1 00:00:06,280 --> 00:00:07,320 One. 2 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:13,520 Hello everyone, I am Plagg. 3 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:18,880 It's a pleasure for me to be here with all of you and all our panelists. 4 00:00:19,080 --> 00:00:24,360 We're gonna introduce you to something that we work quite a bit. 5 00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:30,620 I want to actually acknowledge Miteki for all her hard work and these lines that we're gonna present. 6 00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:37,940 But this is a labor of love that we have, and we're doing this for some reasons you'll see in a moment. 7 00:00:38,020 --> 00:00:41,540 This panel is about introducing the Mita Mentor Program. 8 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:45,240 So let's dive really quick into that and then we'll explain what we want to do. 9 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:51,060 From there we'll introduce our panelists and then we'll have a chat about what the program is. 10 00:00:51,780 --> 00:00:54,840 So introducing the Mita Mentor Program. 11 00:00:55,900 --> 00:00:58,920 So what are the Mita Mentor Program goals? 12 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:06,620 So one of the primary goals for us is to bring together mentors and mentees based on shared experiences, interests, and goals. 13 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:18,140 We want to help mentees develop goals to overcome career challenges, maybe identify technical interests, and also help them boost their confidence. 14 00:01:18,620 --> 00:01:22,240 We want to broaden mentors' perspectives and mentoring skills. 15 00:01:22,460 --> 00:01:27,280 And one of the important things in here is that the mentors are vetted and held to a high standard. 16 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:29,500 That's a very important thing for us. 17 00:01:31,820 --> 00:01:38,860 So another important thing for us when we talk about mentoring is that there's a distinction between mentoring and tutoring. 18 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:45,140 For us, mentoring is focused on the guidance and advice, sharing personal experiences. 19 00:01:45,780 --> 00:01:56,680 This mentor program is not intended as a private technical tutoring, although it is possible that in some circumstances it might feel like it. 20 00:01:56,680 --> 00:02:04,560 A good example will be, I want to sharpen my skills on Python, and you might want to share a piece of the code, which we'll then give you advice on. 21 00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:10,500 Maybe over the relationship of a mentor and mentee, it leads into a bit of the technical tutoring. 22 00:02:10,580 --> 00:02:14,220 But primarily, our goal is to concentrate on the guidance and advice. 23 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:21,180 A good example for this will be, you know, how to learn about networking instead of explaining TCP versus UDP. 24 00:02:21,860 --> 00:02:29,080 So just keeping that in mind is going to be very important for us that you keep this distinction between mentoring and tutoring. 25 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:36,560 Now, the Meet a Mentor program has a series of activities that we're going to introduce to you. 26 00:02:37,300 --> 00:02:41,620 One of the primary keys on us is we want to be transparent with everyone. 27 00:02:41,620 --> 00:02:43,240 We're going to be using Discord. 28 00:02:43,420 --> 00:02:45,500 We're going to have one-on-one mentoring. 29 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:50,680 So we're doing our best to try to find matches based on career and technical interests. 30 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:52,900 We'll speak to how that will work. 31 00:02:54,100 --> 00:03:03,520 We're going to have, basically, sessions, which are, you know, 30-minute virtual sessions, which, when you're matched to a mentor, you can conduct. 32 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:07,980 These sessions will be on Discord, on our Splatoon Village channel. 33 00:03:07,980 --> 00:03:13,380 So you'll find a place where you can go and meet, and then just have your session with your mentor. 34 00:03:13,740 --> 00:03:18,420 In addition, the mentor program is going to have monthly meetings. 35 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:22,880 So these monthly meetings will be, you know, about an hour to two hours. 36 00:03:22,900 --> 00:03:26,620 We're going to be able to talk about how the program is going. 37 00:03:26,620 --> 00:03:30,680 We're going to introduce new mentors to mentees, and vice versa. 38 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:36,440 We're going to try to gather feedback from you, you know, what's working, what's not necessarily working. 39 00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:44,000 And then one of the other things that we want to do is there is a need for sharing important information. 40 00:03:44,980 --> 00:03:50,960 A lot of individuals and folks are looking for advice on different things. 41 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:58,580 And one way in which we can provide that to many of you is to have regular panel discussions on different topics of interest. 42 00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:14,440 If you are an individual that wants to be a mentor, or you don't have the time, but you have a particular topic which you would like to share, and just share an hour of your time to do a panel, we would like to hear from you. 43 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:15,920 We're going to have different topics. 44 00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:17,740 This is not blue centric. 45 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:21,400 You know, if you do Red Team and Bug Bounty, we want to hear from you. 46 00:04:22,460 --> 00:04:35,120 All the topics that we're going to try to use to understand what are the needs of our mentees will be funneled from, you know, the information we collect from the Meet the Mentor program through our interest form. 47 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:40,380 Now, with that said, it is time for us to dive into the panel. 48 00:04:40,380 --> 00:04:43,480 I will want to... this will be our official first meeting. 49 00:04:43,480 --> 00:04:52,480 We want to get you to know all of the core mentors, and I think this will be a good opportunity to speak about what the core mentor is. 50 00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:56,180 We're aiming to be diverse, as diverse as possible. 51 00:04:56,180 --> 00:05:14,200 We will want to include a few more mentors if you, you know, if your background is, you know, if you're Asian, if you're Black, if you are transgender or gay or lesbian and you want to be in here, we want to get you, we want to get more perspectives and different mentors from different backgrounds. 52 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:20,960 So, if you're interested and you're not seeing currently on the core mentors, your representation, we encourage you to be part of that. 53 00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:29,300 The core mentors role is to basically, you know, set to the high standard, you know, what the program will be. 54 00:05:29,300 --> 00:05:35,800 And, you know, we're dedicating, you know, a set of time extra to provide this service to all of you. 55 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:42,880 Beyond that, there will be mentors and, you know, there will be a path to become a core mentor, you know, as we evolve in the program. 56 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,580 If you want to contribute or if you have more questions, hopefully through this panel, we'll address them. 57 00:05:47,580 --> 00:05:51,980 And without further ado, I'm going to stop presenting my screen now. 58 00:05:51,980 --> 00:05:59,600 And why don't we just, you know, dive into getting to know everyone in the panel. 59 00:05:59,940 --> 00:06:04,540 So, we're going to do this in the order that I couldn't see the screen in here. 60 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:08,580 So, let's begin with Muteki. 61 00:06:08,580 --> 00:06:09,880 Why don't you introduce yourself? 62 00:06:13,830 --> 00:06:18,310 Yes, my name is Muteki, aka Cassandra, or whichever one you want to use. 63 00:06:18,510 --> 00:06:24,310 So, I'm actually an InfoSec adjacent person who has been attending DEF CON for a couple years. 64 00:06:24,310 --> 00:06:27,210 I got into volunteering at Blue Team Village. 65 00:06:27,470 --> 00:06:39,070 And I have a kind of interesting path that I've taken towards being InfoSec adjacent in that five years ago, I was a part-time help desk and AV support person. 66 00:06:39,070 --> 00:06:40,890 I personally don't recommend AV. 67 00:06:40,890 --> 00:06:43,190 Run screaming if you ever have to do AV. 68 00:06:44,470 --> 00:06:46,650 But I'm particularly interested in... 69 00:06:47,710 --> 00:06:55,270 so, I do... right now I'm a sysadmin and I do a lot of incident response for Azure and O365 logging authentication. 70 00:06:55,270 --> 00:06:59,830 I'm also a part-time grad student because I'm a complete masochist, apparently. 71 00:06:59,870 --> 00:07:09,550 And my areas of interest in that aspect are a lot of programming, cloud security and architecture, and microservices and serverless platforms. 72 00:07:11,230 --> 00:07:12,890 Awesome, thank you. 73 00:07:12,890 --> 00:07:14,870 Thank you for being here with us. 74 00:07:14,870 --> 00:07:15,430 Rando? 75 00:07:18,100 --> 00:07:19,700 I have to find the mute. 76 00:07:19,700 --> 00:07:23,080 I've been using Discord for months now. 77 00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:24,220 Where's the mute button? 78 00:07:24,220 --> 00:07:27,940 Hi, my name is Rando, also known as Danny Akatsuki. 79 00:07:28,460 --> 00:07:35,860 I am a career Blue Teamer, Threat Hunter, been in security for about 10 years now. 80 00:07:35,860 --> 00:07:39,640 And I've worked at companies like Mandiant and GE Capital. 81 00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:46,860 Now I'm a Senior Technical Account Manager, which sounds fancier than it really is, with Gigamon. 82 00:07:47,340 --> 00:07:52,180 And yeah, I've been going, I mean, been in with DEF CON for about five years now. 83 00:07:52,180 --> 00:07:56,660 I'm a DEF CON SOC goon, represent, and I run a contest. 84 00:07:56,660 --> 00:07:58,520 And yeah, I'm super active in the community. 85 00:07:58,520 --> 00:07:59,860 That's why I really love this stuff. 86 00:07:59,860 --> 00:08:00,880 So, hi. 87 00:08:02,280 --> 00:08:04,000 Awesome, thank you. 88 00:08:04,020 --> 00:08:06,740 All right, so who's coming next? 89 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:07,720 Rubix? 90 00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:13,060 Hi everyone, Rubix4138 here. 91 00:08:13,140 --> 00:08:15,040 My name is Xavier Ash. 92 00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:29,780 I've been around for a while, got about 28 years of experience, done a little bit of everything, worked for consulting shops, worked for large companies, small companies, done time in government, and did some startups. 93 00:08:29,780 --> 00:08:42,440 Currently, I decided to kind of retire from all the consulting and go back into just doing security at a financial services firm right now. 94 00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:58,700 And so yeah, a lot of experience with the blue team side in architecture and building out programs, managed a couple of incident response teams over the years. 95 00:08:59,100 --> 00:09:02,240 And so yeah, I'm looking forward to the program. 96 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:03,300 Thanks a lot. 97 00:09:04,260 --> 00:09:05,020 Awesome. 98 00:09:05,020 --> 00:09:06,040 Gene? 99 00:09:06,700 --> 00:09:07,420 Sure. 100 00:09:07,580 --> 00:09:11,740 So I started out life as a systems administrator about 10 years ago. 101 00:09:11,740 --> 00:09:15,820 I got into red teaming in big four consulting. 102 00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:21,420 About six, seven years ago, I actually switched to Batik security consulting. 103 00:09:21,420 --> 00:09:22,840 It's still on the red side. 104 00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:26,440 I'm doing more management stuff now, but occasionally I'm allowed to hack stuff. 105 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:29,000 And that's about the only happiness I get these days. 106 00:09:30,500 --> 00:09:32,180 That's so awesome. 107 00:09:32,260 --> 00:09:33,380 Allie? 108 00:09:36,410 --> 00:09:37,710 Hey everyone. 109 00:09:37,710 --> 00:09:39,570 My name is Allie Hanson. 110 00:09:39,570 --> 00:09:50,570 I actually stumbled across security a few years ago and kind of immediately fell in love with it and really became smitten with not only security, but the people. 111 00:09:50,850 --> 00:09:58,310 And I dabbled in security, sort of certifications, also jumped into the world of social engineering. 112 00:09:58,590 --> 00:10:11,370 And I really have a very broad interest base across the sort of disciplines and areas in security, red, blue, purple, CTI, aerospace, biohacking. 113 00:10:11,370 --> 00:10:18,650 I do a lot of volunteering within all of these different efforts, kind of across the board, including policy as well. 114 00:10:18,650 --> 00:10:21,150 And recently I actually started my own company. 115 00:10:21,150 --> 00:10:29,330 So I'm really hoping to help you all out if you're interested in learning what it takes to start your own small business LLC. 116 00:10:29,330 --> 00:10:30,870 And that's about it. 117 00:10:30,870 --> 00:10:32,010 Thanks guys. 118 00:10:32,750 --> 00:10:33,590 Awesome. 119 00:10:33,590 --> 00:10:34,450 All right. 120 00:10:34,450 --> 00:10:37,210 So we get into NoHackMe. 121 00:10:40,770 --> 00:10:43,370 Mute buttons are hard. 122 00:10:43,630 --> 00:10:44,670 Hey, what's up? 123 00:10:44,670 --> 00:10:48,250 I'm Mick, aka NoHackMe. 124 00:10:49,750 --> 00:10:51,890 Fed for a super long time. 125 00:10:51,890 --> 00:10:53,950 You name an agency, I probably worked there. 126 00:10:53,950 --> 00:10:59,270 Built out some incident response teams, built out some threat intelligence programs. 127 00:10:59,850 --> 00:11:08,530 Most recently I worked at the White House, ran a threat intelligence team over the 2016 election, CISO for Pete Buttigieg. 128 00:11:08,550 --> 00:11:16,310 And now I am currently a security advisor at Splunk, kind of taking all the experience that I have and help folks make the trains go. 129 00:11:16,670 --> 00:11:18,270 Super jazzed to be here. 130 00:11:18,270 --> 00:11:24,750 I think the experience I have, especially on the Fed side, if you like public sector for some odd reason, I'm your dude. 131 00:11:24,750 --> 00:11:27,410 Like your favorite Fed's favorite ex-Fed. 132 00:11:29,430 --> 00:11:31,430 That's a great way to put it. 133 00:11:31,430 --> 00:11:33,270 So thank you for being here. 134 00:11:33,270 --> 00:11:33,830 All right. 135 00:11:33,830 --> 00:11:35,830 So we're going to go with Moose. 136 00:11:37,130 --> 00:11:38,290 Hi everyone. 137 00:11:38,390 --> 00:11:39,390 I'm Moose. 138 00:11:39,390 --> 00:11:40,750 I also go by Heather. 139 00:11:40,750 --> 00:11:45,830 I'll dox myself and say I'm one of the senior incident responders at CrowdStrike. 140 00:11:46,290 --> 00:11:48,370 I dabble in a bunch of things. 141 00:11:48,370 --> 00:11:51,710 I also volunteer as a red teamer for CCDC. 142 00:11:52,850 --> 00:11:56,210 My IT career began in a very strange way. 143 00:11:56,210 --> 00:12:01,350 I was a QA tester for the first Droid phone, the first smartphone. 144 00:12:01,530 --> 00:12:05,990 And it was really enough of a hook to where I got to break that multiple times. 145 00:12:05,990 --> 00:12:07,710 And the rest is kind of history. 146 00:12:07,710 --> 00:12:11,750 I've done help desk, desktop support, sysadmin, network admin. 147 00:12:11,870 --> 00:12:16,570 Right before I was core security, I was a lead data analyst. 148 00:12:17,270 --> 00:12:23,770 And the whole thing kind of just ties together in wanting to look at all the things and not wanting to be put in a box. 149 00:12:23,770 --> 00:12:32,950 So if you have multifaceted experience or want multifaceted experience and look at the big picture, I might be your person. 150 00:12:32,950 --> 00:12:37,370 But I eat, sleep, and breathe incident response right now. 151 00:12:37,370 --> 00:12:41,290 So , you know, I had to ask what day it was today. 152 00:12:42,270 --> 00:12:44,210 But that's me in a nutshell. 153 00:12:44,210 --> 00:12:49,310 And I'd rather refer to myself as a DFIR dumpster diver in most cases than anything else. 154 00:12:51,420 --> 00:12:52,180 That's awesome. 155 00:12:52,180 --> 00:12:55,100 By the way, Moza was early on on the incident response panel. 156 00:12:55,100 --> 00:12:57,060 So thank you for being here again as well. 157 00:12:57,320 --> 00:12:57,840 All right. 158 00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:04,100 So we're going to introduce also a person that likes to remain kind of hidden on the background. 159 00:13:04,100 --> 00:13:06,780 It's a person that I respect quite a bit. 160 00:13:06,780 --> 00:13:08,600 His name is Clay. 161 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:13,040 Hey, thank you, Plug. 162 00:13:13,340 --> 00:13:14,920 Yep, Clay. 163 00:13:15,020 --> 00:13:20,680 I've been in the field in general for about 20 something years. 164 00:13:20,680 --> 00:13:24,320 I've done a lot of programming and system administration work. 165 00:13:24,460 --> 00:13:29,220 The past eight years or so, I've been able to focus on security. 166 00:13:29,940 --> 00:13:33,020 And that's been a fantastic ride. 167 00:13:33,940 --> 00:13:39,960 I've become more active in the community over the past four or five years or so. 168 00:13:40,540 --> 00:13:43,420 I'm one of the organizers of Blue Team Village. 169 00:13:44,180 --> 00:13:47,820 And I love googly eyes. 170 00:13:50,860 --> 00:13:51,800 Awesome. 171 00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:54,100 You also have another organization. 172 00:13:54,100 --> 00:13:55,850 You want to do a little... 173 00:13:55,850 --> 00:13:56,810 Sure. 174 00:13:56,810 --> 00:13:57,370 Yeah. 175 00:13:58,230 --> 00:14:02,330 Help organize a walker summit as well. 176 00:14:02,330 --> 00:14:10,450 And that's more of a... it's still security related, but we kind of focus more on hardware hacking. 177 00:14:11,310 --> 00:14:13,970 And that takes place right outside the Philly area. 178 00:14:15,530 --> 00:14:16,110 Awesome. 179 00:14:16,110 --> 00:14:16,590 Thank you. 180 00:14:16,590 --> 00:14:17,890 Thank you for that. 181 00:14:17,890 --> 00:14:18,390 All right. 182 00:14:18,390 --> 00:14:22,490 And our last core mentor here with us is Scooby. 183 00:14:22,750 --> 00:14:24,790 Hey, hi, everybody. 184 00:14:24,790 --> 00:14:26,330 I'm Scooby. 185 00:14:26,330 --> 00:14:30,510 I've been in InfoSec for almost 20 years now. 186 00:14:30,550 --> 00:14:39,030 I've worked as a security analyst, then threat hunting team lead, adversary detection team lead. 187 00:14:39,030 --> 00:14:40,550 I built some teams. 188 00:14:40,550 --> 00:14:44,930 I moved to a financial institution for almost a year. 189 00:14:44,930 --> 00:14:49,970 Didn't really cut it out for me being in that type of environment. 190 00:14:49,970 --> 00:14:51,010 And now it just changed. 191 00:14:51,010 --> 00:14:56,550 And I'm a senior manager incident response for a smaller company in Canada. 192 00:14:56,590 --> 00:14:59,450 But we have international offices. 193 00:14:59,450 --> 00:15:01,910 So it's pretty much all around the world. 194 00:15:02,430 --> 00:15:07,830 So yeah, in a nutshell, a lot of threat hunting and blue teaming in general. 195 00:15:07,830 --> 00:15:09,470 Love giving talks. 196 00:15:09,810 --> 00:15:18,710 I had the pleasure to do so at DerbyCon, Blue Team Village, NordSec, GoSec, and a few B-sides as well. 197 00:15:20,650 --> 00:15:21,530 Awesome. 198 00:15:21,530 --> 00:15:22,090 Thank you. 199 00:15:22,090 --> 00:15:22,750 Thank you. 200 00:15:22,750 --> 00:15:29,110 So as hopefully all of you have heard, we have a very diverse set of individuals that are part of the core mentor program. 201 00:15:29,110 --> 00:15:30,890 We all have different backgrounds. 202 00:15:31,330 --> 00:15:32,470 I'll introduce myself. 203 00:15:32,590 --> 00:15:34,130 So I go by Plod. 204 00:15:34,470 --> 00:15:39,770 I do incident response and I lead threat hunting at some Fortune 20 company. 205 00:15:39,770 --> 00:15:45,330 I think if you want to know more about that, I'm in the Paranoids team. 206 00:15:45,330 --> 00:15:47,610 I'm in the fire team within the Paranoids. 207 00:15:48,070 --> 00:15:52,690 And I've been volunteering at DefCon for quite some time now. 208 00:15:52,730 --> 00:16:03,690 Different villages and now pretty much living with the Blue Team Village where they have allowed me to grow and kind of put this seed into this program where we all together are going to bring this to you. 209 00:16:04,390 --> 00:16:07,850 So we're going to jump into some questions. 210 00:16:07,850 --> 00:16:19,410 And if you're here watching the stream or if you have some questions that you want us to give you maybe some feedback right here live, then feel free to send the questions over. 211 00:16:19,750 --> 00:16:23,590 But let's dive really quick into one of the more important questions. 212 00:16:24,430 --> 00:16:28,950 Because all of us are here, but what made you want to be a mentor? 213 00:16:28,950 --> 00:16:41,730 What makes you, and this is directed to no one in particular, but we want to know, we want everyone to know what you decided to be a mentor and what makes you qualified to be one if you want to elaborate on that. 214 00:16:41,730 --> 00:16:45,130 So I want to see if someone wants to raise their hand. 215 00:16:45,510 --> 00:16:47,490 Scooby, I think that you have the mic. 216 00:16:48,470 --> 00:16:55,370 Well, I decided to be a mentor because some people came to me in real life asking if I would mentor them. 217 00:16:55,890 --> 00:17:04,890 I've been trying to be more active in the community as well, volunteering at the Blue Team Village since its creation three years ago. 218 00:17:05,150 --> 00:17:15,430 So when I saw this meet a mentor thing, I just said, well, if anyone wants to learn about this, this, this and this, I'll be very happy to spend some time with you. 219 00:17:15,550 --> 00:17:21,250 And for me, mentoring is kind of making friends, is sharing experience. 220 00:17:21,250 --> 00:17:26,270 And I think that the mentor learns as more as the mentee most of the time. 221 00:17:26,270 --> 00:17:30,790 So it's really an exchange and it's not meant to be one direction. 222 00:17:31,830 --> 00:17:41,550 Like I'm not feeding anyone things and I'm more expecting exchange and learning as well from those people, from their experience. 223 00:17:41,550 --> 00:17:48,710 It's not because I've been doing these specific things maybe longer than them, that they don't have anything that they can bring me as well. 224 00:17:49,750 --> 00:17:50,370 Awesome. 225 00:17:50,370 --> 00:17:54,150 I saw no hack me, you kind of went, oh, well, Randall, Randall, you're ready to go. 226 00:17:54,150 --> 00:17:56,010 Yeah, I love this. 227 00:17:56,010 --> 00:17:57,490 Oh, thank you, sir. 228 00:17:57,490 --> 00:17:58,550 I appreciate it, Mr. 229 00:17:58,550 --> 00:17:59,410 Faccio. 230 00:17:59,570 --> 00:18:01,610 X is a political campaign. 231 00:18:02,410 --> 00:18:12,230 I actually, no hack me is actually part of this answer for me, because he was one of the very first people that I met when I got my first security gig. 232 00:18:12,290 --> 00:18:20,150 He was actually my team lead way back when, almost like 10 years ago by this point, and kept me in here for better or for worse. 233 00:18:20,750 --> 00:18:25,210 I have had a very unconventional road through InfoSec. 234 00:18:25,210 --> 00:18:28,930 I've been with a lot of companies that have been laying off and things like that. 235 00:18:28,930 --> 00:18:32,550 It's been bumpy, but I'm in a really great place now. 236 00:18:32,550 --> 00:18:44,070 So , I always find for people that are like drug addicts and things like that, your best help is going to be your sponsors who are drug addicts themselves, who have been through that. 237 00:18:44,070 --> 00:18:49,470 So, people that have fell a lot and have experienced that, and they know the way back out. 238 00:18:49,470 --> 00:18:56,690 So, at a certain point, all of these weird things that have happened through my career, I didn't want them to be for nothing. 239 00:18:56,750 --> 00:19:01,430 And I also have absolutely no shame in talking about fail stories. 240 00:19:01,430 --> 00:19:02,250 I don't care. 241 00:19:02,250 --> 00:19:02,850 I love them. 242 00:19:02,850 --> 00:19:04,550 I love hearing them from other people. 243 00:19:04,690 --> 00:19:18,110 So, when I run across people that are afraid to fail, or don't want to discuss it, or just think that they're never going to make it, I'm like, I am an object lesson in how complete failures can actually have some success. 244 00:19:18,110 --> 00:19:19,870 And don't be afraid of it and own it. 245 00:19:19,870 --> 00:19:24,910 So, the best way to do that for me and to give back is a mentor type program. 246 00:19:24,970 --> 00:19:26,730 So, that's why I do it. 247 00:19:26,730 --> 00:19:29,730 Like, why waste all of that face in the mud time? 248 00:19:29,730 --> 00:19:31,150 I'm just feeling sorry for myself. 249 00:19:31,150 --> 00:19:34,070 I want to give back to other people about how to get back up from it. 250 00:19:35,610 --> 00:19:36,330 Awesome. 251 00:19:36,350 --> 00:19:40,350 I guess, now hack me so that you want to have some interaction. 252 00:19:40,810 --> 00:19:41,270 Yeah. 253 00:19:41,490 --> 00:19:44,390 So, Danny and I go way back, obviously. 254 00:19:45,130 --> 00:19:47,790 You know, I started off in the Navy. 255 00:19:49,250 --> 00:19:53,030 HHS, CDC, FDA, like a bunch of federal organizations. 256 00:19:53,930 --> 00:19:56,050 I'm a SOC goon, represent. 257 00:19:57,470 --> 00:19:59,430 I work with tool. 258 00:19:59,670 --> 00:20:02,810 I've been at this for a super long time. 259 00:20:02,810 --> 00:20:09,210 I think that the talks that we heard all day yesterday at Blue Team Village, I'm not any smarter than any person that's talked. 260 00:20:09,210 --> 00:20:12,150 I'm probably a dum-dum, to be honest with you. 261 00:20:12,150 --> 00:20:14,070 But I've been at this for a while. 262 00:20:14,150 --> 00:20:21,330 And one of the things I'm really proud of is I think I've been able to enjoy the experiences along the way. 263 00:20:21,490 --> 00:20:24,870 And the important thing is the people that you meet. 264 00:20:24,870 --> 00:20:27,950 We all talk about, you know, it's not what you know, it's who you know. 265 00:20:27,950 --> 00:20:30,110 And I know a lot of people. 266 00:20:30,250 --> 00:20:32,510 You name an agency, I probably work there. 267 00:20:32,510 --> 00:20:35,050 If I don't, I probably know someone who has. 268 00:20:35,450 --> 00:20:42,470 And I think that's a large part of why I wanted to be a mentor , to make the road easier for the people that are coming next. 269 00:20:42,470 --> 00:20:44,010 Like this gray ain't from stress . 270 00:20:44,010 --> 00:20:45,150 I'm old as shit. 271 00:20:45,310 --> 00:20:55,030 So I think if I could do anything to make the next generation of security a little bit better, we're kind of obligated to as security seniors. 272 00:20:55,310 --> 00:20:58,910 So when I had the opportunity talking to Clay, like I jumped at it. 273 00:20:58,910 --> 00:21:00,050 Why wouldn't I want to do this? 274 00:21:00,050 --> 00:21:07,870 Like if I have all this information and all this institutional knowledge about the security game and I don't help other people, I'm kind of the problem. 275 00:21:09,350 --> 00:21:09,970 Awesome. 276 00:21:09,970 --> 00:21:10,790 Moose? 277 00:21:11,010 --> 00:21:13,690 Yeah, kind of along the same lines. 278 00:21:14,010 --> 00:21:16,390 So mine's a very personal story. 279 00:21:16,390 --> 00:21:19,650 I was working at a global five for a long time. 280 00:21:19,650 --> 00:21:21,470 Well, it felt like a long time . 281 00:21:21,470 --> 00:21:27,110 Because when you're doing IR at a global five, you feel what years of your life draining away. 282 00:21:27,470 --> 00:21:33,010 And I have always struggled with imposter syndrome, no matter where I am in my career. 283 00:21:33,190 --> 00:21:39,530 I'm not saying I still don't struggle with it, because some days I wake up and I just go, Oh, my God, what was I thinking? 284 00:21:40,190 --> 00:21:44,430 But it's, it's a person that helped me during that. 285 00:21:44,430 --> 00:21:59,730 And I can go ahead and say his name, Christopher Witter, who had years of experience on me, that offered and said, you know, if you just need somebody to ping things against, I'm willing to set up regular mentor calls with you. 286 00:22:00,030 --> 00:22:04,130 And literally, I would tell him about my struggles and my thought process. 287 00:22:04,190 --> 00:22:08,150 And most of our calls were, you know, you're doing everything right. 288 00:22:08,150 --> 00:22:09,510 And that's what I really needed. 289 00:22:09,510 --> 00:22:13,210 And it's so funny that that's sometimes what you need. 290 00:22:13,210 --> 00:22:20,830 But just having somebody that might be outside of your normal scope of influence, like talking to you, for me, that was invaluable. 291 00:22:20,990 --> 00:22:30,190 And I just feel a little bit, you know, because that door was open for me and a hand came down and pulled me up, I should be doing the same thing. 292 00:22:30,410 --> 00:22:36,450 And so I really want to make myself available and keep that door open and that chain going, because none of us is an island. 293 00:22:37,910 --> 00:22:39,310 Awesome, Allie. 294 00:22:41,430 --> 00:22:42,570 Hey, thanks. 295 00:22:42,570 --> 00:22:44,910 So I actually have a business background. 296 00:22:45,110 --> 00:22:52,490 And I've spent years of my life trying to figure out so much in that realm. 297 00:22:52,490 --> 00:22:59,090 And I really think that everyone here is a big believer in sending the ladder back down. 298 00:22:59,090 --> 00:23:15,210 So as soon as you figure something out, you know, we should be sharing that with each other and helping each other, especially, you know, as a woman in this industry, especially as someone who doesn't look like the sort of stereotypical InfoSec person, 299 00:23:15,210 --> 00:23:26,670 I feel very strongly that I want to help people feel welcome and give them the resources and the knowledge that I have figured out over the years that, you know, we all have. 300 00:23:26,670 --> 00:23:31,910 And so just big believer and absolutely dovetail on everything that everyone said. 301 00:23:33,150 --> 00:23:33,890 Awesome. 302 00:23:33,890 --> 00:23:35,530 So, oh, okay, I'm going to take you. 303 00:23:35,530 --> 00:23:36,490 Go for it. 304 00:23:38,450 --> 00:23:46,290 You know, what Allie said actually resonated, because, you know, I'm a woman in an InfoSec adjacent role, but I've been in IT for a while now. 305 00:23:46,630 --> 00:23:48,750 And not only that, but I'm also a gay person. 306 00:23:48,750 --> 00:23:51,550 So I've had a unique set of experiences. 307 00:23:51,870 --> 00:23:57,810 And I've also worked really hard on my presentation skills and giving presentations. 308 00:23:57,810 --> 00:24:09,170 Because one thing I realized early on is that I would go to, like, you know, a small conference or talks at work, and there really weren't that many women presenting or openly LGBTQ plus people. 309 00:24:09,450 --> 00:24:12,790 And once I started doing that, like, people came out of the woodworks. 310 00:24:12,790 --> 00:24:17,590 I had a lot of people approach me afterwards and just, like, and, like, ask me how I got to where I am. 311 00:24:17,590 --> 00:24:20,630 And I'm standing there, like, I'm, like, early mid-career. 312 00:24:20,630 --> 00:24:21,810 Like, what do you mean? 313 00:24:21,950 --> 00:24:23,450 I'm nowhere yet. 314 00:24:23,450 --> 00:24:28,490 But wherever you are is further than someone else has gotten so far. 315 00:24:28,490 --> 00:24:36,990 So one of the people that I kind of mentor casually on the side is a non-binary person. 316 00:24:37,130 --> 00:24:42,930 And that's, you know, they're someone that, like, I'm, you know, I'm just a boring normal lesbian. 317 00:24:42,930 --> 00:24:45,610 Like, I don't know exactly what their experience is like. 318 00:24:45,610 --> 00:24:48,930 But I know enough of it, where we have some common ground. 319 00:24:48,930 --> 00:24:57,510 And the way that we interact is just more, it's more personal and more comfortable than it would be if we didn't have that common ground. 320 00:24:57,510 --> 00:24:59,690 And I think that that common ground is important. 321 00:24:59,690 --> 00:25:02,870 And also, just the visibility is important. 322 00:25:05,530 --> 00:25:06,130 Awesome. 323 00:25:06,130 --> 00:25:06,650 Thank you. 324 00:25:06,690 --> 00:25:09,010 Actually, I'm going to make a note in here. 325 00:25:09,850 --> 00:25:16,830 Precisely because of what Muteki said, we were very mindful of trying to find the best match for you. 326 00:25:16,830 --> 00:25:24,530 So as you sign up for a mentor M&T, which if you haven't, go to the Blue Team Village, meet a mentor, you'll find all the information you need. 327 00:25:25,510 --> 00:25:37,890 We could collect some extra information if you wanted to, you know, just to help you match precisely with someone, you know, maybe you're gay or lesbian, and you identify much more with Muteki. 328 00:25:37,890 --> 00:25:40,130 And so that's an opportunity for you, we don't need it. 329 00:25:40,130 --> 00:25:42,250 And it's completely optional if you wanted to. 330 00:25:42,250 --> 00:25:53,150 And it's precisely because sometimes you feel, you know, much more closer with someone that is from, you know, identifies the same way as you do, or maybe the same background, skin color, whatever it is. 331 00:25:53,150 --> 00:25:56,230 So we will have an opportunity to kind of help you with that. 332 00:25:56,450 --> 00:26:01,650 With that said, I'm getting some questions from some of the viewers watching the panel. 333 00:26:01,650 --> 00:26:10,910 So before I go into those, you know, one of the interesting questions here to ask is, have any of you ever been mentored by anyone? 334 00:26:10,910 --> 00:26:15,610 I think Lilmus kind of spoke about it, we can kind of continue with that. 335 00:26:15,810 --> 00:26:20,990 And then with that question, you know, did that help you in any way? 336 00:26:21,670 --> 00:26:23,830 So that is the question. 337 00:26:23,830 --> 00:26:27,990 So, you know, Lilmus, do you want to kind of continue since you were, you know, alluring to that? 338 00:26:27,990 --> 00:26:29,750 And then we move on to other panelists? 339 00:26:29,910 --> 00:26:30,490 Sure. 340 00:26:30,490 --> 00:26:38,650 So at the time, and just to say that I've only been mentored by one person isn't exactly true. 341 00:26:38,870 --> 00:26:47,310 So I would say that I've had numerous people reach out and say, if you need help on something, please come to me. 342 00:26:47,310 --> 00:26:51,690 And I've sat down with some great folks who do different things. 343 00:26:51,690 --> 00:26:57,070 So like on the Red Team side, anybody that knows Commander OpSec, phenomenal. 344 00:26:57,070 --> 00:27:02,250 All of the Dallas Hackers Association folks, absolutely phenomenal people to sit down with. 345 00:27:02,250 --> 00:27:05,150 And a lot of us would tag team between each other. 346 00:27:05,150 --> 00:27:06,870 It wasn't formal mentorship. 347 00:27:06,870 --> 00:27:14,730 But I would still say that learning from another person was very, very valuable, especially earlier on in my InfoSec career. 348 00:27:14,810 --> 00:27:23,270 But Christopher Witter and I actually sat down and we scheduled and planned because otherwise I felt like I was getting too shy. 349 00:27:23,410 --> 00:27:27,010 And I wouldn't ask questions until I felt like I was drowning. 350 00:27:27,330 --> 00:27:39,150 And so that was one of the things that really stood out to me as a win factor because every week I would have to think, okay, I have this scheduled call, what are we going to talk about? 351 00:27:39,150 --> 00:27:52,970 And actually coming up with the problems and coming up with the different points that I was trying to attack it from taught me more those mentorship calls because I would research first and I'd almost over research to compensate. 352 00:27:53,610 --> 00:27:59,850 And so it ended up being a really fun conversation and almost work stories at some point. 353 00:27:59,850 --> 00:28:05,670 So I don't know that that's going to be the experience for everyone, but I will say that was a very good experience. 354 00:28:07,570 --> 00:28:08,230 Awesome. 355 00:28:08,230 --> 00:28:09,930 I think I saw someone else in there. 356 00:28:09,930 --> 00:28:10,350 It's Kubi. 357 00:28:10,350 --> 00:28:12,150 Do you have your mic on and off? 358 00:28:12,350 --> 00:28:13,430 Okay. 359 00:28:13,430 --> 00:28:14,690 Yeah, I think it's on. 360 00:28:14,690 --> 00:28:15,930 I think it's on. 361 00:28:16,230 --> 00:28:24,410 No real mentor per se or real, you know, very steady opportunity like that. 362 00:28:24,410 --> 00:28:37,110 But since my first time at Black Hat and DEF CON, I've met many people, a lot of people from the blood down Slack, for example. 363 00:28:37,110 --> 00:28:52,510 Remember at one point I walked out to the SpectorUps booth and all of a sudden half of my Twitter feed was around me like Sean McAlf, Armjoy talking with Jean-Ti Kiwi. 364 00:28:52,510 --> 00:28:54,150 And I was trying to listen to them. 365 00:28:54,150 --> 00:28:59,630 And I think my nose started bleeding because I didn't understand a single word of what they were talking about. 366 00:29:00,050 --> 00:29:21,370 But, you know, being with these guys over and over and reading everything they talk about, asking questions here and there, I think that I grew more in the last three years than probably the 10 years before that, just because of the people that I was talking with and their generosity in general, 367 00:29:21,370 --> 00:29:33,630 just to answer all types of questions, even if probably the question I did ask, they were asked those questions probably 100 times before, they still took the time to explain things. 368 00:29:33,830 --> 00:29:44,990 And, for example, as well, before my first talk, I ran into Sean McAlf, and I asked him, do you have a few minutes just to review what I'm going to present? 369 00:29:45,490 --> 00:29:48,770 And he did take the time to review my stuff. 370 00:29:48,770 --> 00:29:56,410 And it actually really helped me to refine my deck and make it more, I think, more interesting for people. 371 00:29:56,410 --> 00:30:05,390 And it was very little things that he told me, but I still keep in mind when I do presentation now, to make sure that I incorporate what he told me. 372 00:30:05,390 --> 00:30:09,850 So those little things that come from a lot of people just adds up. 373 00:30:09,850 --> 00:30:14,010 And I think that having all the mentors here is a good thing as well. 374 00:30:14,010 --> 00:30:20,310 So people will be able to talk to a lot of different people, even if they have maybe a mentor that are a little bit more assigned. 375 00:30:20,310 --> 00:30:28,310 I think that it's, for me, I don't mind answering for other people as well and keeping the dialogue. 376 00:30:28,310 --> 00:30:32,550 And if I can help, I will help for sure. 377 00:30:33,070 --> 00:30:33,610 Awesome. 378 00:30:33,610 --> 00:30:36,190 Rubiks, I saw that you wanted to say something. 379 00:30:36,330 --> 00:30:41,390 Yeah, I was introduced to mentorship when I got into the startup world. 380 00:30:41,390 --> 00:30:44,390 Atlanta's got a pretty interesting history in security. 381 00:30:44,390 --> 00:30:50,710 Internet Security Systems has produced a whole lot of other folks that have tried to emulate that success. 382 00:30:50,770 --> 00:30:58,150 And so, once I got up into that startup world, everybody was mentoring somebody. 383 00:30:58,150 --> 00:31:01,730 That was just kind of part of the job description. 384 00:31:01,790 --> 00:31:04,910 And I thought that this was great. 385 00:31:04,910 --> 00:31:08,410 It would have been so great if I had had this earlier in my career. 386 00:31:08,950 --> 00:31:16,190 I had always been the middle of the road security guy, sometimes in management, sometimes not. 387 00:31:16,190 --> 00:31:19,050 I was never the super elite hacker. 388 00:31:19,050 --> 00:31:21,110 I never had tools in my name. 389 00:31:21,110 --> 00:31:22,970 I was never a Twitter superstar. 390 00:31:23,110 --> 00:31:26,170 But I do have lots of experience. 391 00:31:26,610 --> 00:31:35,210 And so, once I started mentoring on the security side, it was really surprising how much of that resonated with people. 392 00:31:35,210 --> 00:31:37,030 And I was able to help and give back. 393 00:31:37,030 --> 00:31:42,310 And so, that was my introduction to mentorship was from the startup world. 394 00:31:43,470 --> 00:31:44,130 Awesome. 395 00:31:44,130 --> 00:31:45,450 Thank you for your answers. 396 00:31:45,450 --> 00:31:51,350 So, I'm going to add one more question here, and then we'll move into some of the questions that we're getting from other people. 397 00:31:51,890 --> 00:32:02,570 I think one of the most important questions that we all have dealt somehow, at some point in time, is, you know, how do you combat imposter syndrome in your own life? 398 00:32:03,950 --> 00:32:07,070 Rando, I see you kind of moving towards the mic. 399 00:32:08,530 --> 00:32:10,550 Oh, he's... yeah. 400 00:32:10,690 --> 00:32:11,950 No, no, I'm good. 401 00:32:11,950 --> 00:32:12,710 I'm good. 402 00:32:12,830 --> 00:32:13,470 All right. 403 00:32:13,470 --> 00:32:13,670 All right. 404 00:32:13,670 --> 00:32:13,790 All right. 405 00:32:13,790 --> 00:32:22,090 Yeah, this is another one of my favorite, favorite questions, because I actually just kind of figured this out in the past couple of years or so. 406 00:32:22,090 --> 00:32:25,530 And I think I figured it out around Circle City Con I was presenting there. 407 00:32:25,530 --> 00:32:30,770 And of course, I had always beaten myself up of like, why do I keep getting things? 408 00:32:30,770 --> 00:32:31,930 And why do people care? 409 00:32:31,930 --> 00:32:34,450 I'm like, I'm really nothing, blah, blah, blah. 410 00:32:34,450 --> 00:32:41,790 And then I was sitting around with a bunch of my friends, people who I really look up to, that have taught me a whole lot. 411 00:32:41,870 --> 00:32:47,410 And they were asking like my advice on some threat hunting thing or like or something else. 412 00:32:47,410 --> 00:32:56,530 And I had kind of this moment of clarity that said, I am surrounded by all of these people who I look up to, who I still fanboy over. 413 00:32:56,530 --> 00:33:00,030 I could be good friends with them for five years, and I still fanboy a little bit. 414 00:33:00,030 --> 00:33:04,410 And I value their opinions so much and their feedback so much. 415 00:33:04,590 --> 00:33:09,770 Who am I to question them if they also value my feedback? 416 00:33:10,090 --> 00:33:23,970 Now, this just works for me, if I'm saying I don't believe in them believing in me, if that makes any sense, right? 417 00:33:23,970 --> 00:33:27,950 Like, if I value their opinion above other things, am I calling them a liar? 418 00:33:27,950 --> 00:33:29,710 Am I questioning their judgment? 419 00:33:29,850 --> 00:33:41,290 So, all of a sudden, I'm just like, okay, I'm buying into my, for all intents and purposes, my own hype now, because they believe in me, so I will out of respect for them. 420 00:33:41,290 --> 00:33:43,610 And God, that has made such a difference. 421 00:33:43,610 --> 00:33:47,730 So, every now and again, I feel out of my depth in something. 422 00:33:47,730 --> 00:33:54,210 But instead of getting down on myself, I'm like, cool, I don't know the thing. 423 00:33:54,210 --> 00:33:55,170 I don't know this thing. 424 00:33:55,170 --> 00:34:02,950 But please go ahead and teach me and I am that much ready to light somebody else up who doesn't have that same attitude and makes fun of somebody. 425 00:34:02,950 --> 00:34:08,810 So, I've gained confidence in doing that, in lighting somebody up for not doing it. 426 00:34:08,810 --> 00:34:14,190 And also, it makes my life a whole lot easier if I just believe in what everybody else believes about me. 427 00:34:14,190 --> 00:34:16,550 So, anyway, that's my answer for that. 428 00:34:16,550 --> 00:34:18,610 It was like a watershed thing for me. 429 00:34:19,490 --> 00:34:23,170 Gee, I saw that you kind of went off and off on the mic. 430 00:34:23,330 --> 00:34:24,670 Yeah, I kind of jumped the gun there. 431 00:34:24,670 --> 00:34:25,350 Sorry. 432 00:34:25,970 --> 00:34:26,770 It's all right. 433 00:34:26,770 --> 00:34:34,350 I think similarly, maybe accepting that I don't know everything, which for me, I'm a very arrogant person. 434 00:34:34,350 --> 00:34:36,830 That was difficult, soul crushing even. 435 00:34:37,090 --> 00:34:48,810 But accepting that I don't know everything and that I want to learn from other people and that they're willing to teach me and that the things that I do know or think that I know, the opinions that I espouse, the things that I'm allegedly an expert on, 436 00:34:48,810 --> 00:34:51,270 are grounded in experience and research. 437 00:34:51,630 --> 00:34:58,410 And the things that I need to learn will also be grounded in experience and research or things that somebody else has taught me. 438 00:34:58,410 --> 00:35:04,630 That kind of makes me feel good about the things that I know and being okay with not knowing things and learning too. 439 00:35:06,110 --> 00:35:06,670 Awesome. 440 00:35:06,670 --> 00:35:09,850 Ali, I saw that you wanted to say some comments. 441 00:35:10,530 --> 00:35:11,130 Yeah. 442 00:35:11,130 --> 00:35:20,450 I just wanted to put out that I think it's important for me to just remember that everyone has a different background. 443 00:35:20,450 --> 00:35:29,350 Everyone has had different experiences and those are all equally valid and they're all equally valuable. 444 00:35:29,570 --> 00:35:42,270 And just trying to remember that not only for myself, but I encourage other people to remember that as well and to not diminish their life and their accomplishments. 445 00:35:44,450 --> 00:35:45,650 I can't even say. 446 00:35:46,350 --> 00:35:48,210 Too much whiskey already. 447 00:35:48,210 --> 00:35:48,890 Oops. 448 00:35:49,050 --> 00:36:13,670 But then also, I think too, whenever I start feeling just overwhelmed or too anxious about my own imposter syndrome, which I have a ton of because I'm not even a technical person and I'm trying to play in this technical sandbox, I actually try to channel that energy into learning more and asking more questions. 449 00:36:13,670 --> 00:36:18,410 And I kind of just rechannel that energy and that works for me really well. 450 00:36:19,050 --> 00:36:20,030 Awesome. 451 00:36:20,030 --> 00:36:20,950 Moose? 452 00:36:20,950 --> 00:36:28,290 So I've struggled with imposter syndrome throughout multiple careers, multiple years. 453 00:36:28,290 --> 00:36:40,150 And while I don't think it really goes away, a really self-reflective takeaway I have was it's not always been this good for me. 454 00:36:40,150 --> 00:36:45,590 I'm in a place now to where I struggle with it less and I have to give credit where credit is due. 455 00:36:45,590 --> 00:36:47,710 I have a very supportive team. 456 00:36:47,910 --> 00:36:52,730 I have very, very supportive leadership and it has made all the difference in the world. 457 00:36:52,730 --> 00:37:07,690 And recognizing that your environment impacts you I think is super important because when I was struggling with it at the peak of imposter syndrome, I don't think I was bad. 458 00:37:07,690 --> 00:37:15,650 Looking back at it, I go, I really did know what I was doing, but I wasn't doing it with confidence because I wasn't around the right people. 459 00:37:16,530 --> 00:37:29,670 And I've got to say that that for me was one of the biggest takeaways because it's not like I've necessarily changed very much as a person, but my environment has changed drastically. 460 00:37:30,210 --> 00:37:44,430 And I think that if you can't find the people to support you in that knowledge where you are at work, so if you're a team of one or two and you don't really have the people around you that understand what you're doing and can't support you in that way, 461 00:37:44,430 --> 00:37:54,870 having a community that does it really helps as well, which is just another reason that I was so happy when Plug said, hey, we're doing this mentorship program thing with Blue Team Village. 462 00:37:54,870 --> 00:37:56,490 I was like, yes, absolutely. 463 00:37:56,490 --> 00:37:57,190 We'll help out. 464 00:37:57,190 --> 00:37:58,250 This is amazing. 465 00:37:59,610 --> 00:38:00,730 So awesome. 466 00:38:00,730 --> 00:38:01,790 Thank you. 467 00:38:02,310 --> 00:38:08,110 I'll add a little bit of personal note here as one of the mentors that you will have the option to talk to. 468 00:38:09,250 --> 00:38:11,890 My first DevCon was many, many years ago. 469 00:38:11,890 --> 00:38:13,590 I was only three hours in there. 470 00:38:13,590 --> 00:38:20,670 There is a panel that I partake on DevCon, and this is when I want to acknowledge one of the key individuals. 471 00:38:20,690 --> 00:38:24,650 He's Voiceacre, Mike Pertuzzi. 472 00:38:24,650 --> 00:38:37,250 He runs some stuff in DevCon, and he met me and we talked, and he actually helped me to kind of embrace the, you know, be part of DevCon and, you know, get yourself out to volunteer. 473 00:38:37,250 --> 00:38:41,250 You'll, you know, do something that, you know, that will get you out of that shell. 474 00:38:41,510 --> 00:38:46,970 And without having to kind of get him to chat with me, I don't think I will be honestly here. 475 00:38:46,970 --> 00:38:59,470 But in that regard, with imposter syndrome, I started going to the 26 candidates in LA meetings, where there is a lot of very cool hackers, and I always felt like, you know, what could I bring to the table? 476 00:38:59,570 --> 00:39:11,310 And yet, going, you know, for many years to DevCon, the two people that really brought always a lot of value to me is Matrix, NVIDIA, their goons, and some of you might know them. 477 00:39:11,570 --> 00:39:28,030 And they were very, you know, not necessarily mentors, but they allowed me to see that a lot of my adventure, at least in DevCon, was up to me, and that I needed to, you know, that I didn't have an accent, and I needed to stop worrying about things and just let be. 478 00:39:28,090 --> 00:39:36,390 So, sometimes, like someone mentioned earlier, we just need a little word of encouragement that will allow us to see things in a slightly different way. 479 00:39:36,490 --> 00:39:44,250 And in my case, by getting those words, I realized that helped me break out of that imposter syndrome, which we'll get it. 480 00:39:44,250 --> 00:39:58,230 But hopefully, through us, you'll get to hear sometimes those words of empowerment, and hopefully, the same way that some of us has, you know, influence in our lives, we can do that to you in your life and empower you to grow. 481 00:39:58,870 --> 00:40:10,250 And with that said, let's kind of go into, you know, an interesting question we received from the viewers, and it says, as a mentor, what would you define as success in this role? 482 00:40:10,250 --> 00:40:16,090 For you, how can I, as a mentee, get you invested and show accountability? 483 00:40:16,090 --> 00:40:18,130 I think that was an excellent question. 484 00:40:19,690 --> 00:40:21,350 Who said me? 485 00:40:23,610 --> 00:40:24,730 Rubix? 486 00:40:25,010 --> 00:40:40,830 Yeah, I think that one way that we can measure success from our side is, you know, very early on, we'll establish, you know, what is it that you want to get out of this? 487 00:40:40,830 --> 00:40:49,590 And so that way, it's not a guesswork on understanding, you know, did what we, you know, all the time that we spent together, was it effective or not? 488 00:40:49,590 --> 00:40:52,030 Like, let's put it on the table. 489 00:40:52,190 --> 00:40:53,650 What do you want to get out of this? 490 00:40:53,650 --> 00:40:59,030 And that way, we can track that and make sure that as we're moving along, we check in. 491 00:40:59,030 --> 00:41:02,150 Are we doing anything to help you along? 492 00:41:02,150 --> 00:41:07,010 Are you realizing, you know, you have new avenues that you didn't know that you had before? 493 00:41:07,010 --> 00:41:09,350 Are you seeing new opportunities? 494 00:41:09,470 --> 00:41:22,150 Like, you know, I think it's up to us to continually check in with our mentees to understand and make sure that we're being effective, not just in the end, but throughout the entire relationship. 495 00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:25,960 Awesome. 496 00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:26,900 Anyone else? 497 00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:32,860 Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, no, that's a much better idea. 498 00:41:32,860 --> 00:41:34,540 Clay, go right ahead. 499 00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:36,320 He's so quiet. 500 00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:38,040 I need to give him one, right? 501 00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:40,140 I mean, he needs to speak a little bit. 502 00:41:40,240 --> 00:41:41,280 Put him on the spot. 503 00:41:41,820 --> 00:41:42,340 Come on, handsome. 504 00:41:42,340 --> 00:41:45,560 I think Xavier, I couldn't say it any better. 505 00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:48,400 Oh, you cop out. 506 00:41:49,420 --> 00:41:51,680 You are the worst. 507 00:41:52,420 --> 00:41:55,520 I will unmute just to heckle you. 508 00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:57,000 Oh, my God. 509 00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:57,520 All right. 510 00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,300 Well, well, Clay, I will give you my answer. 511 00:42:01,300 --> 00:42:02,440 And then you can ask Clay again. 512 00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:04,160 He'll be like, yeah, Randall got it. 513 00:42:05,140 --> 00:42:18,160 Mine is, yeah, to echo what he has said, is it's important for the mentors to check in with the mentee. 514 00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:24,940 Now, just as a caveat, just because you're matched with one of us, it's not always a match. 515 00:42:25,140 --> 00:42:29,620 It's being self-aware enough to be like, listen, there's just no vibe here. 516 00:42:29,620 --> 00:42:31,020 And I've had it happen. 517 00:42:31,020 --> 00:42:34,700 I think of myself as very personable, and I really want to help. 518 00:42:34,700 --> 00:42:36,240 But sometimes the vibe just isn't there. 519 00:42:36,240 --> 00:42:38,560 And that is completely fine. 520 00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:40,420 I need honesty from them. 521 00:42:40,420 --> 00:42:48,380 And I also want to see that they are applying their own critical thinking skills to what I'm telling them. 522 00:42:48,380 --> 00:42:51,160 I don't want somebody just to parrot what I've told them. 523 00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:56,060 I don't want them to copy what I've told them, because everybody's experience is different. 524 00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:56,850 Like if I get... 525 00:42:57,220 --> 00:42:58,320 Don't parrot what you're telling us. 526 00:42:58,320 --> 00:42:58,960 Got it. 527 00:42:58,960 --> 00:42:59,580 Yeah. 528 00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:01,180 How dare you? 529 00:43:01,180 --> 00:43:02,500 I saw what you did there. 530 00:43:02,500 --> 00:43:06,500 You know, and also be honest with me, right? 531 00:43:06,500 --> 00:43:13,960 My life outlook is as a straight white male growing up in suburbia and living in a metro urban. 532 00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,860 I would love to mentor people from all different kinds of backgrounds. 533 00:43:17,860 --> 00:43:22,660 But remind me, check in with me of like, hey, my experience is different. 534 00:43:22,660 --> 00:43:25,160 Can you translate this for me? 535 00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:29,560 That's how I know that you're thinking critically about it and applying. 536 00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:36,420 It's kind of the same as when you have a, you know, if you've been in a sock for a while and you have a new analyst. 537 00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:45,400 And it's clear that even when I tell you something, you haven't actually done the legwork to figure this out. 538 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:46,440 Like, oh, it didn't work. 539 00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:47,120 I gave up. 540 00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:48,380 Tell me what to do next. 541 00:43:48,380 --> 00:43:50,000 It's not linear, right? 542 00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:56,460 So I just want to know that what I'm telling you is getting through and that I am understanding you. 543 00:43:56,460 --> 00:44:04,280 So that communication, as long as we can build that, I know this is going to be a very fruitful experience. 544 00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:06,280 And I think Clay should follow up with that. 545 00:44:06,740 --> 00:44:07,580 Yeah, Clay? 546 00:44:07,580 --> 00:44:08,920 Sure, sure, I will. 547 00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:21,660 I think just taking the first step and to becoming involved, to be a mentee, to open yourself up to the experience is already a success. 548 00:44:23,060 --> 00:44:25,600 It's about the journey as well, right? 549 00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:27,680 It's not about the destination. 550 00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:32,620 So if you're learning and you're growing, that's what it's all about. 551 00:44:32,620 --> 00:44:35,040 And half of that is really up to you. 552 00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:43,860 And if I can guide and support you in any way, shape, or form, that's what it's all about for me. 553 00:44:45,540 --> 00:44:46,200 Awesome. 554 00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:52,820 And in this case, this is why this is a good time to actually do a call for mentors. 555 00:44:52,820 --> 00:44:55,400 If you want a mentor, right? 556 00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:59,300 And you feel like you have something that you can bring to the table. 557 00:44:59,300 --> 00:45:04,540 Remember, this is not about... if you're very good at something, that's great. 558 00:45:04,540 --> 00:45:06,560 But if you have some experience, right? 559 00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:09,920 If you bring in a unique background, like Randall said, right? 560 00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:14,480 You see the panel here and you find, hey, I don't see my representation. 561 00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:16,480 Then we want you to be here. 562 00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,660 We want you to be part of that, so you can help someone like you. 563 00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:28,420 So go ahead, hit the Blue Team Village site, meet the mentor program, go to the forum, and we want to talk to you. 564 00:45:28,420 --> 00:45:30,220 We really want to talk to you. 565 00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:35,540 Another great question that we received is, what makes a good mentor? 566 00:45:35,540 --> 00:45:39,200 And how can mentors improve their mentor game? 567 00:45:41,020 --> 00:45:42,220 Nohakimi? 568 00:45:43,140 --> 00:45:45,180 What makes a good mentor? 569 00:45:45,180 --> 00:45:46,500 I'll be honest. 570 00:45:46,720 --> 00:45:50,740 It's going to vary from individual to individual. 571 00:45:50,740 --> 00:45:56,880 What works for Clay doesn't work for Randall, doesn't work for Muteki, doesn't work for Moose. 572 00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:58,460 It's going to be individual. 573 00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:03,240 And to Danny's point, if you and I hang out and it's not a match, cool. 574 00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:04,780 I'm not mad about it. 575 00:46:04,780 --> 00:46:08,460 I'm still going to help you as much as I can, but if there's a better one, won't. 576 00:46:09,140 --> 00:46:14,640 So I think that what makes a good mentor is what you want to get out of it. 577 00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:17,420 And I forgot the second part, so go ahead. 578 00:46:18,860 --> 00:46:20,920 I actually want to jump in on that real quick. 579 00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:21,600 Yeah, go ahead. 580 00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,020 The previous question and answer, it feels kind of related. 581 00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:33,680 So what Randall was saying about this, it reminded me of the whole idea of like mentoring versus tutoring. 582 00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:45,460 I don't want to just be there to answer some technical question, because it's like when you interview someone, you're not really looking for someone that may be like compare it back information to you. 583 00:46:45,460 --> 00:46:48,500 You want someone that is going to show you how they think. 584 00:46:48,500 --> 00:46:52,400 And I think that that's important for a mentor-mentee relationship. 585 00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:59,700 I, as a mentor, am more interested in helping someone find the answer themselves and not just giving them that answer. 586 00:46:59,700 --> 00:47:02,300 So that's a very important part of that relationship. 587 00:47:02,300 --> 00:47:21,240 And whatever I can do to be transparent about that and to share my experiences and not what I learned, but how I learned it and connect on a personal level where that's something that can be communicated well, I think that's an incredibly important part of being a mentor. 588 00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:24,500 Excellent. 589 00:47:24,500 --> 00:47:25,840 Moose, do you want to follow up on that? 590 00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:27,880 I think you're, I don't know if you're muted or unmuted. 591 00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:28,460 Don't see it. 592 00:47:28,460 --> 00:47:29,320 I'm unmuted. 593 00:47:29,500 --> 00:47:31,020 Yeah, I'd love to. 594 00:47:31,020 --> 00:47:33,720 So I currently mentor 595 00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:38,040 inside of work. 596 00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:39,760 We have an internship program. 597 00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:45,740 So I've constantly been evaluating myself and seeing how I do, and I'm always overly critical on myself. 598 00:47:45,860 --> 00:48:10,780 But I think that what makes a good mentor slash mentee bond is the ability to actively listen, but then also off of that listening, really ask those guiding questions on, you know, where you want to go and get to the meat and potatoes of goals for somebody that you're trying to help or for someone who's seeking help. 599 00:48:10,780 --> 00:48:16,860 And sometimes it's just asking something in a certain way that's going to clarify that goal. 600 00:48:16,860 --> 00:48:21,020 And just know that when you do that, that's not hard and fast. 601 00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:24,660 So a good mentor is also going to keep it fluid for you. 602 00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:32,280 And if you accomplish something, you know, it's still an accomplishment, even if it's not in your goal set and your goals can change. 603 00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:34,900 Awesome. 604 00:48:34,900 --> 00:48:35,980 Thank you, Ali. 605 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:50,080 Yeah, I just wanted to also say, you know, in my personal life, and just in how I try to navigate this world, I really focus on empathy. 606 00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:54,500 And I really focus on not judging. 607 00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:58,320 So trying to be non judgmental with everything. 608 00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:13,920 And so I think just that sort of conscious practice in my regular life will also help me, you know, become a better mentor for other people, as well as, honestly, I'm still being mentored by so many people. 609 00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:20,620 So I think that's really important that your mentor is never done being a mentee. 610 00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:23,580 Very well said. 611 00:49:23,580 --> 00:49:23,740 Yeah. 612 00:49:23,740 --> 00:49:29,350 Rubix, I thought you'd raise your hand because you wanted to say something or that was just waving to the camera. 613 00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,360 I literally have a bug flying right in front of my face. 614 00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:33,820 And I'm just like, I can't. 615 00:49:33,820 --> 00:49:35,540 Okay, I'm just sorry. 616 00:49:35,540 --> 00:49:38,060 So I'll just ignore me. 617 00:49:38,260 --> 00:49:40,980 And just one thing to follow up on that. 618 00:49:40,980 --> 00:49:54,380 That was she made an excellent, excellent point, is that remember, as a mentee, like, cut your mentor, like, we're just remember that, like, we don't know everything, we are still being mentored. 619 00:49:54,380 --> 00:50:02,360 I will sit and listen to like Rubix school me for hours and hours, because like, that dude is like always gonna know more than I do. 620 00:50:02,900 --> 00:50:04,280 About a lot of things. 621 00:50:04,540 --> 00:50:12,280 It's just like how anybody who goes and has a therapist, therapists have therapists, like, remember that there is that ladder. 622 00:50:12,780 --> 00:50:18,120 And that I had tried a mentor program a while ago by my dear friend. 623 00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:20,340 He's Jimmy Vo on Twitter. 624 00:50:20,340 --> 00:50:22,020 He had spun up something like this. 625 00:50:22,020 --> 00:50:23,400 And I volunteered for it. 626 00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:25,220 I was not ready. 627 00:50:25,220 --> 00:50:27,200 I let a couple people down. 628 00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:31,260 And I just I thought I was and I wasn't and I still feel bad about it. 629 00:50:31,260 --> 00:50:35,840 So, you know, yeah, we're we are still being mentored ourselves. 630 00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:38,260 And you'll see us at a con be hanging with us. 631 00:50:38,260 --> 00:50:42,840 And our jaws are going to drop at like a certain person that walks by going, hold on, I want their autograph. 632 00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:44,240 You know, we still do that. 633 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:46,900 Like every time Clay walks by. 634 00:50:49,860 --> 00:50:51,780 I haven't always. 635 00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:53,300 Yeah, nevermind. 636 00:50:53,300 --> 00:50:53,860 Sorry. 637 00:50:54,300 --> 00:50:55,140 I don't know. 638 00:50:55,140 --> 00:50:56,280 Now you have to answer. 639 00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:56,540 Go. 640 00:50:56,540 --> 00:50:57,620 What are you going to say? 641 00:50:59,380 --> 00:51:02,160 I was gonna say I'm always asking for Randall's autograph. 642 00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:03,900 He still hasn't given it to me yet. 643 00:51:06,510 --> 00:51:11,550 Yeah, that's because every piece of paper has like a signature line signing over my house to you. 644 00:51:11,550 --> 00:51:13,350 I know what you're doing. 645 00:51:18,150 --> 00:51:20,670 I got another interesting question in here. 646 00:51:20,670 --> 00:51:21,890 And it's this in here. 647 00:51:21,890 --> 00:51:25,970 Um, this is actually a pretty good question. 648 00:51:25,970 --> 00:51:37,430 It says any suggestions for someone with a strong technical education that will be reentering the workforce after over a decade of changing diapers? 649 00:51:42,070 --> 00:51:43,070 Ruby, you're nodding. 650 00:51:43,070 --> 00:51:44,250 Do you want to take this one? 651 00:51:44,250 --> 00:51:45,110 I see both. 652 00:51:45,110 --> 00:51:48,090 I just think it's an excellent question. 653 00:51:49,110 --> 00:51:58,710 And well, it's not it was not a decade, but I took two times a year off to go travel in various parts of the world. 654 00:51:58,710 --> 00:52:02,310 So I kind of know a little bit how it feels when you come back. 655 00:52:03,450 --> 00:52:10,870 I think, you know, even if like people say that InfoSec is moving extremely fast, and that everything changes all the time. 656 00:52:10,870 --> 00:52:14,010 But in fact, it's always also the same thing. 657 00:52:14,010 --> 00:52:17,450 It's very different, but the foundation is still the same. 658 00:52:17,450 --> 00:52:22,430 So yes, the new the new hack or the new vulnerability is something new. 659 00:52:22,430 --> 00:52:34,650 But the basic there, it's, it's, it's injection, it's a remote code execution, it's, it's whatever it's, there's not a lot of new technique or new things that are groundbreaking. 660 00:52:34,730 --> 00:52:37,550 There's new vulnerability, there's new various things. 661 00:52:37,550 --> 00:52:42,310 So if you have a very good background, I think you'll pick it up very quickly. 662 00:52:42,790 --> 00:52:47,250 Again, I don't think there's more, there's a there's a lot of magic here. 663 00:52:47,250 --> 00:52:57,450 You'll need to read, you'll need to go to some conference, just just keep reading, keep, keep talking with new people or other people. 664 00:52:57,670 --> 00:53:00,850 And then you'll catch up whatever you missed. 665 00:53:01,070 --> 00:53:08,170 And I think that if your foundation is strong, it's going to be, it's going to work for you. 666 00:53:08,750 --> 00:53:10,670 Rubix, I see you without the mic. 667 00:53:10,670 --> 00:53:12,070 Oh, sorry, random Rubix. 668 00:53:12,070 --> 00:53:13,310 No, no, he was first. 669 00:53:14,250 --> 00:53:17,350 So yeah, I've actually hired a couple people in this situation. 670 00:53:17,350 --> 00:53:22,390 And I find that technical skills are easy. 671 00:53:22,890 --> 00:53:33,470 The life skills that you learn, whether it's raising children, or, you know, helping out with your elderly parents, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why people take leave of absence. 672 00:53:33,690 --> 00:53:37,130 And, and that is, is, is valuable experience. 673 00:53:37,130 --> 00:53:43,210 So don't throw it out with the bathwater, you know, bring it, because we need that. 674 00:53:43,210 --> 00:53:47,890 We need the, the, the stuff that you learned as, as part of that life. 675 00:53:47,890 --> 00:53:51,390 Us stuck behind a computer, you know, we get stuck in a box. 676 00:53:51,390 --> 00:53:57,590 And we need, you know, fresh perspectives or ways of looking at things, compassion, empathy. 677 00:53:58,410 --> 00:54:00,930 Technical skills is something you'll learn. 678 00:54:00,930 --> 00:54:04,010 So yeah, let's, let's, let's jump in. 679 00:54:04,010 --> 00:54:05,810 And let's, let's get it, get it done. 680 00:54:06,770 --> 00:54:12,730 I'd say that if you're dealing with, sorry, no, no, go, go, go, go, go, I'm just gonna interject. 681 00:54:12,730 --> 00:54:18,010 If you've been dealing with small children for a decade, you are very well prepared to deal with consulting. 682 00:54:18,010 --> 00:54:19,330 Just gonna throw that out there. 683 00:54:19,590 --> 00:54:21,770 Clients and small children, very similar. 684 00:54:22,710 --> 00:54:23,310 Yeah. 685 00:54:23,310 --> 00:54:37,250 And my, my, my thing real quick, because I'm talking a lot, but never said like, just, just the way that the question was phrased, almost makes me think like, they're worried about it, or they think that it's a detriment. 686 00:54:37,450 --> 00:54:41,590 Like, here's something that's really gonna help you, especially when you come back in. 687 00:54:41,630 --> 00:54:47,170 You're eventually going to get to an interview, where the interviewers are going to be bad interviewers. 688 00:54:47,170 --> 00:55:00,210 And they're going to keep trying to steer that conversation to stuff that maybe you don't know about and always try to steer it back, use whatever skills that you have to steer the conversation back to make those strengths. 689 00:55:00,210 --> 00:55:02,550 You didn't, you didn't take time off. 690 00:55:02,670 --> 00:55:07,290 You ran a small enterprise of people who can't help themselves. 691 00:55:07,570 --> 00:55:09,870 And that's all InfoSec is. 692 00:55:09,870 --> 00:55:12,490 We're helping people who don't, can't help themselves. 693 00:55:12,490 --> 00:55:13,670 So that's what you did. 694 00:55:13,670 --> 00:55:15,290 That is a core skill. 695 00:55:15,290 --> 00:55:18,150 And I haven't changed a diaper for at least a couple of years now. 696 00:55:18,150 --> 00:55:22,330 But yeah, don't you don't, don't approach that as a negative. 697 00:55:22,330 --> 00:55:23,270 It's been it. 698 00:55:23,270 --> 00:55:31,470 And my only follow up to that is, if you are naturally inclined to go out to conferences and talk to people, work on your networking. 699 00:55:31,470 --> 00:55:47,190 If you are not, not all of us are, figure out a way, translate that thing that you're not comfortable doing into something that you are comfortable doing, which is cultivating a good Twitter feed, cultivating good sources of intel for yourself to learn things. 700 00:55:47,350 --> 00:55:51,690 And like somebody else had said, because my memory is absolute crap. 701 00:55:51,930 --> 00:55:54,350 The more things change, the more they stay the same. 702 00:55:54,350 --> 00:55:55,370 Recognize the patterns. 703 00:55:55,370 --> 00:55:56,850 You're not that far off. 704 00:55:56,850 --> 00:55:59,670 Like, I guarantee you, you're not as far away as you think. 705 00:56:00,590 --> 00:56:01,650 Hug me. 706 00:56:02,230 --> 00:56:11,510 Yeah, so I'll be honest, like 10 years off, it depends what kind of 10 years off we're talking 10 years, like I kept up with tech, or 10 years I did. 707 00:56:12,310 --> 00:56:18,130 And I think the biggest hurdle that you were going to run into is going to be HR. 708 00:56:18,310 --> 00:56:26,570 Once you get past HR, and you talk to me in the interview, within the first three minutes, I'm gonna know whether you're full of shit or not. 709 00:56:26,570 --> 00:56:30,950 And that's what it comes down to is getting past that HR screen. 710 00:56:31,150 --> 00:56:44,170 And I think that's what a lot of us mentors kind of bring to the table is, look, I know someone at this company that has this opening you'd be great for, and it's just bypassing the bullshit screens we all have to go through. 711 00:56:44,230 --> 00:56:49,290 And I think that's what a large part of being a mentor is, is don't get discouraged. 712 00:56:49,370 --> 00:56:53,850 Any HR person, and we know this, I don't want to talk shit on HR, but like a little bit. 713 00:56:53,850 --> 00:57:00,710 You know, you take 10 years off, I'm gonna see that his person hasn't been working for 10 years. 714 00:57:00,710 --> 00:57:04,630 But to Danny's point, to everybody else's point, like we all know mothers. 715 00:57:04,670 --> 00:57:15,530 Holy shit is that back-breaking work that it doesn't translate to a resume, but to anyone that has a child, Jesus, you would put in the hours. 716 00:57:15,530 --> 00:57:20,190 So I think the HR screen is going to be your problem, not the technical interview. 717 00:57:20,190 --> 00:57:28,470 Keep your chops up, and you're good, and all of us will help you as best we can get past that HR hurdle we all face. 718 00:57:29,590 --> 00:57:30,890 I love HR though. 719 00:57:32,710 --> 00:57:34,230 Moose, do you want to say something? 720 00:57:34,270 --> 00:57:35,230 I do. 721 00:57:36,630 --> 00:57:42,170 Three things, and I'm going to keep it very short because I know I've talked a lot, but one, thank you for asking this question. 722 00:57:42,170 --> 00:57:45,190 I think it's really important, and not a lot of people are brave enough to ask it. 723 00:57:45,210 --> 00:57:58,010 And thank you for having the strength to put your family first, because that is something that there are a lot of people in this industry who struggle with that, and that's super admirable to at least me. 724 00:57:58,010 --> 00:58:00,350 So I want to put that out there. 725 00:58:00,350 --> 00:58:20,590 The second thing is to kind of bounce off of No Hack Me and say, not only is what you said true, but there's also the added layer of that of you're asking questions here, you're probably signing up for this program, but you're opening a huge door, because sometimes it's about who you know, 726 00:58:20,590 --> 00:58:25,190 and I think that being more involved in the community is really going to be a boon to you. 727 00:58:25,190 --> 00:58:32,330 But there are a lot of volunteer positions that you can volunteer for at InfoSec Cons, especially right now that we're all remote. 728 00:58:32,430 --> 00:58:44,590 So reach out to the different cons that are coming up, volunteer, put that on your resume, like put your home lab on your resume, put stuff like that on your resume, because it doesn't need to be, I am at this formal company right now. 729 00:58:44,590 --> 00:58:54,850 You can put additional stuff that you've done, research you've done, education you've kept up with on your resume, write a blog, showcase the fact that you can write really well on the blue side. 730 00:58:54,850 --> 00:58:56,790 If you can write a report, you're golden. 731 00:58:56,930 --> 00:59:05,790 And then the last thing I'll say is, 10 years of changing diapers, I have walked into clients that look like a diaper barge after a threat actor has hit them. 732 00:59:05,790 --> 00:59:07,450 So that's valid experience. 733 00:59:07,690 --> 00:59:13,470 And just know that you've been looking at the things that we look at every day, no matter what. 734 00:59:14,810 --> 00:59:15,610 Awesome. 735 00:59:16,250 --> 00:59:17,790 I want to note on this. 736 00:59:17,790 --> 00:59:20,450 Oh, well, actually, before I go up, Allie, want to go for it? 737 00:59:20,450 --> 00:59:21,590 Yeah, thanks. 738 00:59:21,710 --> 00:59:24,750 I totally agree with everything, you know, everyone said. 739 00:59:24,750 --> 00:59:35,510 I also think from sort of a tactical perspective, you obviously are going to have a lot on your plate, both with career and life. 740 00:59:35,570 --> 00:59:42,270 And I think it's probably just really important for you to do it yourself or get support to do this. 741 00:59:42,270 --> 00:59:46,890 But to really prioritize, what is your sort of attack plan? 742 00:59:46,890 --> 00:59:50,510 Where are you going to be focusing your time, resources, and energy? 743 00:59:50,510 --> 01:00:01,170 And trying to figure out, like, maybe kind of doing your own gap analysis or kind of your own SWOT analysis, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 744 01:00:01,410 --> 01:00:06,510 And just kind of figuring out, like, what needs to be stronger? 745 01:00:06,510 --> 01:00:07,410 What can you work on? 746 01:00:07,410 --> 01:00:18,510 And really kind of strategically thinking about your priorities, because you obviously are going to have a lot of, you know, restrictions on your time and your resources. 747 01:00:18,510 --> 01:00:26,430 And then I think also, and this is something that hopefully your, you know, potential mentor and network and friends can help you with. 748 01:00:26,430 --> 01:00:38,130 But I think too, given your circumstances, you are going to want to maybe proactively seek an organization who embraces you, who embraces your background. 749 01:00:38,130 --> 01:00:41,910 And I think that's something that could be really crucial to your success. 750 01:00:41,950 --> 01:00:43,870 So I'll just leave it with that. 751 01:00:45,190 --> 01:00:47,550 Yeah, no, I think these are very good points. 752 01:00:48,550 --> 01:00:51,090 Actually, I was going to kind of note on that. 753 01:00:51,090 --> 01:01:00,290 If you're dealing with that, I think one of the important things, like it was said by Nohagmi, HR is going to be one of the main problems you're going to really face, right? 754 01:01:00,290 --> 01:01:05,070 But even then, you know, learn social engineering. 755 01:01:05,070 --> 01:01:09,350 There's always one way that you can, you know, speak to someone, especially they relate. 756 01:01:09,570 --> 01:01:16,950 And if you find that way that it can relate to someone, especially, you know, for many of us, having kids is so relatable, right? 757 01:01:17,150 --> 01:01:28,590 You can play that as an extent and during that HR, you know, stuff, obviously, they're going to look at things like, you know, have you, you know, when you stop working or not, but then you can you can change that conversation. 758 01:01:28,850 --> 01:01:43,490 And also, it was said before, you know, taking care of someone, you know, even if it's changing diabetes, you learn a lot of things, you know, risk management, you know, crisis management, you know, how to respond to incidents, right? 759 01:01:43,490 --> 01:01:48,090 So, there's a lot of things that are analogies to security anyways, because they happen in real life. 760 01:01:48,150 --> 01:01:59,470 You can flip all of that in a way that, you know, say, hey, I might not have in real life, you know, on that technical subject, but I know what it's like when I have to deal with this. 761 01:01:59,470 --> 01:02:04,770 And, you know, and there are many things in life that align a lot with what we do anyways. 762 01:02:04,770 --> 01:02:11,610 So, you know, find a way to kind of, you can bring and say, hey, I know this. 763 01:02:11,610 --> 01:02:16,590 And that life experience sometimes is much more valuable than the technical experience you can bring. 764 01:02:18,330 --> 01:02:20,230 Anyone else want to add something to this? 765 01:02:20,230 --> 01:02:21,970 Otherwise, Ajit, you want to say something? 766 01:02:21,970 --> 01:02:22,610 Yeah, go for it. 767 01:02:22,610 --> 01:02:29,030 On the topic of conferences, if you have a local B-Sides chapter, it's a great place to get started. 768 01:02:29,030 --> 01:02:32,090 They tend to be very approachable, and most of them are always looking for help. 769 01:02:32,090 --> 01:02:32,790 I know that we are. 770 01:02:32,790 --> 01:02:34,110 I help run B-Sides Philly. 771 01:02:34,230 --> 01:02:40,230 If you're in the know, we have a few. 772 01:02:41,010 --> 01:02:42,450 Go ahead, no hug me. 773 01:02:43,230 --> 01:02:45,470 I'm saying B-Sides DC, B-Sides charm. 774 01:02:45,470 --> 01:02:46,890 You want to get involved, hit me up. 775 01:02:48,950 --> 01:02:51,970 Yeah, so as far as... go for it, go for it, Moose. 776 01:02:53,190 --> 01:02:54,290 That's all I wanted to say. 777 01:02:58,490 --> 01:03:03,490 Yeah, so I think as far as conference goes, we cover quite a bit of ground in there. 778 01:03:03,490 --> 01:03:06,010 I'd shout out to the Shellcon crew as well. 779 01:03:06,570 --> 01:03:08,310 A few of the B-Sides. 780 01:03:08,910 --> 01:03:11,270 We got Circle City Con, right? 781 01:03:12,110 --> 01:03:13,070 Yeah, there you go. 782 01:03:13,070 --> 01:03:14,990 See, you gotta show this. 783 01:03:14,990 --> 01:03:19,650 So, there's plenty of conferences, some even that I really haven't gone. 784 01:03:19,690 --> 01:03:21,870 Hushcon is another fun conference. 785 01:03:23,150 --> 01:03:25,250 So, yeah, get involved on those. 786 01:03:25,250 --> 01:03:30,050 But there's another question that came up as well from the audience. 787 01:03:30,450 --> 01:03:39,370 And someone is asking, do any of your mentors help or partake or mentor in the local high school in any way? 788 01:03:41,070 --> 01:03:42,190 Ali? 789 01:03:44,310 --> 01:03:46,630 Sorry, a little burn there. 790 01:03:47,490 --> 01:03:50,450 Yeah, so I'm actually so excited. 791 01:03:50,450 --> 01:03:53,010 It's a relatively new effort. 792 01:03:53,110 --> 01:03:55,870 But I'm in the D.C. 793 01:03:55,870 --> 01:03:56,830 area. 794 01:03:56,970 --> 01:04:00,310 And I just made a new friend over Twitter. 795 01:04:00,710 --> 01:04:13,590 And he actually has already started an effort to provide free IT and also security training, basically a program to the Black youth in D.C. 796 01:04:13,590 --> 01:04:17,830 who are notoriously historically underserved and underprivileged. 797 01:04:17,830 --> 01:04:22,330 And I'm really honored that he's considering to bring me on to help. 798 01:04:22,770 --> 01:04:26,230 So, I'll have more on that actually soon. 799 01:04:26,230 --> 01:04:32,110 But that will be actually primarily for the high school age for the kids in D.C. 800 01:04:32,830 --> 01:04:33,590 Awesome. 801 01:04:33,590 --> 01:04:34,330 Rando? 802 01:04:34,670 --> 01:04:35,590 Yeah. 803 01:04:36,430 --> 01:04:40,070 First of all, plug for a very good friend of mine. 804 01:04:40,150 --> 01:04:45,030 He is on Twitter at Simple Skink, S-K-I-N-K. 805 01:04:45,030 --> 01:04:47,750 He gave a talk at Circle a couple years ago. 806 01:04:47,750 --> 01:04:56,230 And this guy has done a ton, a ton of work reaching out to his local school community, I think in like the Louisville area. 807 01:04:56,290 --> 01:05:02,190 So, first point of order is to go follow him, pick his brain, his DMs are open, he's done. 808 01:05:02,190 --> 01:05:03,830 And he actually did a really good talk. 809 01:05:06,050 --> 01:05:10,710 So, talk at Circle City, I think it was like 2017 or 2018. 810 01:05:10,790 --> 01:05:22,670 Anyway, on from that, I recently, not high school kids, but I recently gave a talk to four different classes of middle schoolers. 811 01:05:22,670 --> 01:05:27,370 And that was a complete eye opener about how they give and receive information. 812 01:05:27,370 --> 01:05:31,030 And by the way, if you use Facebook, they will make fun of you. 813 01:05:31,250 --> 01:05:45,330 So, I got in by accident because I have this is gonna sound super pretentious, but the dude who cuts my grass is also a high school teacher and teaches PE in middle school. 814 01:05:45,330 --> 01:05:47,790 And I was like, well, I should be cutting your grass. 815 01:05:47,790 --> 01:05:50,690 First of all, second of all, he got me in there. 816 01:05:51,450 --> 01:06:04,830 If somebody is thinking about being a mentor and trying to get into schools, or if you are in high school and have never gotten a good speaker, it is incredibly, incredibly hard, I have found to get into schools. 817 01:06:04,830 --> 01:06:10,170 It is hard to get them to return phone calls because like, I actually don't know why. 818 01:06:10,570 --> 01:06:14,510 But yeah, so if you're thinking about mentoring, go follow SimpleSkink. 819 01:06:14,510 --> 01:06:18,010 He has fought all of these fights for you already. 820 01:06:19,110 --> 01:06:24,210 And if you want to do it, it is super rewarding. 821 01:06:24,210 --> 01:06:32,070 Just know that there's like we talked before about ways to give and receive information, even among adults, it's hard. 822 01:06:32,070 --> 01:06:34,570 So be prepared to really have to translate. 823 01:06:34,870 --> 01:06:45,090 And I want to do more of it, because that is a skill talking to high schoolers that I have yet to master or that I ever will, because they all stay the same age, and I keep getting older. 824 01:06:45,550 --> 01:06:46,750 I don't know. 825 01:06:46,750 --> 01:06:48,550 I don't know. 826 01:06:49,170 --> 01:06:52,790 No, I think that's, that's, that's good. 827 01:06:52,830 --> 01:06:56,130 Personally, I do volunteer from time to time in my time. 828 01:06:56,610 --> 01:07:08,630 And this is actually one of the things that I found, you know, the, I go to, you know, maybe not sometimes, I've only been to high school twice, but I've gone to elementary or junior schools. 829 01:07:08,710 --> 01:07:19,450 And one of the coolest things that I like to do is take some of the badges to those schools and, and use it sometimes as gadgets and props to talk about hackers and so forth. 830 01:07:19,810 --> 01:07:26,750 Because they have a good way to kind of get, you know, everyone engaged, even if, especially in high school, the times that I use them. 831 01:07:27,370 --> 01:07:29,550 So, but yeah, there's some challenges with that. 832 01:07:29,550 --> 01:07:45,870 The place I work there, there is a bit of a program where if you are from Latin heritage, and you speak Spanish, like in my case, you know, we volunteer to, you know, go to a university or some other place and kind of, you know, do be on a panel or do a talk representation. 833 01:07:45,990 --> 01:07:50,790 So, yeah, it's slightly different to be mentoring someone, you know, at that level. 834 01:07:50,790 --> 01:07:53,090 It also comes with a few constraints. 835 01:07:53,910 --> 01:08:02,950 So, you know, where you do it, how you do it, you always have to be mindful on both of the sides, especially at that age level, and the role of a mentor, right? 836 01:08:03,010 --> 01:08:07,250 So, whenever I engage in that, I try to make sure that it is never a one-on-one. 837 01:08:07,250 --> 01:08:15,390 Personally, it's more like a setting where it's pretty public, and it's in a group, you know, setting, just because it's the easiest way to answer many questions. 838 01:08:15,470 --> 01:08:22,410 And also, because I'm not qualified to kind of have that, you know, that setting with someone, you know, I'm not tutoring. 839 01:08:22,410 --> 01:08:24,650 And I think that's very important to kind of touch on this, right? 840 01:08:24,650 --> 01:08:27,390 There's a distinction between tutoring and mentoring. 841 01:08:27,490 --> 01:08:34,690 And, you know, that will not be the demographic that, you know, I personally feel confident to provide some sort of mentoring. 842 01:08:34,690 --> 01:08:39,250 I was a teenager once, and, you know, I felt many things during that age. 843 01:08:39,250 --> 01:08:41,650 So, I think that's an important thing to kind of note. 844 01:08:41,650 --> 01:08:47,930 And with that said, we do have another question that came in as well. 845 01:08:47,930 --> 01:08:54,670 And it says, may the panelists speak on, you know, goal-setting over the ambitious goals, you know? 846 01:08:54,670 --> 01:09:03,250 So, if you set an over-ambition goal, how to manage your workload and burnout, you know, putting pressure on yourself to succeed at all costs. 847 01:09:03,450 --> 01:09:05,090 Basically, we're talking about burnout. 848 01:09:05,090 --> 01:09:10,070 Yeah, I can actually, I think I can start to speak on that. 849 01:09:10,110 --> 01:09:19,530 So, I have constantly struggled with trying to do too much and burning out or getting really close to burning out. 850 01:09:19,610 --> 01:09:23,530 So, one example is actually at the start of this pandemic. 851 01:09:23,570 --> 01:09:27,910 So, my work started going remote in mid-March. 852 01:09:28,410 --> 01:09:34,410 And around the same time, just right as we went remote, I actually got COVID. 853 01:09:34,410 --> 01:09:37,810 And I wound up being sick for about two, two and a half months. 854 01:09:38,270 --> 01:09:41,250 If you ever heard of, like, a COVID long hauler, that was me. 855 01:09:41,310 --> 01:09:42,130 It's horrible. 856 01:09:42,130 --> 01:09:42,990 Do not recommend. 857 01:09:42,990 --> 01:09:44,130 Zero of 10. 858 01:09:44,390 --> 01:09:46,070 Like, do not recommend. 859 01:09:46,470 --> 01:09:57,790 But, of course, what wound up happening was, I had an amazing supportive boss who pretty much let me kind of just, you know, I went to take, like, a week or two off, maximum. 860 01:09:57,790 --> 01:09:59,170 And then I started trying to work. 861 01:09:59,170 --> 01:10:05,450 And I felt, like, I felt a lot of guilt about, like, trying to work when I was still really sick. 862 01:10:05,630 --> 01:10:08,070 And I felt like I didn't perform enough. 863 01:10:08,230 --> 01:10:14,230 So, I wound up just taking on an insane amount of work when I started to feel better. 864 01:10:14,530 --> 01:10:23,990 And in the last, like, two or three weeks, I basically had, like, three major projects all, like, crescendo at the same time. 865 01:10:24,030 --> 01:10:28,710 And I hit a point where, like, I woke up in the morning and I just dreaded the day. 866 01:10:28,750 --> 01:10:31,730 And I realized that, like, I kind of did that to myself. 867 01:10:32,030 --> 01:10:37,770 And I have to be realistic about what I'm capable of doing and what I'm not capable of doing. 868 01:10:37,770 --> 01:10:39,210 And I've always been this way. 869 01:10:39,210 --> 01:10:42,010 Like, I push so hard and I just keep going. 870 01:10:42,090 --> 01:10:45,110 And, like, like I said, I'm also a part-time grad student. 871 01:10:45,110 --> 01:10:49,830 And if anyone has ever been to grad school, like, it's kind of an insane rush. 872 01:10:49,830 --> 01:10:51,930 And it's full of a lot of overachievers. 873 01:10:51,930 --> 01:11:03,370 And you have a kind of constant imposter syndrome where you think that everyone is way smarter than you and they can do the project in one hour when it takes you, like, 12 or 24, whatever it is. 874 01:11:03,550 --> 01:11:15,250 So, you know, I've had to, like, be careful with myself and let myself just fail a little bit and set smaller goals and, like, actually delegate where it's possible to delegate. 875 01:11:15,330 --> 01:11:21,330 Like, these projects, I could have trained someone else to do this part or that part or, you know, reassign something. 876 01:11:21,330 --> 01:11:25,490 And I, for whatever dumbass reason, chose not to do that. 877 01:11:25,650 --> 01:11:29,030 And that's kind of, like, I'm still, like, paying for that a little bit. 878 01:11:29,030 --> 01:11:30,630 And it's a constant struggle. 879 01:11:32,370 --> 01:11:33,210 Anyone else? 880 01:11:33,210 --> 01:11:34,530 Moose, I see you. 881 01:11:35,030 --> 01:11:43,010 So, that question hits home because I am known for my burnout. 882 01:11:43,090 --> 01:11:47,110 I almost struggle saying no to things when they come in. 883 01:11:47,110 --> 01:11:49,570 And I am a hyper-technical person. 884 01:11:49,630 --> 01:11:54,670 So, like, I want to know the inside detail on how everything works in this problem. 885 01:11:54,670 --> 01:11:56,930 I'm also a perfectionist, also a problem. 886 01:11:57,790 --> 01:12:07,630 And I have to go ahead and give a shout out to my intern right now that I have, that I'm mentoring, wrote a blog post this past week. 887 01:12:07,630 --> 01:12:12,650 And part of this blog post was the best advice I've gotten recently was take a break. 888 01:12:13,250 --> 01:12:18,610 And so, for you, like, you're trying to eat the elephant. 889 01:12:19,170 --> 01:12:20,250 It's okay. 890 01:12:20,390 --> 01:12:21,910 You just have to do it in parts. 891 01:12:21,910 --> 01:12:24,890 And I think having overly ambitious goals is great. 892 01:12:24,890 --> 01:12:26,210 I've had them. 893 01:12:26,210 --> 01:12:39,590 I was working beyond full-time doing SOC-IR, completing my master's degree in DFIR at the same time, and volunteering for another organization. 894 01:12:39,590 --> 01:12:40,990 And I didn't sleep much. 895 01:12:40,990 --> 01:12:42,650 And that wasn't exactly healthy. 896 01:12:42,650 --> 01:12:49,490 So, you know, as a mentor, I'm never going to say what you should or shouldn't do. 897 01:12:49,490 --> 01:12:59,630 But I might ask a lot of questions and share my life experience and say, hey, you know, these are the kinds of things that have helped me. 898 01:12:59,630 --> 01:13:01,470 Did you remember to eat today? 899 01:13:01,470 --> 01:13:03,390 How much have you slept this week? 900 01:13:03,390 --> 01:13:14,110 You know, some things like that that, you know, my boss said to me recently, I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off, by the way, because I haven't slept much recently. 901 01:13:14,110 --> 01:13:20,810 But they say to me on a frequent basis of, you know, we'll always have IRs, but we only have one Heather. 902 01:13:21,930 --> 01:13:25,730 And I think that's a really good way to look at it for you. 903 01:13:25,730 --> 01:13:27,690 Have those overly ambitious goals. 904 01:13:27,690 --> 01:13:28,830 Shoot for the moon. 905 01:13:28,830 --> 01:13:30,270 But there's only one you. 906 01:13:30,270 --> 01:13:32,570 So keep yourself alive while you're doing it. 907 01:13:33,530 --> 01:13:34,970 Awesome. 908 01:13:35,170 --> 01:13:36,310 Rubix? 909 01:13:36,310 --> 01:13:45,110 Yeah, I wanted to call out something and give some words to, you know, what people would feel in different situations. 910 01:13:45,110 --> 01:13:48,470 Because there's stress and then there's burnout. 911 01:13:48,490 --> 01:13:51,090 And really there's a difference. 912 01:13:51,090 --> 01:13:57,150 And you can have a stressful work career and be happy and productive. 913 01:13:57,190 --> 01:14:00,930 And stress doesn't necessarily have to be bad. 914 01:14:00,930 --> 01:14:05,650 Burnout is when that stress is doing different things to you. 915 01:14:06,010 --> 01:14:13,170 So, you know, go Google that stress versus burnout, and you can kind of see the differences there and help measure yourself. 916 01:14:13,170 --> 01:14:17,130 Am I just in a stressful situation or am I approaching burnout? 917 01:14:17,390 --> 01:14:20,690 And because the ways that you respond to that is a little bit different. 918 01:14:20,690 --> 01:14:29,430 So I wanted to throw that out there, give those skills to anybody that's listening to recognize that and be able to respond accordingly. 919 01:14:30,290 --> 01:14:31,130 Awesome. 920 01:14:31,330 --> 01:14:33,050 I'll link to this part of that. 921 01:14:33,050 --> 01:14:35,310 So we go into the final notes with a personal note. 922 01:14:35,310 --> 01:14:42,870 There's a co-worker of mine, if he's watching or he will ever watch, that has told me many times, you said yes, right? 923 01:14:42,870 --> 01:14:45,350 You know, you tend to say yes too much. 924 01:14:45,630 --> 01:14:51,450 And it is definitely a thing that some of us learn to deal and learn to... so learn to say no. 925 01:14:51,450 --> 01:14:53,590 And it's okay to say no. 926 01:14:53,770 --> 01:14:58,950 There will be more time to try new things and experience things, but it's completely fine. 927 01:14:58,950 --> 01:15:10,130 And the sooner you learn to do that, you will be able to succeed even more because you're able to funnel all of the time that you have into that one primary task. 928 01:15:10,330 --> 01:15:17,730 And instead of, you know, trying to find more hours of the day that you don't have to do all the other things that you're raising your hand for. 929 01:15:17,730 --> 01:15:21,210 So if you want to learn it from me, then learn to say no. 930 01:15:21,230 --> 01:15:23,010 So hi to my co-worker. 931 01:15:23,010 --> 01:15:23,590 All right. 932 01:15:23,590 --> 01:15:29,810 So we're at the end of the panel and this is the time for us to basically end. 933 01:15:29,810 --> 01:15:32,330 And I want to give everyone an opportunity. 934 01:15:32,330 --> 01:15:39,070 You got about a quick minute to just go through, you know, last comments regarding the program. 935 01:15:39,390 --> 01:15:42,290 Maybe you want some simple advice to end. 936 01:15:42,310 --> 01:15:43,930 It's totally up to you. 937 01:15:43,970 --> 01:15:50,610 So, you know, do you want me to do it the same way that we did it before from the top and the bottom? 938 01:15:50,610 --> 01:15:51,970 Or is that fine? 939 01:15:51,970 --> 01:15:52,530 Muteki? 940 01:15:52,530 --> 01:15:52,870 All right. 941 01:15:52,870 --> 01:15:53,910 Take it away. 942 01:15:55,110 --> 01:16:03,270 I just want to say it's been absolutely awesome to work on this and we've gotten an amazing surge of interest. 943 01:16:03,270 --> 01:16:08,350 And I'm super excited to delve into like how this is going to work. 944 01:16:08,390 --> 01:16:13,790 So it's probably, we're not going to wind up with any assignments at least for probably a week or so. 945 01:16:13,790 --> 01:16:19,010 If you know people that are interested in mentoring, please send them over bootcamp.com. 946 01:16:20,570 --> 01:16:29,790 And I just want to say that, you know, we're really we want to be cognizant about how people have different experiences. 947 01:16:29,790 --> 01:16:33,770 And we didn't really have time to address a lot of the questions that kind of came up. 948 01:16:34,470 --> 01:16:40,730 But one of the things that happened was last night a bunch of us actually had this like random Zoom call. 949 01:16:40,730 --> 01:16:44,650 And it wound up being like the most philosophical Zoom call I think I've ever been on. 950 01:16:44,790 --> 01:16:47,390 And one of the things that came up was different experiences. 951 01:16:47,390 --> 01:16:53,370 So my experience as a woman who is also gay in the workforce means that I'm kind of an honorary man. 952 01:16:53,450 --> 01:17:06,190 And that means that my experience of things as like a super assertive, like very outspoken steamroller of a human being is not going to be the same as a more feminine woman's would be. 953 01:17:06,190 --> 01:17:08,650 And all experiences are valid. 954 01:17:08,970 --> 01:17:17,350 And I think all of us that want to be a mentor are trying our hardest to recognize that those differences exist. 955 01:17:17,570 --> 01:17:22,210 And some of the most important things that we can do is to just believe people. 956 01:17:22,210 --> 01:17:25,930 To believe women, believe black people, believe people of color. 957 01:17:25,930 --> 01:17:29,330 And to really like to take that into consideration. 958 01:17:29,330 --> 01:17:34,810 So I hope that we're able to achieve that for all the people that apply to be mentees. 959 01:17:35,970 --> 01:17:37,090 Awesome. 960 01:17:37,250 --> 01:17:39,050 Yeah, good point. 961 01:17:39,370 --> 01:17:41,190 Actually, just a quick thing. 962 01:17:41,270 --> 01:17:46,430 We collected some, I think we so far got a few mentee submissions. 963 01:17:46,430 --> 01:17:48,170 Do you know what count are we? 964 01:17:48,530 --> 01:17:49,270 Let me check. 965 01:17:49,270 --> 01:17:51,610 We're almost at 200. 966 01:17:52,170 --> 01:17:55,890 And a huge surge, mostly mentees. 967 01:17:55,890 --> 01:17:58,350 So we are actively looking for more mentors. 968 01:17:58,530 --> 01:18:08,730 And you people are really interested in technical skill acquisition, developing confidence, interpersonal skills, and imposter syndrome is definitely high on that list. 969 01:18:09,010 --> 01:18:12,730 And also like things like interviews and things like that. 970 01:18:12,730 --> 01:18:14,510 And you people love DFIR too. 971 01:18:14,510 --> 01:18:16,590 Like everyone wants to do DFIR. 972 01:18:16,710 --> 01:18:17,930 It's great. 973 01:18:18,590 --> 01:18:19,490 Awesome. 974 01:18:19,490 --> 01:18:20,030 Thank you. 975 01:18:20,030 --> 01:18:20,490 All right. 976 01:18:20,490 --> 01:18:22,690 So as you heard, we're looking for mentors. 977 01:18:22,690 --> 01:18:28,330 And if you're a mentee, you know, we have a line to go through. 978 01:18:28,330 --> 01:18:29,630 So don't matter. 979 01:18:29,630 --> 01:18:30,970 Just come in and sign up. 980 01:18:30,970 --> 01:18:31,650 Rando. 981 01:18:32,630 --> 01:18:35,050 First of all, suck it red team. 982 01:18:35,150 --> 01:18:42,690 Second of all, just a word about projection, right? 983 01:18:42,690 --> 01:18:54,050 Right now, everybody who is either thinking about being a mentee or has already applied, like don't project yourself out for failure. 984 01:18:54,050 --> 01:18:57,170 And don't project yourself out for like conquering the world. 985 01:18:57,170 --> 01:18:59,050 That's a good thing to have. 986 01:18:59,050 --> 01:19:02,630 But take this seriously, right? 987 01:19:02,630 --> 01:19:13,050 If you get into this, like get into this groove with us, and all of a sudden you start projecting about how it's not going to do you any good, or I'm not a fit for this, or whatever. 988 01:19:13,410 --> 01:19:15,970 Always keep in mind to not project. 989 01:19:15,970 --> 01:19:17,710 You cannot tell the future. 990 01:19:17,710 --> 01:19:21,690 You don't know for sure if you're going to fail or if you're going to succeed. 991 01:19:22,150 --> 01:19:25,370 Spoiler alert, you're going to do both multiple times. 992 01:19:25,370 --> 01:19:28,830 So just take this seriously in the moment. 993 01:19:28,830 --> 01:19:34,290 Every single minute that you do this, that is the minute that you are concentrating on. 994 01:19:34,290 --> 01:19:36,250 And then let that take you forward. 995 01:19:36,250 --> 01:19:37,970 Don't project where you're going to end up. 996 01:19:37,970 --> 01:19:40,350 Take it seriously, and I promise we will too. 997 01:19:43,610 --> 01:19:44,110 Awesome. 998 01:19:44,110 --> 01:19:44,810 Rubix? 999 01:19:49,230 --> 01:19:50,150 Do you hear me? 1000 01:19:50,150 --> 01:19:50,510 Rubix? 1001 01:19:50,510 --> 01:19:51,210 Rubix? 1002 01:19:52,190 --> 01:19:53,510 I think he's muted. 1003 01:19:54,770 --> 01:19:55,570 No? 1004 01:19:55,730 --> 01:19:56,810 We'll skip him. 1005 01:19:56,990 --> 01:19:58,090 Pulling at Clay. 1006 01:19:58,250 --> 01:19:58,950 Yeah? 1007 01:20:00,830 --> 01:20:02,130 I don't think he can hear me. 1008 01:20:02,130 --> 01:20:03,510 We'll skip him for now. 1009 01:20:03,510 --> 01:20:04,670 He disconnected. 1010 01:20:04,870 --> 01:20:06,110 All right, he's coming back. 1011 01:20:06,110 --> 01:20:06,870 Let's see. 1012 01:20:07,410 --> 01:20:09,530 Maybe Audio is back on. 1013 01:20:09,750 --> 01:20:10,930 All right, awesome. 1014 01:20:12,990 --> 01:20:16,530 Did my technology fail right at the right moment? 1015 01:20:17,830 --> 01:20:18,610 Okay. 1016 01:20:18,610 --> 01:20:19,710 Yeah, your turn. 1017 01:20:19,710 --> 01:20:20,830 All right, it's my turn. 1018 01:20:20,830 --> 01:20:23,370 So yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. 1019 01:20:23,730 --> 01:20:30,070 I always enjoy hearing what people are out there and what they're facing, the variety of things. 1020 01:20:30,310 --> 01:20:37,530 And I do want to echo the, you know, it's okay to fail and also kind of bring back the burnout thing. 1021 01:20:38,090 --> 01:20:55,810 I've had a little short stints of absolutely no technology jobs in between my 28-year career where I've been like, I'm going to be a bartender or I'm going to help, you know, rebuild houses or, you know, I mean, it's crazy. 1022 01:20:55,810 --> 01:20:56,950 You'll get there. 1023 01:20:57,050 --> 01:21:01,130 You're going to, you know, you're going to be at points in your life where you're just going to want to do something else. 1024 01:21:01,130 --> 01:21:06,950 And to make it, you know, full 30, almost 30 years that I have, you know, you've got to take some breaks and whatnot. 1025 01:21:06,950 --> 01:21:19,030 So even if you are not ultimately successful and, you know, have this ramp of exactly you met your goals, you know, that doesn't mean you failed completely and you can't have success. 1026 01:21:19,030 --> 01:21:21,390 So, you know, we'll work together. 1027 01:21:21,390 --> 01:21:26,510 We'll find some ways, but understand that we'll all have some bumps and bruises along the way. 1028 01:21:26,510 --> 01:21:27,710 And I look forward to it. 1029 01:21:29,210 --> 01:21:29,890 Awesome. 1030 01:21:29,890 --> 01:21:31,250 Thank you for that, G. 1031 01:21:33,170 --> 01:21:46,990 Yeah, I'd say that success in the program for both parties relies on keeping each other accountable and kind of holding each other accountable and being active, you know, an active participant in your role in that. 1032 01:21:47,450 --> 01:21:51,690 Otherwise it becomes lopsided and it ends up not working for one of the other party. 1033 01:21:51,890 --> 01:21:54,950 But I'm super excited to get this kicked off. 1034 01:21:55,210 --> 01:22:00,370 You know, it's something that I didn't necessarily have coming up in the industry when I was starting out and I wish I'd had it. 1035 01:22:00,370 --> 01:22:01,910 So it's gonna be good, I hope. 1036 01:22:03,730 --> 01:22:04,290 Awesome. 1037 01:22:04,290 --> 01:22:04,990 Allie? 1038 01:22:06,690 --> 01:22:12,510 I just want to say that I'm so thankful for being invited to this special group of amazing people. 1039 01:22:12,510 --> 01:22:16,150 And I can't wait to help as many folks as we can. 1040 01:22:16,150 --> 01:22:19,030 And like I said earlier, just sending the ladder back down. 1041 01:22:19,030 --> 01:22:20,030 So I can't wait. 1042 01:22:22,070 --> 01:22:22,630 Perfect. 1043 01:22:22,630 --> 01:22:23,150 Thank you. 1044 01:22:23,170 --> 01:22:23,970 Nohagmi? 1045 01:22:26,050 --> 01:22:36,390 Hey, to kind of touch on the earlier point, like stress versus burnout, to throw it back to a sports ball reference, you know, are you injured or are you hurt? 1046 01:22:37,030 --> 01:22:45,490 And I think a lot of our careers, like they say, you know, pick something you love to do, so you fail to set boundaries, you eventually burn out and learn to hate it. 1047 01:22:46,230 --> 01:22:47,470 Don't do that. 1048 01:22:47,470 --> 01:22:57,130 I think my career is kind of pivoted to things where I have been in incredibly stressful situations and have kind of walked that line on burning out. 1049 01:22:57,170 --> 01:23:00,990 The mentor program, I'm super excited to be a part of it. 1050 01:23:00,990 --> 01:23:03,730 You're going to get out of it what you put into it. 1051 01:23:03,730 --> 01:23:07,090 And that's going to be anything you do in the security industry. 1052 01:23:07,530 --> 01:23:11,030 Like, caveats, I don't know if we're supposed to sell ourselves now. 1053 01:23:11,910 --> 01:23:14,890 You have access to my entire network. 1054 01:23:15,610 --> 01:23:17,270 I've done a lot of things. 1055 01:23:17,270 --> 01:23:22,290 I've walked, anyone who knows me, I've walked a really weird path in life and in a career. 1056 01:23:22,790 --> 01:23:25,750 The only rules, I think they're the same rules for all of us. 1057 01:23:25,770 --> 01:23:27,410 Like, don't make us regret it. 1058 01:23:27,410 --> 01:23:28,970 Like, don't be a piece of shit. 1059 01:23:29,090 --> 01:23:35,630 And eventually one day someone is going to ask you to do the same thing for them and do it. 1060 01:23:35,730 --> 01:23:37,790 That's what we're trying to do. 1061 01:23:37,930 --> 01:23:39,930 None of us are going to be here forever. 1062 01:23:39,930 --> 01:23:41,710 We're trying to build something that will be. 1063 01:23:41,710 --> 01:23:44,590 And I think this mentor program is a fantastic start. 1064 01:23:44,590 --> 01:23:47,050 So, please take advantage of it. 1065 01:23:47,590 --> 01:23:49,410 And yes, find me on the internet. 1066 01:23:49,410 --> 01:23:50,350 I'll be around. 1067 01:23:52,070 --> 01:23:52,830 Awesome. 1068 01:23:52,830 --> 01:23:53,970 Well said, also. 1069 01:23:53,970 --> 01:23:54,970 Thank you. 1070 01:23:55,070 --> 01:23:56,030 Moose. 1071 01:23:56,790 --> 01:23:59,790 So, I think a lot of good things have already been said. 1072 01:23:59,790 --> 01:24:08,430 But for me, one of the things that I would want to leave this off with is my insane speed doesn't need to be your insane speed. 1073 01:24:08,470 --> 01:24:10,850 My path is not necessarily your path. 1074 01:24:10,850 --> 01:24:21,410 What we're here to do as mentors is be there to lean on, be there to bounce ideas off of, and help you find your perfect path. 1075 01:24:21,410 --> 01:24:24,130 Because there's no right or wrong path in InfoSec. 1076 01:24:25,250 --> 01:24:31,010 And just as a personal aside, I can be an overwhelming person. 1077 01:24:31,110 --> 01:24:35,570 Because I'll say, oh, yeah, I'm doing shellcon things right now. 1078 01:24:35,570 --> 01:24:41,430 And then I'm going with my other half to do besides LV things. 1079 01:24:41,430 --> 01:24:44,310 And he runs HushCon, so I talk about that a lot. 1080 01:24:44,310 --> 01:24:46,790 And I'll be all over the place. 1081 01:24:46,790 --> 01:24:52,130 But that doesn't need to translate to you or any one of us. 1082 01:24:52,130 --> 01:24:56,170 Like, I'm going to throw Danny under the bus, because he's used to being there. 1083 01:24:56,570 --> 01:25:03,450 But he is constantly involved in everything, which is beautiful. 1084 01:25:03,450 --> 01:25:08,130 And I love that about him, both as a friend, a human being, and somebody in InfoSec. 1085 01:25:08,210 --> 01:25:12,370 But that doesn't need to mean that that's what you have to do to be successful. 1086 01:25:12,670 --> 01:25:20,590 And just because you see one of us doing X, Y, and Z things, doesn't mean that that's our trick or recommendation for success. 1087 01:25:20,590 --> 01:25:22,970 And you don't even have to be InfoSec right now. 1088 01:25:22,970 --> 01:25:24,190 You can be a Jason. 1089 01:25:24,350 --> 01:25:25,950 You can be whatever you want to be. 1090 01:25:25,950 --> 01:25:34,010 We just want to help get you to the point where, like, step by step, you're closer to what's making you happy in life. 1091 01:25:35,830 --> 01:25:36,790 Awesome. 1092 01:25:37,350 --> 01:25:38,930 Where did Clay go? 1093 01:25:38,950 --> 01:25:40,730 This came and he hid, right? 1094 01:25:40,730 --> 01:25:42,750 He's like, I'm out of here. 1095 01:25:42,750 --> 01:25:46,090 He's playing the, I'm the technical guy, so I'm just going to go and hide. 1096 01:25:46,090 --> 01:25:47,630 Clay, you're still around? 1097 01:25:47,630 --> 01:25:48,890 You want to say something? 1098 01:25:50,290 --> 01:25:51,630 That's a negative. 1099 01:25:52,170 --> 01:25:53,370 He's going to say something. 1100 01:25:53,370 --> 01:25:54,410 Go, go, go. 1101 01:25:54,910 --> 01:26:01,450 I'm just thrilled and honored and humbled to be a mentor. 1102 01:26:01,450 --> 01:26:06,030 And I look forward to to what the future holds. 1103 01:26:07,850 --> 01:26:09,270 Classy Clay words. 1104 01:26:09,270 --> 01:26:10,850 Love you, man. 1105 01:26:10,850 --> 01:26:12,270 That's gooey. 1106 01:26:12,570 --> 01:26:18,570 Yeah, well, I wanted to say something clever, but yeah, a lot of folks here already did that. 1107 01:26:18,810 --> 01:26:20,510 Maybe just one thing. 1108 01:26:20,510 --> 01:26:27,030 I think you said that there's 200 people that are subscribed as a mentee. 1109 01:26:27,030 --> 01:26:32,310 So I know that a few of us today worked on recruiting more mentors. 1110 01:26:32,450 --> 01:26:38,970 And I know that I've managed to have four more that I would personally love to have as mentors. 1111 01:26:38,970 --> 01:26:44,870 So I'm extremely proud of some of the people that are coming in this program as mentors as well. 1112 01:26:44,870 --> 01:26:47,710 So keep following. 1113 01:26:47,710 --> 01:26:50,590 I think you won't be disappointed with what's coming. 1114 01:26:50,590 --> 01:26:57,950 And of course, again, all of us here, I think we're, or you guys are all good people as well. 1115 01:26:58,390 --> 01:27:04,070 I think I can learn also from you, and I hope that we will be able to share also together. 1116 01:27:05,870 --> 01:27:06,530 Awesome. 1117 01:27:06,530 --> 01:27:07,270 Thank you for that. 1118 01:27:07,270 --> 01:27:17,470 So on that note, we actually did get some, you know, maybe some known figures, some of the ones that are not that much known, but we're all here trying to give you, you know, some time. 1119 01:27:17,510 --> 01:27:20,590 And we really want you to maximize the time. 1120 01:27:20,590 --> 01:27:27,510 If you at any point, you know, feel like the match isn't working, it's completely fine, as I said before. 1121 01:27:27,570 --> 01:27:29,330 We also have a very important rule. 1122 01:27:29,330 --> 01:27:35,790 We have, if you ever feel like something isn't right, you can report any sort of concerns. 1123 01:27:36,010 --> 01:27:37,410 And that's completely anonymous. 1124 01:27:37,630 --> 01:27:40,570 And, you know, we're making a path to be able to deal with those things. 1125 01:27:40,570 --> 01:27:46,330 So we want to make sure that you feel very comfortable and that there are no shenanigans that are taking place. 1126 01:27:46,390 --> 01:27:48,670 Will, you know, will any of those matter or not? 1127 01:27:48,670 --> 01:27:51,270 Well, we don't know, but we're doing our best part. 1128 01:27:51,270 --> 01:27:54,250 At this point, we're running basically out of time. 1129 01:27:54,250 --> 01:27:58,010 I want to invite you to continue to be here with us on the Blue Team Village. 1130 01:27:58,830 --> 01:28:09,590 And then we are going to have game night from the Blue Team Village, so if you want to see some folks that are here or other people partaking, we encourage you to, you know, stick around with us, play with that. 1131 01:28:10,010 --> 01:28:14,310 I want to, the only thing I want to say is thank you, Miteki, you helped me quite a bit on this. 1132 01:28:14,310 --> 01:28:19,470 Thank you, all of you, mentors, to be part of this, you know, program and journey. 1133 01:28:19,930 --> 01:28:22,570 You know, we're, I'm very looking forward to see what it is. 1134 01:28:22,570 --> 01:28:33,190 And just, you know, there are plenty of conferences that are going to happen, so if you want to learn more or, you know, you want to, you know, partake of something that falls from KernelCon, you know, say hi to the crew. 1135 01:28:33,270 --> 01:28:37,170 Shellcon is, you know, doing call for papers, so there's plenty of opportunities. 1136 01:28:37,590 --> 01:28:40,330 I'll end with, we have the Meet a Mentor's channel. 1137 01:28:40,330 --> 01:28:41,810 Come in, sign up. 1138 01:28:41,810 --> 01:28:45,250 If you're a mentor, please sign up, reach out to us. 1139 01:28:46,210 --> 01:28:59,550 And another thing is, if you are one of the villages in DEF CON and you want to send a mentor, you want to partake with us, you know, come over, you know, you can take some of the stuff we're trying to build and, you know, take it over to your village. 1140 01:29:00,110 --> 01:29:02,630 So, you know, be part of this adventure with us. 1141 01:29:02,630 --> 01:29:08,730 And with that said, I just want to say thank you, and, you know, we'll look forward to hearing from you. 1142 01:29:10,610 --> 01:29:11,430 All right.