charlie Miller & Chris Valasek, RSA Conference 2016

I’ve had a huge fascination with vehicle hacking over the last few years as you can tell in my blog (tag car hacking) and it’s mostly due to these guys who have, in my opinion, gone above and beyond to prove that vehicles are not secure by design, and are showcasing their work to try to make our roads safer from cyber-attacks.

Malcolm Harkins, RSA Conference 2016

Malcolm Harkins is the global chief information security officer (CISO) at Cylance Inc. He joined Cylance following 23 years with Intel, where he most recently served as a vice president and its first chief security and privacy officer (CSPO). Malcolm has come and spoke at my work for National Cyber Security Awareness Month in 2015, his message was strong and very valuable. Malcolm’s book, Managing Risk and Information Security: Protect to Enable, is a must read for any information technology and security leadership as well as for the executive.

Walking through the expo floor, there was so much to take in. How is it that multiple vendors of similar products were “World leaders in ____”? The way I see it, if a vendor is a world leader in something, we would all be coming up to them telling them they are instead of them coming up to us trying to convince us they are. Thanks for the logoed pens though.

It was interesting being recognized as I walked around the event, a vendor recognized me as my old personality of being an adult-themed cake decorator and others just seemed to recognize me from LinkedIn. It is a fun experience.

I attended several more conference booths in the West center and really felt that the many workstreams I’m involved in at work are validated. I hope that other’s experience is the same. How difficult would it be to come to a conference, attend some sessions and find out everything you’ve been doing is wrong?

Aside from work life, I really liked the RSAC CyberSafety Kids booth, they’ve made some games to raise awareness of dangers for kids. I know it’s a crappy picture, but this is a good starting point for those with children to get involved in their capability to identify and avoid threats.