WEBVTT

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One.

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Hello everyone, I am Plagg.

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It's a pleasure for me to be here with all of you and all our panelists.

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We're gonna introduce you to something that we work quite a bit.

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I want to actually acknowledge Miteki for all her hard work and these lines that we're gonna present.

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But this is a labor of love that we have, and we're doing this for some reasons you'll see in a moment.

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This panel is about introducing the Mita Mentor Program.

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So let's dive really quick into that and then we'll explain what we want to do.

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From there we'll introduce our panelists and then we'll have a chat about what the program is.

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So introducing the Mita Mentor Program.

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So what are the Mita Mentor Program goals?

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So one of the primary goals for us is to bring together mentors and mentees based on shared experiences, interests, and goals.

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We want to help mentees develop goals to overcome career challenges, maybe identify technical interests, and also help them boost their confidence.

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We want to broaden mentors' perspectives and mentoring skills.

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And one of the important things in here is that the mentors are vetted and held to a high standard.

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That's a very important thing for us.

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So another important thing for us when we talk about mentoring is that there's a distinction between mentoring and tutoring.

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For us, mentoring is focused on the guidance and advice, sharing personal experiences.

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This mentor program is not intended as a private technical tutoring, although it is possible that in some circumstances it might feel like it.

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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.

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Maybe over the relationship of a mentor and mentee, it leads into a bit of the technical tutoring.

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But primarily, our goal is to concentrate on the guidance and advice.

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A good example for this will be, you know, how to learn about networking instead of explaining TCP versus UDP.

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So just keeping that in mind is going to be very important for us that you keep this distinction between mentoring and tutoring.

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Now, the Meet a Mentor program has a series of activities that we're going to introduce to you.

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One of the primary keys on us is we want to be transparent with everyone.

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We're going to be using Discord.

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We're going to have one-on-one mentoring.

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So we're doing our best to try to find matches based on career and technical interests.

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We'll speak to how that will work.

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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.

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These sessions will be on Discord, on our Splatoon Village channel.

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So you'll find a place where you can go and meet, and then just have your session with your mentor.

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In addition, the mentor program is going to have monthly meetings.

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So these monthly meetings will be, you know, about an hour to two hours.

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We're going to be able to talk about how the program is going.

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We're going to introduce new mentors to mentees, and vice versa.

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We're going to try to gather feedback from you, you know, what's working, what's not necessarily working.

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And then one of the other things that we want to do is there is a need for sharing important information.

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A lot of individuals and folks are looking for advice on different things.

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And one way in which we can provide that to many of you is to have regular panel discussions on different topics of interest.

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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.

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We're going to have different topics.

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This is not blue centric.

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You know, if you do Red Team and Bug Bounty, we want to hear from you.

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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.

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Now, with that said, it is time for us to dive into the panel.

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I will want to... this will be our official first meeting.

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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.

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We're aiming to be diverse, as diverse as possible.

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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.

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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.

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The core mentors role is to basically, you know, set to the high standard, you know, what the program will be.

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And, you know, we're dedicating, you know, a set of time extra to provide this service to all of you.

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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.

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If you want to contribute or if you have more questions, hopefully through this panel, we'll address them.

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And without further ado, I'm going to stop presenting my screen now.

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And why don't we just, you know, dive into getting to know everyone in the panel.

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So, we're going to do this in the order that I couldn't see the screen in here.

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So, let's begin with Muteki.

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Why don't you introduce yourself?

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Yes, my name is Muteki, aka Cassandra, or whichever one you want to use.

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So, I'm actually an InfoSec adjacent person who has been attending DEF CON for a couple years.

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I got into volunteering at Blue Team Village.

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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.

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I personally don't recommend AV.

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Run screaming if you ever have to do AV.

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But I'm particularly interested in...

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so, I do... right now I'm a sysadmin and I do a lot of incident response for Azure and O365 logging authentication.

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I'm also a part-time grad student because I'm a complete masochist, apparently.

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And my areas of interest in that aspect are a lot of programming, cloud security and architecture, and microservices and serverless platforms.

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Awesome, thank you.

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Thank you for being here with us.

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Rando?

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I have to find the mute.

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I've been using Discord for months now.

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Where's the mute button?

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Hi, my name is Rando, also known as Danny Akatsuki.

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I am a career Blue Teamer, Threat Hunter, been in security for about 10 years now.

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And I've worked at companies like Mandiant and GE Capital.

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Now I'm a Senior Technical Account Manager, which sounds fancier than it really is, with Gigamon.

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And yeah, I've been going, I mean, been in with DEF CON for about five years now.

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I'm a DEF CON SOC goon, represent, and I run a contest.

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And yeah, I'm super active in the community.

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That's why I really love this stuff.

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So, hi.

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Awesome, thank you.

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All right, so who's coming next?

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Rubix?

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Hi everyone, Rubix4138 here.

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My name is Xavier Ash.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And so yeah, I'm looking forward to the program.

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Thanks a lot.

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Awesome.

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Gene?

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Sure.

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So I started out life as a systems administrator about 10 years ago.

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I got into red teaming in big four consulting.

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About six, seven years ago, I actually switched to Batik security consulting.

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It's still on the red side.

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I'm doing more management stuff now, but occasionally I'm allowed to hack stuff.

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And that's about the only happiness I get these days.

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That's so awesome.

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Allie?

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Hey everyone.

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My name is Allie Hanson.

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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.

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And I dabbled in security, sort of certifications, also jumped into the world of social engineering.

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And I really have a very broad interest base across the sort of disciplines and areas in security, red, blue, purple, CTI, aerospace, biohacking.

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I do a lot of volunteering within all of these different efforts, kind of across the board, including policy as well.

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And recently I actually started my own company.

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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.

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And that's about it.

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Thanks guys.

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Awesome.

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All right.

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So we get into NoHackMe.

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Mute buttons are hard.

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Hey, what's up?

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I'm Mick, aka NoHackMe.

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Fed for a super long time.

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You name an agency, I probably worked there.

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Built out some incident response teams, built out some threat intelligence programs.

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Most recently I worked at the White House, ran a threat intelligence team over the 2016 election, CISO for Pete Buttigieg.

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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.

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Super jazzed to be here.

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I think the experience I have, especially on the Fed side, if you like public sector for some odd reason, I'm your dude.

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Like your favorite Fed's favorite ex-Fed.

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That's a great way to put it.

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So thank you for being here.

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All right.

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So we're going to go with Moose.

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Hi everyone.

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I'm Moose.

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I also go by Heather.

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I'll dox myself and say I'm one of the senior incident responders at CrowdStrike.

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I dabble in a bunch of things.

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I also volunteer as a red teamer for CCDC.

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My IT career began in a very strange way.

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I was a QA tester for the first Droid phone, the first smartphone.

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And it was really enough of a hook to where I got to break that multiple times.

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And the rest is kind of history.

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I've done help desk, desktop support, sysadmin, network admin.

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Right before I was core security, I was a lead data analyst.

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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.

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So if you have multifaceted experience or want multifaceted experience and look at the big picture, I might be your person.

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But I eat, sleep, and breathe incident response right now.

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So , you know, I had to ask what day it was today.

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But that's me in a nutshell.

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And I'd rather refer to myself as a DFIR dumpster diver in most cases than anything else.

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That's awesome.

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By the way, Moza was early on on the incident response panel.

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So thank you for being here again as well.

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All right.

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So we're going to introduce also a person that likes to remain kind of hidden on the background.

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It's a person that I respect quite a bit.

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His name is Clay.

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Hey, thank you, Plug.

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Yep, Clay.

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I've been in the field in general for about 20 something years.

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I've done a lot of programming and system administration work.

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The past eight years or so, I've been able to focus on security.

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And that's been a fantastic ride.

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I've become more active in the community over the past four or five years or so.

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I'm one of the organizers of Blue Team Village.

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And I love googly eyes.

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Awesome.

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You also have another organization.

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You want to do a little...

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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Help organize a walker summit as well.

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And that's more of a... it's still security related, but we kind of focus more on hardware hacking.

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And that takes place right outside the Philly area.

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Awesome.

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Thank you.

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Thank you for that.

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All right.

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And our last core mentor here with us is Scooby.

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Hey, hi, everybody.

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I'm Scooby.

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I've been in InfoSec for almost 20 years now.

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I've worked as a security analyst, then threat hunting team lead, adversary detection team lead.

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I built some teams.

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I moved to a financial institution for almost a year.

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Didn't really cut it out for me being in that type of environment.

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And now it just changed.

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And I'm a senior manager incident response for a smaller company in Canada.

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But we have international offices.

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So it's pretty much all around the world.

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So yeah, in a nutshell, a lot of threat hunting and blue teaming in general.

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Love giving talks.

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I had the pleasure to do so at DerbyCon, Blue Team Village, NordSec, GoSec, and a few B-sides as well.

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Awesome.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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So as hopefully all of you have heard, we have a very diverse set of individuals that are part of the core mentor program.

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We all have different backgrounds.

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I'll introduce myself.

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So I go by Plod.

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I do incident response and I lead threat hunting at some Fortune 20 company.

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I think if you want to know more about that, I'm in the Paranoids team.

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I'm in the fire team within the Paranoids.

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And I've been volunteering at DefCon for quite some time now.

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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.

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So we're going to jump into some questions.

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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.

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But let's dive really quick into one of the more important questions.

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Because all of us are here, but what made you want to be a mentor?

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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.

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So I want to see if someone wants to raise their hand.

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Scooby, I think that you have the mic.

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Well, I decided to be a mentor because some people came to me in real life asking if I would mentor them.

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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.

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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.

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And for me, mentoring is kind of making friends, is sharing experience.

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And I think that the mentor learns as more as the mentee most of the time.

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So it's really an exchange and it's not meant to be one direction.

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Like I'm not feeding anyone things and I'm more expecting exchange and learning as well from those people, from their experience.

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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.

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Awesome.

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I saw no hack me, you kind of went, oh, well, Randall, Randall, you're ready to go.

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Yeah, I love this.

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Oh, thank you, sir.

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I appreciate it, Mr.

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Faccio.

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X is a political campaign.

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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.

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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.

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I have had a very unconventional road through InfoSec.

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I've been with a lot of companies that have been laying off and things like that.

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It's been bumpy, but I'm in a really great place now.

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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.

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So, people that have fell a lot and have experienced that, and they know the way back out.

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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.

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And I also have absolutely no shame in talking about fail stories.

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I don't care.

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I love them.

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I love hearing them from other people.

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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.

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And don't be afraid of it and own it.

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So, the best way to do that for me and to give back is a mentor type program.

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So, that's why I do it.

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Like, why waste all of that face in the mud time?

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I'm just feeling sorry for myself.

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I want to give back to other people about how to get back up from it.

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Awesome.

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I guess, now hack me so that you want to have some interaction.

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Yeah.

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So, Danny and I go way back, obviously.

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You know, I started off in the Navy.

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HHS, CDC, FDA, like a bunch of federal organizations.

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I'm a SOC goon, represent.

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I work with tool.

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I've been at this for a super long time.

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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.

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I'm probably a dum-dum, to be honest with you.

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But I've been at this for a while.

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And one of the things I'm really proud of is I think I've been able to enjoy the experiences along the way.

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And the important thing is the people that you meet.

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We all talk about, you know, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

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And I know a lot of people.

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You name an agency, I probably work there.

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If I don't, I probably know someone who has.

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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.

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Like this gray ain't from stress .

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I'm old as shit.

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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.

20:55.310 --> 20:58.910
So when I had the opportunity talking to Clay, like I jumped at it.

20:58.910 --> 21:00.050
Why wouldn't I want to do this?

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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.

21:09.350 --> 21:09.970
Awesome.

21:09.970 --> 21:10.790
Moose?

21:11.010 --> 21:13.690
Yeah, kind of along the same lines.

21:14.010 --> 21:16.390
So mine's a very personal story.

21:16.390 --> 21:19.650
I was working at a global five for a long time.

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Well, it felt like a long time .

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Because when you're doing IR at a global five, you feel what years of your life draining away.

21:27.470 --> 21:33.010
And I have always struggled with imposter syndrome, no matter where I am in my career.

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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?

21:40.190 --> 21:44.430
But it's, it's a person that helped me during that.

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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.

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And literally, I would tell him about my struggles and my thought process.

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And most of our calls were, you know, you're doing everything right.

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And that's what I really needed.

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And it's so funny that that's sometimes what you need.

22:13.210 --> 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.

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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.

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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.

22:37.910 --> 22:39.310
Awesome, Allie.

22:41.430 --> 22:42.570
Hey, thanks.

22:42.570 --> 22:44.910
So I actually have a business background.

22:45.110 --> 22:52.490
And I've spent years of my life trying to figure out so much in that realm.

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And I really think that everyone here is a big believer in sending the ladder back down.

22:59.090 --> 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,

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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.

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And so just big believer and absolutely dovetail on everything that everyone said.

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Awesome.

23:33.890 --> 23:35.530
So, oh, okay, I'm going to take you.

23:35.530 --> 23:36.490
Go for it.

23:38.450 --> 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.

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And not only that, but I'm also a gay person.

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So I've had a unique set of experiences.

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And I've also worked really hard on my presentation skills and giving presentations.

23:57.810 --> 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.

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And once I started doing that, like, people came out of the woodworks.

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I had a lot of people approach me afterwards and just, like, and, like, ask me how I got to where I am.

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And I'm standing there, like, I'm, like, early mid-career.

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Like, what do you mean?

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I'm nowhere yet.

24:23.450 --> 24:28.490
But wherever you are is further than someone else has gotten so far.

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So one of the people that I kind of mentor casually on the side is a non-binary person.

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And that's, you know, they're someone that, like, I'm, you know, I'm just a boring normal lesbian.

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Like, I don't know exactly what their experience is like.

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But I know enough of it, where we have some common ground.

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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.

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And I think that that common ground is important.

24:59.690 --> 25:02.870
And also, just the visibility is important.

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Awesome.

25:06.130 --> 25:06.650
Thank you.

25:06.690 --> 25:09.010
Actually, I'm going to make a note in here.

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Precisely because of what Muteki said, we were very mindful of trying to find the best match for you.

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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.

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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.

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And so that's an opportunity for you, we don't need it.

25:40.130 --> 25:42.250
And it's completely optional if you wanted to.

25:42.250 --> 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.

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So we will have an opportunity to kind of help you with that.

25:56.450 --> 26:01.650
With that said, I'm getting some questions from some of the viewers watching the panel.

26:01.650 --> 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?

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I think Lilmus kind of spoke about it, we can kind of continue with that.

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And then with that question, you know, did that help you in any way?

26:21.670 --> 26:23.830
So that is the question.

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So, you know, Lilmus, do you want to kind of continue since you were, you know, alluring to that?

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And then we move on to other panelists?

26:29.910 --> 26:30.490
Sure.

26:30.490 --> 26:38.650
So at the time, and just to say that I've only been mentored by one person isn't exactly true.

26:38.870 --> 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.

26:47.310 --> 26:51.690
And I've sat down with some great folks who do different things.

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So like on the Red Team side, anybody that knows Commander OpSec, phenomenal.

26:57.070 --> 27:02.250
All of the Dallas Hackers Association folks, absolutely phenomenal people to sit down with.

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And a lot of us would tag team between each other.

27:05.150 --> 27:06.870
It wasn't formal mentorship.

27:06.870 --> 27:14.730
But I would still say that learning from another person was very, very valuable, especially earlier on in my InfoSec career.

27:14.810 --> 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.

27:23.410 --> 27:27.010
And I wouldn't ask questions until I felt like I was drowning.

27:27.330 --> 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?

27:39.150 --> 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.

27:53.610 --> 27:59.850
And so it ended up being a really fun conversation and almost work stories at some point.

27:59.850 --> 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.

28:07.570 --> 28:08.230
Awesome.

28:08.230 --> 28:09.930
I think I saw someone else in there.

28:09.930 --> 28:10.350
It's Kubi.

28:10.350 --> 28:12.150
Do you have your mic on and off?

28:12.350 --> 28:13.430
Okay.

28:13.430 --> 28:14.690
Yeah, I think it's on.

28:14.690 --> 28:15.930
I think it's on.

28:16.230 --> 28:24.410
No real mentor per se or real, you know, very steady opportunity like that.

28:24.410 --> 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.

28:37.110 --> 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.

28:52.510 --> 28:54.150
And I was trying to listen to them.

28:54.150 --> 28:59.630
And I think my nose started bleeding because I didn't understand a single word of what they were talking about.

29:00.050 --> 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,

29:21.370 --> 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.

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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?

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And he did take the time to review my stuff.

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And it actually really helped me to refine my deck and make it more, I think, more interesting for people.

29:56.410 --> 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.

30:05.390 --> 30:09.850
So those little things that come from a lot of people just adds up.

30:09.850 --> 30:14.010
And I think that having all the mentors here is a good thing as well.

30:14.010 --> 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.

30:20.310 --> 30:28.310
I think that it's, for me, I don't mind answering for other people as well and keeping the dialogue.

30:28.310 --> 30:32.550
And if I can help, I will help for sure.

30:33.070 --> 30:33.610
Awesome.

30:33.610 --> 30:36.190
Rubiks, I saw that you wanted to say something.

30:36.330 --> 30:41.390
Yeah, I was introduced to mentorship when I got into the startup world.

30:41.390 --> 30:44.390
Atlanta's got a pretty interesting history in security.

30:44.390 --> 30:50.710
Internet Security Systems has produced a whole lot of other folks that have tried to emulate that success.

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And so, once I got up into that startup world, everybody was mentoring somebody.

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That was just kind of part of the job description.

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And I thought that this was great.

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It would have been so great if I had had this earlier in my career.

31:08.950 --> 31:16.190
I had always been the middle of the road security guy, sometimes in management, sometimes not.

31:16.190 --> 31:19.050
I was never the super elite hacker.

31:19.050 --> 31:21.110
I never had tools in my name.

31:21.110 --> 31:22.970
I was never a Twitter superstar.

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But I do have lots of experience.

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And so, once I started mentoring on the security side, it was really surprising how much of that resonated with people.

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And I was able to help and give back.

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And so, that was my introduction to mentorship was from the startup world.

31:43.470 --> 31:44.130
Awesome.

31:44.130 --> 31:45.450
Thank you for your answers.

31:45.450 --> 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.

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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?

32:03.950 --> 32:07.070
Rando, I see you kind of moving towards the mic.

32:08.530 --> 32:10.550
Oh, he's... yeah.

32:10.690 --> 32:11.950
No, no, I'm good.

32:11.950 --> 32:12.710
I'm good.

32:12.830 --> 32:13.470
All right.

32:13.470 --> 32:13.670
All right.

32:13.670 --> 32:13.790
All right.

32:13.790 --> 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.

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And I think I figured it out around Circle City Con I was presenting there.

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And of course, I had always beaten myself up of like, why do I keep getting things?

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And why do people care?

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I'm like, I'm really nothing, blah, blah, blah.

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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.

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And they were asking like my advice on some threat hunting thing or like or something else.

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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.

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I could be good friends with them for five years, and I still fanboy a little bit.

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And I value their opinions so much and their feedback so much.

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Who am I to question them if they also value my feedback?

33:10.090 --> 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?

33:23.970 --> 33:27.950
Like, if I value their opinion above other things, am I calling them a liar?

33:27.950 --> 33:29.710
Am I questioning their judgment?

33:29.850 --> 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.

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And God, that has made such a difference.

33:43.610 --> 33:47.730
So, every now and again, I feel out of my depth in something.

33:47.730 --> 33:54.210
But instead of getting down on myself, I'm like, cool, I don't know the thing.

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I don't know this thing.

33:55.170 --> 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.

34:02.950 --> 34:08.810
So, I've gained confidence in doing that, in lighting somebody up for not doing it.

34:08.810 --> 34:14.190
And also, it makes my life a whole lot easier if I just believe in what everybody else believes about me.

34:14.190 --> 34:16.550
So, anyway, that's my answer for that.

34:16.550 --> 34:18.610
It was like a watershed thing for me.

34:19.490 --> 34:23.170
Gee, I saw that you kind of went off and off on the mic.

34:23.330 --> 34:24.670
Yeah, I kind of jumped the gun there.

34:24.670 --> 34:25.350
Sorry.

34:25.970 --> 34:26.770
It's all right.

34:26.770 --> 34:34.350
I think similarly, maybe accepting that I don't know everything, which for me, I'm a very arrogant person.

34:34.350 --> 34:36.830
That was difficult, soul crushing even.

34:37.090 --> 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,

34:48.810 --> 34:51.270
are grounded in experience and research.

34:51.630 --> 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.

34:58.410 --> 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.

35:06.110 --> 35:06.670
Awesome.

35:06.670 --> 35:09.850
Ali, I saw that you wanted to say some comments.

35:10.530 --> 35:11.130
Yeah.

35:11.130 --> 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.

35:20.450 --> 35:29.350
Everyone has had different experiences and those are all equally valid and they're all equally valuable.

35:29.570 --> 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.

35:44.450 --> 35:45.650
I can't even say.

35:46.350 --> 35:48.210
Too much whiskey already.

35:48.210 --> 35:48.890
Oops.

35:49.050 --> 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.

36:13.670 --> 36:18.410
And I kind of just rechannel that energy and that works for me really well.

36:19.050 --> 36:20.030
Awesome.

36:20.030 --> 36:20.950
Moose?

36:20.950 --> 36:28.290
So I've struggled with imposter syndrome throughout multiple careers, multiple years.

36:28.290 --> 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.

36:40.150 --> 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.

36:45.590 --> 36:47.710
I have a very supportive team.

36:47.910 --> 36:52.730
I have very, very supportive leadership and it has made all the difference in the world.

36:52.730 --> 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.

37:07.690 --> 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.

37:16.530 --> 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.

37:30.210 --> 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,

37:44.430 --> 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.

37:54.870 --> 37:56.490
I was like, yes, absolutely.

37:56.490 --> 37:57.190
We'll help out.

37:57.190 --> 37:58.250
This is amazing.

37:59.610 --> 38:00.730
So awesome.

38:00.730 --> 38:01.790
Thank you.

38:02.310 --> 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.

38:09.250 --> 38:11.890
My first DevCon was many, many years ago.

38:11.890 --> 38:13.590
I was only three hours in there.

38:13.590 --> 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.

38:20.690 --> 38:24.650
He's Voiceacre, Mike Pertuzzi.

38:24.650 --> 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.

38:37.250 --> 38:41.250
You'll, you know, do something that, you know, that will get you out of that shell.

38:41.510 --> 38:46.970
And without having to kind of get him to chat with me, I don't think I will be honestly here.

38:46.970 --> 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?

38:59.570 --> 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.

39:11.570 --> 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.

39:28.090 --> 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.

39:36.490 --> 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.

39:44.250 --> 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.

39:58.870 --> 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?

40:10.250 --> 40:16.090
For you, how can I, as a mentee, get you invested and show accountability?

40:16.090 --> 40:18.130
I think that was an excellent question.

40:19.690 --> 40:21.350
Who said me?

40:23.610 --> 40:24.730
Rubix?

40:25.010 --> 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?

40:40.830 --> 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?

40:49.590 --> 40:52.030
Like, let's put it on the table.

40:52.190 --> 40:53.650
What do you want to get out of this?

40:53.650 --> 40:59.030
And that way, we can track that and make sure that as we're moving along, we check in.

40:59.030 --> 41:02.150
Are we doing anything to help you along?

41:02.150 --> 41:07.010
Are you realizing, you know, you have new avenues that you didn't know that you had before?

41:07.010 --> 41:09.350
Are you seeing new opportunities?

41:09.470 --> 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.

41:25.360 --> 41:25.960
Awesome.

41:25.960 --> 41:26.900
Anyone else?

41:28.600 --> 41:32.860
Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, no, that's a much better idea.

41:32.860 --> 41:34.540
Clay, go right ahead.

41:35.280 --> 41:36.320
He's so quiet.

41:36.480 --> 41:38.040
I need to give him one, right?

41:38.040 --> 41:40.140
I mean, he needs to speak a little bit.

41:40.240 --> 41:41.280
Put him on the spot.

41:41.820 --> 41:42.340
Come on, handsome.

41:42.340 --> 41:45.560
I think Xavier, I couldn't say it any better.

41:46.600 --> 41:48.400
Oh, you cop out.

41:49.420 --> 41:51.680
You are the worst.

41:52.420 --> 41:55.520
I will unmute just to heckle you.

41:55.520 --> 41:57.000
Oh, my God.

41:57.080 --> 41:57.520
All right.

41:57.520 --> 42:01.300
Well, well, Clay, I will give you my answer.

42:01.300 --> 42:02.440
And then you can ask Clay again.

42:02.440 --> 42:04.160
He'll be like, yeah, Randall got it.

42:05.140 --> 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.

42:18.160 --> 42:24.940
Now, just as a caveat, just because you're matched with one of us, it's not always a match.

42:25.140 --> 42:29.620
It's being self-aware enough to be like, listen, there's just no vibe here.

42:29.620 --> 42:31.020
And I've had it happen.

42:31.020 --> 42:34.700
I think of myself as very personable, and I really want to help.

42:34.700 --> 42:36.240
But sometimes the vibe just isn't there.

42:36.240 --> 42:38.560
And that is completely fine.

42:38.560 --> 42:40.420
I need honesty from them.

42:40.420 --> 42:48.380
And I also want to see that they are applying their own critical thinking skills to what I'm telling them.

42:48.380 --> 42:51.160
I don't want somebody just to parrot what I've told them.

42:51.160 --> 42:56.060
I don't want them to copy what I've told them, because everybody's experience is different.

42:56.200 --> 42:56.850
Like if I get...

42:57.220 --> 42:58.320
Don't parrot what you're telling us.

42:58.320 --> 42:58.960
Got it.

42:58.960 --> 42:59.580
Yeah.

43:00.000 --> 43:01.180
How dare you?

43:01.180 --> 43:02.500
I saw what you did there.

43:02.500 --> 43:06.500
You know, and also be honest with me, right?

43:06.500 --> 43:13.960
My life outlook is as a straight white male growing up in suburbia and living in a metro urban.

43:13.960 --> 43:17.860
I would love to mentor people from all different kinds of backgrounds.

43:17.860 --> 43:22.660
But remind me, check in with me of like, hey, my experience is different.

43:22.660 --> 43:25.160
Can you translate this for me?

43:25.160 --> 43:29.560
That's how I know that you're thinking critically about it and applying.

43:29.560 --> 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.

43:36.680 --> 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.

43:45.400 --> 43:46.440
Like, oh, it didn't work.

43:46.440 --> 43:47.120
I gave up.

43:47.120 --> 43:48.380
Tell me what to do next.

43:48.380 --> 43:50.000
It's not linear, right?

43:50.000 --> 43:56.460
So I just want to know that what I'm telling you is getting through and that I am understanding you.

43:56.460 --> 44:04.280
So that communication, as long as we can build that, I know this is going to be a very fruitful experience.

44:04.280 --> 44:06.280
And I think Clay should follow up with that.

44:06.740 --> 44:07.580
Yeah, Clay?

44:07.580 --> 44:08.920
Sure, sure, I will.

44:09.120 --> 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.

44:23.060 --> 44:25.600
It's about the journey as well, right?

44:25.600 --> 44:27.680
It's not about the destination.

44:27.680 --> 44:32.620
So if you're learning and you're growing, that's what it's all about.

44:32.620 --> 44:35.040
And half of that is really up to you.

44:36.760 --> 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.

44:45.540 --> 44:46.200
Awesome.

44:46.200 --> 44:52.820
And in this case, this is why this is a good time to actually do a call for mentors.

44:52.820 --> 44:55.400
If you want a mentor, right?

44:55.640 --> 44:59.300
And you feel like you have something that you can bring to the table.

44:59.300 --> 45:04.540
Remember, this is not about... if you're very good at something, that's great.

45:04.540 --> 45:06.560
But if you have some experience, right?

45:06.560 --> 45:09.920
If you bring in a unique background, like Randall said, right?

45:10.040 --> 45:14.480
You see the panel here and you find, hey, I don't see my representation.

45:14.560 --> 45:16.480
Then we want you to be here.

45:16.480 --> 45:19.660
We want you to be part of that, so you can help someone like you.

45:20.120 --> 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.

45:28.420 --> 45:30.220
We really want to talk to you.

45:31.080 --> 45:35.540
Another great question that we received is, what makes a good mentor?

45:35.540 --> 45:39.200
And how can mentors improve their mentor game?

45:41.020 --> 45:42.220
Nohakimi?

45:43.140 --> 45:45.180
What makes a good mentor?

45:45.180 --> 45:46.500
I'll be honest.

45:46.720 --> 45:50.740
It's going to vary from individual to individual.

45:50.740 --> 45:56.880
What works for Clay doesn't work for Randall, doesn't work for Muteki, doesn't work for Moose.

45:56.880 --> 45:58.460
It's going to be individual.

45:58.560 --> 46:03.240
And to Danny's point, if you and I hang out and it's not a match, cool.

46:03.240 --> 46:04.780
I'm not mad about it.

46:04.780 --> 46:08.460
I'm still going to help you as much as I can, but if there's a better one, won't.

46:09.140 --> 46:14.640
So I think that what makes a good mentor is what you want to get out of it.

46:14.880 --> 46:17.420
And I forgot the second part, so go ahead.

46:18.860 --> 46:20.920
I actually want to jump in on that real quick.

46:21.160 --> 46:21.600
Yeah, go ahead.

46:21.600 --> 46:25.020
The previous question and answer, it feels kind of related.

46:26.080 --> 46:33.680
So what Randall was saying about this, it reminded me of the whole idea of like mentoring versus tutoring.

46:34.120 --> 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.

46:45.460 --> 46:48.500
You want someone that is going to show you how they think.

46:48.500 --> 46:52.400
And I think that that's important for a mentor-mentee relationship.

46:52.680 --> 46:59.700
I, as a mentor, am more interested in helping someone find the answer themselves and not just giving them that answer.

46:59.700 --> 47:02.300
So that's a very important part of that relationship.

47:02.300 --> 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.

47:23.640 --> 47:24.500
Excellent.

47:24.500 --> 47:25.840
Moose, do you want to follow up on that?

47:25.840 --> 47:27.880
I think you're, I don't know if you're muted or unmuted.

47:27.880 --> 47:28.460
Don't see it.

47:28.460 --> 47:29.320
I'm unmuted.

47:29.500 --> 47:31.020
Yeah, I'd love to.

47:31.020 --> 47:33.720
So I currently mentor

47:36.840 --> 47:38.040
inside of work.

47:38.040 --> 47:39.760
We have an internship program.

47:39.760 --> 47:45.740
So I've constantly been evaluating myself and seeing how I do, and I'm always overly critical on myself.

47:45.860 --> 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.

48:10.780 --> 48:16.860
And sometimes it's just asking something in a certain way that's going to clarify that goal.

48:16.860 --> 48:21.020
And just know that when you do that, that's not hard and fast.

48:21.360 --> 48:24.660
So a good mentor is also going to keep it fluid for you.

48:24.840 --> 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.

48:34.120 --> 48:34.900
Awesome.

48:34.900 --> 48:35.980
Thank you, Ali.

48:37.000 --> 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.

48:50.080 --> 48:54.500
And I really focus on not judging.

48:54.520 --> 48:58.320
So trying to be non judgmental with everything.

48:58.320 --> 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.

49:13.920 --> 49:20.620
So I think that's really important that your mentor is never done being a mentee.

49:22.440 --> 49:23.580
Very well said.

49:23.580 --> 49:23.740
Yeah.

49:23.740 --> 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.

49:29.680 --> 49:32.360
I literally have a bug flying right in front of my face.

49:32.360 --> 49:33.820
And I'm just like, I can't.

49:33.820 --> 49:35.540
Okay, I'm just sorry.

49:35.540 --> 49:38.060
So I'll just ignore me.

49:38.260 --> 49:40.980
And just one thing to follow up on that.

49:40.980 --> 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.

49:54.380 --> 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.

50:02.900 --> 50:04.280
About a lot of things.

50:04.540 --> 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.

50:12.780 --> 50:18.120
And that I had tried a mentor program a while ago by my dear friend.

50:18.120 --> 50:20.340
He's Jimmy Vo on Twitter.

50:20.340 --> 50:22.020
He had spun up something like this.

50:22.020 --> 50:23.400
And I volunteered for it.

50:23.400 --> 50:25.220
I was not ready.

50:25.220 --> 50:27.200
I let a couple people down.

50:27.200 --> 50:31.260
And I just I thought I was and I wasn't and I still feel bad about it.

50:31.260 --> 50:35.840
So, you know, yeah, we're we are still being mentored ourselves.

50:35.920 --> 50:38.260
And you'll see us at a con be hanging with us.

50:38.260 --> 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.

50:42.840 --> 50:44.240
You know, we still do that.

50:44.920 --> 50:46.900
Like every time Clay walks by.

50:49.860 --> 50:51.780
I haven't always.

50:52.600 --> 50:53.300
Yeah, nevermind.

50:53.300 --> 50:53.860
Sorry.

50:54.300 --> 50:55.140
I don't know.

50:55.140 --> 50:56.280
Now you have to answer.

50:56.280 --> 50:56.540
Go.

50:56.540 --> 50:57.620
What are you going to say?

50:59.380 --> 51:02.160
I was gonna say I'm always asking for Randall's autograph.

51:02.160 --> 51:03.900
He still hasn't given it to me yet.

51:06.510 --> 51:11.550
Yeah, that's because every piece of paper has like a signature line signing over my house to you.

51:11.550 --> 51:13.350
I know what you're doing.

51:18.150 --> 51:20.670
I got another interesting question in here.

51:20.670 --> 51:21.890
And it's this in here.

51:21.890 --> 51:25.970
Um, this is actually a pretty good question.

51:25.970 --> 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?

51:42.070 --> 51:43.070
Ruby, you're nodding.

51:43.070 --> 51:44.250
Do you want to take this one?

51:44.250 --> 51:45.110
I see both.

51:45.110 --> 51:48.090
I just think it's an excellent question.

51:49.110 --> 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.

51:58.710 --> 52:02.310
So I kind of know a little bit how it feels when you come back.

52:03.450 --> 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.

52:10.870 --> 52:14.010
But in fact, it's always also the same thing.

52:14.010 --> 52:17.450
It's very different, but the foundation is still the same.

52:17.450 --> 52:22.430
So yes, the new the new hack or the new vulnerability is something new.

52:22.430 --> 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.

52:34.730 --> 52:37.550
There's new vulnerability, there's new various things.

52:37.550 --> 52:42.310
So if you have a very good background, I think you'll pick it up very quickly.

52:42.790 --> 52:47.250
Again, I don't think there's more, there's a there's a lot of magic here.

52:47.250 --> 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.

52:57.670 --> 53:00.850
And then you'll catch up whatever you missed.

53:01.070 --> 53:08.170
And I think that if your foundation is strong, it's going to be, it's going to work for you.

53:08.750 --> 53:10.670
Rubix, I see you without the mic.

53:10.670 --> 53:12.070
Oh, sorry, random Rubix.

53:12.070 --> 53:13.310
No, no, he was first.

53:14.250 --> 53:17.350
So yeah, I've actually hired a couple people in this situation.

53:17.350 --> 53:22.390
And I find that technical skills are easy.

53:22.890 --> 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.

53:33.690 --> 53:37.130
And, and that is, is, is valuable experience.

53:37.130 --> 53:43.210
So don't throw it out with the bathwater, you know, bring it, because we need that.

53:43.210 --> 53:47.890
We need the, the, the stuff that you learned as, as part of that life.

53:47.890 --> 53:51.390
Us stuck behind a computer, you know, we get stuck in a box.

53:51.390 --> 53:57.590
And we need, you know, fresh perspectives or ways of looking at things, compassion, empathy.

53:58.410 --> 54:00.930
Technical skills is something you'll learn.

54:00.930 --> 54:04.010
So yeah, let's, let's, let's jump in.

54:04.010 --> 54:05.810
And let's, let's get it, get it done.

54:06.770 --> 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.

54:12.730 --> 54:18.010
If you've been dealing with small children for a decade, you are very well prepared to deal with consulting.

54:18.010 --> 54:19.330
Just gonna throw that out there.

54:19.590 --> 54:21.770
Clients and small children, very similar.

54:22.710 --> 54:23.310
Yeah.

54:23.310 --> 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.

54:37.450 --> 54:41.590
Like, here's something that's really gonna help you, especially when you come back in.

54:41.630 --> 54:47.170
You're eventually going to get to an interview, where the interviewers are going to be bad interviewers.

54:47.170 --> 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.

55:00.210 --> 55:02.550
You didn't, you didn't take time off.

55:02.670 --> 55:07.290
You ran a small enterprise of people who can't help themselves.

55:07.570 --> 55:09.870
And that's all InfoSec is.

55:09.870 --> 55:12.490
We're helping people who don't, can't help themselves.

55:12.490 --> 55:13.670
So that's what you did.

55:13.670 --> 55:15.290
That is a core skill.

55:15.290 --> 55:18.150
And I haven't changed a diaper for at least a couple of years now.

55:18.150 --> 55:22.330
But yeah, don't you don't, don't approach that as a negative.

55:22.330 --> 55:23.270
It's been it.

55:23.270 --> 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.

55:31.470 --> 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.

55:47.350 --> 55:51.690
And like somebody else had said, because my memory is absolute crap.

55:51.930 --> 55:54.350
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

55:54.350 --> 55:55.370
Recognize the patterns.

55:55.370 --> 55:56.850
You're not that far off.

55:56.850 --> 55:59.670
Like, I guarantee you, you're not as far away as you think.

56:00.590 --> 56:01.650
Hug me.

56:02.230 --> 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.

56:12.310 --> 56:18.130
And I think the biggest hurdle that you were going to run into is going to be HR.

56:18.310 --> 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.

56:26.570 --> 56:30.950
And that's what it comes down to is getting past that HR screen.

56:31.150 --> 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.

56:44.230 --> 56:49.290
And I think that's what a large part of being a mentor is, is don't get discouraged.

56:49.370 --> 56:53.850
Any HR person, and we know this, I don't want to talk shit on HR, but like a little bit.

56:53.850 --> 57:00.710
You know, you take 10 years off, I'm gonna see that his person hasn't been working for 10 years.

57:00.710 --> 57:04.630
But to Danny's point, to everybody else's point, like we all know mothers.

57:04.670 --> 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.

57:15.530 --> 57:20.190
So I think the HR screen is going to be your problem, not the technical interview.

57:20.190 --> 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.

57:29.590 --> 57:30.890
I love HR though.

57:32.710 --> 57:34.230
Moose, do you want to say something?

57:34.270 --> 57:35.230
I do.

57:36.630 --> 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.

57:42.170 --> 57:45.190
I think it's really important, and not a lot of people are brave enough to ask it.

57:45.210 --> 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.

57:58.010 --> 58:00.350
So I want to put that out there.

58:00.350 --> 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,

58:20.590 --> 58:25.190
and I think that being more involved in the community is really going to be a boon to you.

58:25.190 --> 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.

58:32.430 --> 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.

58:44.590 --> 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.

58:54.850 --> 58:56.790
If you can write a report, you're golden.

58:56.930 --> 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.

59:05.790 --> 59:07.450
So that's valid experience.

59:07.690 --> 59:13.470
And just know that you've been looking at the things that we look at every day, no matter what.

59:14.810 --> 59:15.610
Awesome.

59:16.250 --> 59:17.790
I want to note on this.

59:17.790 --> 59:20.450
Oh, well, actually, before I go up, Allie, want to go for it?

59:20.450 --> 59:21.590
Yeah, thanks.

59:21.710 --> 59:24.750
I totally agree with everything, you know, everyone said.

59:24.750 --> 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.

59:35.570 --> 59:42.270
And I think it's probably just really important for you to do it yourself or get support to do this.

59:42.270 --> 59:46.890
But to really prioritize, what is your sort of attack plan?

59:46.890 --> 59:50.510
Where are you going to be focusing your time, resources, and energy?

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.

01:00:01.410 --> 01:00:06.510
And just kind of figuring out, like, what needs to be stronger?

01:00:06.510 --> 01:00:07.410
What can you work on?

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.

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.

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.

01:00:38.130 --> 01:00:41.910
And I think that's something that could be really crucial to your success.

01:00:41.950 --> 01:00:43.870
So I'll just leave it with that.

01:00:45.190 --> 01:00:47.550
Yeah, no, I think these are very good points.

01:00:48.550 --> 01:00:51.090
Actually, I was going to kind of note on that.

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?

01:01:00.290 --> 01:01:05.070
But even then, you know, learn social engineering.

01:01:05.070 --> 01:01:09.350
There's always one way that you can, you know, speak to someone, especially they relate.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

01:02:11.610 --> 01:02:16.590
And that life experience sometimes is much more valuable than the technical experience you can bring.

01:02:18.330 --> 01:02:20.230
Anyone else want to add something to this?

01:02:20.230 --> 01:02:21.970
Otherwise, Ajit, you want to say something?

01:02:21.970 --> 01:02:22.610
Yeah, go for it.

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.

01:02:29.030 --> 01:02:32.090
They tend to be very approachable, and most of them are always looking for help.

01:02:32.090 --> 01:02:32.790
I know that we are.

01:02:32.790 --> 01:02:34.110
I help run B-Sides Philly.

01:02:34.230 --> 01:02:40.230
If you're in the know, we have a few.

01:02:41.010 --> 01:02:42.450
Go ahead, no hug me.

01:02:43.230 --> 01:02:45.470
I'm saying B-Sides DC, B-Sides charm.

01:02:45.470 --> 01:02:46.890
You want to get involved, hit me up.

01:02:48.950 --> 01:02:51.970
Yeah, so as far as... go for it, go for it, Moose.

01:02:53.190 --> 01:02:54.290
That's all I wanted to say.

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.

01:03:03.490 --> 01:03:06.010
I'd shout out to the Shellcon crew as well.

01:03:06.570 --> 01:03:08.310
A few of the B-Sides.

01:03:08.910 --> 01:03:11.270
We got Circle City Con, right?

01:03:12.110 --> 01:03:13.070
Yeah, there you go.

01:03:13.070 --> 01:03:14.990
See, you gotta show this.

01:03:14.990 --> 01:03:19.650
So, there's plenty of conferences, some even that I really haven't gone.

01:03:19.690 --> 01:03:21.870
Hushcon is another fun conference.

01:03:23.150 --> 01:03:25.250
So, yeah, get involved on those.

01:03:25.250 --> 01:03:30.050
But there's another question that came up as well from the audience.

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?

01:03:41.070 --> 01:03:42.190
Ali?

01:03:44.310 --> 01:03:46.630
Sorry, a little burn there.

01:03:47.490 --> 01:03:50.450
Yeah, so I'm actually so excited.

01:03:50.450 --> 01:03:53.010
It's a relatively new effort.

01:03:53.110 --> 01:03:55.870
But I'm in the D.C.

01:03:55.870 --> 01:03:56.830
area.

01:03:56.970 --> 01:04:00.310
And I just made a new friend over Twitter.

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.

01:04:13.590 --> 01:04:17.830
who are notoriously historically underserved and underprivileged.

01:04:17.830 --> 01:04:22.330
And I'm really honored that he's considering to bring me on to help.

01:04:22.770 --> 01:04:26.230
So, I'll have more on that actually soon.

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.

01:04:32.830 --> 01:04:33.590
Awesome.

01:04:33.590 --> 01:04:34.330
Rando?

01:04:34.670 --> 01:04:35.590
Yeah.

01:04:36.430 --> 01:04:40.070
First of all, plug for a very good friend of mine.

01:04:40.150 --> 01:04:45.030
He is on Twitter at Simple Skink, S-K-I-N-K.

01:04:45.030 --> 01:04:47.750
He gave a talk at Circle a couple years ago.

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.

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.

01:05:02.190 --> 01:05:03.830
And he actually did a really good talk.

01:05:06.050 --> 01:05:10.710
So, talk at Circle City, I think it was like 2017 or 2018.

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.

01:05:22.670 --> 01:05:27.370
And that was a complete eye opener about how they give and receive information.

01:05:27.370 --> 01:05:31.030
And by the way, if you use Facebook, they will make fun of you.

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.

01:05:45.330 --> 01:05:47.790
And I was like, well, I should be cutting your grass.

01:05:47.790 --> 01:05:50.690
First of all, second of all, he got me in there.

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.

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.

01:06:10.570 --> 01:06:14.510
But yeah, so if you're thinking about mentoring, go follow SimpleSkink.

01:06:14.510 --> 01:06:18.010
He has fought all of these fights for you already.

01:06:19.110 --> 01:06:24.210
And if you want to do it, it is super rewarding.

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.

01:06:32.070 --> 01:06:34.570
So be prepared to really have to translate.

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.

01:06:45.550 --> 01:06:46.750
I don't know.

01:06:46.750 --> 01:06:48.550
I don't know.

01:06:49.170 --> 01:06:52.790
No, I think that's, that's, that's good.

01:06:52.830 --> 01:06:56.130
Personally, I do volunteer from time to time in my time.

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.

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.

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.

01:07:27.370 --> 01:07:29.550
So, but yeah, there's some challenges with that.

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.

01:07:45.990 --> 01:07:50.790
So, yeah, it's slightly different to be mentoring someone, you know, at that level.

01:07:50.790 --> 01:07:53.090
It also comes with a few constraints.

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?

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.

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.

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.

01:08:22.410 --> 01:08:24.650
And I think that's very important to kind of touch on this, right?

01:08:24.650 --> 01:08:27.390
There's a distinction between tutoring and mentoring.

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.

01:08:34.690 --> 01:08:39.250
I was a teenager once, and, you know, I felt many things during that age.

01:08:39.250 --> 01:08:41.650
So, I think that's an important thing to kind of note.

01:08:41.650 --> 01:08:47.930
And with that said, we do have another question that came in as well.

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?

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.

01:09:03.450 --> 01:09:05.090
Basically, we're talking about burnout.

01:09:05.090 --> 01:09:10.070
Yeah, I can actually, I think I can start to speak on that.

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.

01:09:19.610 --> 01:09:23.530
So, one example is actually at the start of this pandemic.

01:09:23.570 --> 01:09:27.910
So, my work started going remote in mid-March.

01:09:28.410 --> 01:09:34.410
And around the same time, just right as we went remote, I actually got COVID.

01:09:34.410 --> 01:09:37.810
And I wound up being sick for about two, two and a half months.

01:09:38.270 --> 01:09:41.250
If you ever heard of, like, a COVID long hauler, that was me.

01:09:41.310 --> 01:09:42.130
It's horrible.

01:09:42.130 --> 01:09:42.990
Do not recommend.

01:09:42.990 --> 01:09:44.130
Zero of 10.

01:09:44.390 --> 01:09:46.070
Like, do not recommend.

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.

01:09:57.790 --> 01:09:59.170
And then I started trying to work.

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.

01:10:05.630 --> 01:10:08.070
And I felt like I didn't perform enough.

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.

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.

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.

01:10:28.750 --> 01:10:31.730
And I realized that, like, I kind of did that to myself.

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.

01:10:37.770 --> 01:10:39.210
And I've always been this way.

01:10:39.210 --> 01:10:42.010
Like, I push so hard and I just keep going.

01:10:42.090 --> 01:10:45.110
And, like, like I said, I'm also a part-time grad student.

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.

01:10:49.830 --> 01:10:51.930
And it's full of a lot of overachievers.

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.

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.

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.

01:11:21.330 --> 01:11:25.490
And I, for whatever dumbass reason, chose not to do that.

01:11:25.650 --> 01:11:29.030
And that's kind of, like, I'm still, like, paying for that a little bit.

01:11:29.030 --> 01:11:30.630
And it's a constant struggle.

01:11:32.370 --> 01:11:33.210
Anyone else?

01:11:33.210 --> 01:11:34.530
Moose, I see you.

01:11:35.030 --> 01:11:43.010
So, that question hits home because I am known for my burnout.

01:11:43.090 --> 01:11:47.110
I almost struggle saying no to things when they come in.

01:11:47.110 --> 01:11:49.570
And I am a hyper-technical person.

01:11:49.630 --> 01:11:54.670
So, like, I want to know the inside detail on how everything works in this problem.

01:11:54.670 --> 01:11:56.930
I'm also a perfectionist, also a problem.

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.

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.

01:12:13.250 --> 01:12:18.610
And so, for you, like, you're trying to eat the elephant.

01:12:19.170 --> 01:12:20.250
It's okay.

01:12:20.390 --> 01:12:21.910
You just have to do it in parts.

01:12:21.910 --> 01:12:24.890
And I think having overly ambitious goals is great.

01:12:24.890 --> 01:12:26.210
I've had them.

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.

01:12:39.590 --> 01:12:40.990
And I didn't sleep much.

01:12:40.990 --> 01:12:42.650
And that wasn't exactly healthy.

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.

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.

01:12:59.630 --> 01:13:01.470
Did you remember to eat today?

01:13:01.470 --> 01:13:03.390
How much have you slept this week?

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.

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.

01:13:21.930 --> 01:13:25.730
And I think that's a really good way to look at it for you.

01:13:25.730 --> 01:13:27.690
Have those overly ambitious goals.

01:13:27.690 --> 01:13:28.830
Shoot for the moon.

01:13:28.830 --> 01:13:30.270
But there's only one you.

01:13:30.270 --> 01:13:32.570
So keep yourself alive while you're doing it.

01:13:33.530 --> 01:13:34.970
Awesome.

01:13:35.170 --> 01:13:36.310
Rubix?

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.

01:13:45.110 --> 01:13:48.470
Because there's stress and then there's burnout.

01:13:48.490 --> 01:13:51.090
And really there's a difference.

01:13:51.090 --> 01:13:57.150
And you can have a stressful work career and be happy and productive.

01:13:57.190 --> 01:14:00.930
And stress doesn't necessarily have to be bad.

01:14:00.930 --> 01:14:05.650
Burnout is when that stress is doing different things to you.

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.

01:14:13.170 --> 01:14:17.130
Am I just in a stressful situation or am I approaching burnout?

01:14:17.390 --> 01:14:20.690
And because the ways that you respond to that is a little bit different.

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.

01:14:30.290 --> 01:14:31.130
Awesome.

01:14:31.330 --> 01:14:33.050
I'll link to this part of that.

01:14:33.050 --> 01:14:35.310
So we go into the final notes with a personal note.

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?

01:14:42.870 --> 01:14:45.350
You know, you tend to say yes too much.

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.

01:14:51.450 --> 01:14:53.590
And it's okay to say no.

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.

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.

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.

01:15:17.730 --> 01:15:21.210
So if you want to learn it from me, then learn to say no.

01:15:21.230 --> 01:15:23.010
So hi to my co-worker.

01:15:23.010 --> 01:15:23.590
All right.

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.

01:15:29.810 --> 01:15:32.330
And I want to give everyone an opportunity.

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.

01:15:39.390 --> 01:15:42.290
Maybe you want some simple advice to end.

01:15:42.310 --> 01:15:43.930
It's totally up to you.

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?

01:15:50.610 --> 01:15:51.970
Or is that fine?

01:15:51.970 --> 01:15:52.530
Muteki?

01:15:52.530 --> 01:15:52.870
All right.

01:15:52.870 --> 01:15:53.910
Take it away.

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.

01:16:03.270 --> 01:16:08.350
And I'm super excited to delve into like how this is going to work.

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.

01:16:13.790 --> 01:16:19.010
If you know people that are interested in mentoring, please send them over bootcamp.com.

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.

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.

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.

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.

01:16:44.790 --> 01:16:47.390
And one of the things that came up was different experiences.

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.

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.

01:17:06.190 --> 01:17:08.650
And all experiences are valid.

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.

01:17:17.570 --> 01:17:22.210
And some of the most important things that we can do is to just believe people.

01:17:22.210 --> 01:17:25.930
To believe women, believe black people, believe people of color.

01:17:25.930 --> 01:17:29.330
And to really like to take that into consideration.

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.

01:17:35.970 --> 01:17:37.090
Awesome.

01:17:37.250 --> 01:17:39.050
Yeah, good point.

01:17:39.370 --> 01:17:41.190
Actually, just a quick thing.

01:17:41.270 --> 01:17:46.430
We collected some, I think we so far got a few mentee submissions.

01:17:46.430 --> 01:17:48.170
Do you know what count are we?

01:17:48.530 --> 01:17:49.270
Let me check.

01:17:49.270 --> 01:17:51.610
We're almost at 200.

01:17:52.170 --> 01:17:55.890
And a huge surge, mostly mentees.

01:17:55.890 --> 01:17:58.350
So we are actively looking for more mentors.

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.

01:18:09.010 --> 01:18:12.730
And also like things like interviews and things like that.

01:18:12.730 --> 01:18:14.510
And you people love DFIR too.

01:18:14.510 --> 01:18:16.590
Like everyone wants to do DFIR.

01:18:16.710 --> 01:18:17.930
It's great.

01:18:18.590 --> 01:18:19.490
Awesome.

01:18:19.490 --> 01:18:20.030
Thank you.

01:18:20.030 --> 01:18:20.490
All right.

01:18:20.490 --> 01:18:22.690
So as you heard, we're looking for mentors.

01:18:22.690 --> 01:18:28.330
And if you're a mentee, you know, we have a line to go through.

01:18:28.330 --> 01:18:29.630
So don't matter.

01:18:29.630 --> 01:18:30.970
Just come in and sign up.

01:18:30.970 --> 01:18:31.650
Rando.

01:18:32.630 --> 01:18:35.050
First of all, suck it red team.

01:18:35.150 --> 01:18:42.690
Second of all, just a word about projection, right?

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.

01:18:54.050 --> 01:18:57.170
And don't project yourself out for like conquering the world.

01:18:57.170 --> 01:18:59.050
That's a good thing to have.

01:18:59.050 --> 01:19:02.630
But take this seriously, right?

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.

01:19:13.410 --> 01:19:15.970
Always keep in mind to not project.

01:19:15.970 --> 01:19:17.710
You cannot tell the future.

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.

01:19:22.150 --> 01:19:25.370
Spoiler alert, you're going to do both multiple times.

01:19:25.370 --> 01:19:28.830
So just take this seriously in the moment.

01:19:28.830 --> 01:19:34.290
Every single minute that you do this, that is the minute that you are concentrating on.

01:19:34.290 --> 01:19:36.250
And then let that take you forward.

01:19:36.250 --> 01:19:37.970
Don't project where you're going to end up.

01:19:37.970 --> 01:19:40.350
Take it seriously, and I promise we will too.

01:19:43.610 --> 01:19:44.110
Awesome.

01:19:44.110 --> 01:19:44.810
Rubix?

01:19:49.230 --> 01:19:50.150
Do you hear me?

01:19:50.150 --> 01:19:50.510
Rubix?

01:19:50.510 --> 01:19:51.210
Rubix?

01:19:52.190 --> 01:19:53.510
I think he's muted.

01:19:54.770 --> 01:19:55.570
No?

01:19:55.730 --> 01:19:56.810
We'll skip him.

01:19:56.990 --> 01:19:58.090
Pulling at Clay.

01:19:58.250 --> 01:19:58.950
Yeah?

01:20:00.830 --> 01:20:02.130
I don't think he can hear me.

01:20:02.130 --> 01:20:03.510
We'll skip him for now.

01:20:03.510 --> 01:20:04.670
He disconnected.

01:20:04.870 --> 01:20:06.110
All right, he's coming back.

01:20:06.110 --> 01:20:06.870
Let's see.

01:20:07.410 --> 01:20:09.530
Maybe Audio is back on.

01:20:09.750 --> 01:20:10.930
All right, awesome.

01:20:12.990 --> 01:20:16.530
Did my technology fail right at the right moment?

01:20:17.830 --> 01:20:18.610
Okay.

01:20:18.610 --> 01:20:19.710
Yeah, your turn.

01:20:19.710 --> 01:20:20.830
All right, it's my turn.

01:20:20.830 --> 01:20:23.370
So yeah, I'm really looking forward to this.

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.

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.

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.

01:20:55.810 --> 01:20:56.950
You'll get there.

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.

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.

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.

01:21:19.030 --> 01:21:21.390
So, you know, we'll work together.

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.

01:21:26.510 --> 01:21:27.710
And I look forward to it.

01:21:29.210 --> 01:21:29.890
Awesome.

01:21:29.890 --> 01:21:31.250
Thank you for that, G.

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.

01:21:47.450 --> 01:21:51.690
Otherwise it becomes lopsided and it ends up not working for one of the other party.

01:21:51.890 --> 01:21:54.950
But I'm super excited to get this kicked off.

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.

01:22:00.370 --> 01:22:01.910
So it's gonna be good, I hope.

01:22:03.730 --> 01:22:04.290
Awesome.

01:22:04.290 --> 01:22:04.990
Allie?

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.

01:22:12.510 --> 01:22:16.150
And I can't wait to help as many folks as we can.

01:22:16.150 --> 01:22:19.030
And like I said earlier, just sending the ladder back down.

01:22:19.030 --> 01:22:20.030
So I can't wait.

01:22:22.070 --> 01:22:22.630
Perfect.

01:22:22.630 --> 01:22:23.150
Thank you.

01:22:23.170 --> 01:22:23.970
Nohagmi?

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?

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.

01:22:46.230 --> 01:22:47.470
Don't do that.

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.

01:22:57.170 --> 01:23:00.990
The mentor program, I'm super excited to be a part of it.

01:23:00.990 --> 01:23:03.730
You're going to get out of it what you put into it.

01:23:03.730 --> 01:23:07.090
And that's going to be anything you do in the security industry.

01:23:07.530 --> 01:23:11.030
Like, caveats, I don't know if we're supposed to sell ourselves now.

01:23:11.910 --> 01:23:14.890
You have access to my entire network.

01:23:15.610 --> 01:23:17.270
I've done a lot of things.

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.

01:23:22.790 --> 01:23:25.750
The only rules, I think they're the same rules for all of us.

01:23:25.770 --> 01:23:27.410
Like, don't make us regret it.

01:23:27.410 --> 01:23:28.970
Like, don't be a piece of shit.

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.

01:23:35.730 --> 01:23:37.790
That's what we're trying to do.

01:23:37.930 --> 01:23:39.930
None of us are going to be here forever.

01:23:39.930 --> 01:23:41.710
We're trying to build something that will be.

01:23:41.710 --> 01:23:44.590
And I think this mentor program is a fantastic start.

01:23:44.590 --> 01:23:47.050
So, please take advantage of it.

01:23:47.590 --> 01:23:49.410
And yes, find me on the internet.

01:23:49.410 --> 01:23:50.350
I'll be around.

01:23:52.070 --> 01:23:52.830
Awesome.

01:23:52.830 --> 01:23:53.970
Well said, also.

01:23:53.970 --> 01:23:54.970
Thank you.

01:23:55.070 --> 01:23:56.030
Moose.

01:23:56.790 --> 01:23:59.790
So, I think a lot of good things have already been said.

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.

01:24:08.470 --> 01:24:10.850
My path is not necessarily your path.

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.

01:24:21.410 --> 01:24:24.130
Because there's no right or wrong path in InfoSec.

01:24:25.250 --> 01:24:31.010
And just as a personal aside, I can be an overwhelming person.

01:24:31.110 --> 01:24:35.570
Because I'll say, oh, yeah, I'm doing shellcon things right now.

01:24:35.570 --> 01:24:41.430
And then I'm going with my other half to do besides LV things.

01:24:41.430 --> 01:24:44.310
And he runs HushCon, so I talk about that a lot.

01:24:44.310 --> 01:24:46.790
And I'll be all over the place.

01:24:46.790 --> 01:24:52.130
But that doesn't need to translate to you or any one of us.

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.

01:24:56.570 --> 01:25:03.450
But he is constantly involved in everything, which is beautiful.

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.

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.

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.

01:25:20.590 --> 01:25:22.970
And you don't even have to be InfoSec right now.

01:25:22.970 --> 01:25:24.190
You can be a Jason.

01:25:24.350 --> 01:25:25.950
You can be whatever you want to be.

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.

01:25:35.830 --> 01:25:36.790
Awesome.

01:25:37.350 --> 01:25:38.930
Where did Clay go?

01:25:38.950 --> 01:25:40.730
This came and he hid, right?

01:25:40.730 --> 01:25:42.750
He's like, I'm out of here.

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.

01:25:46.090 --> 01:25:47.630
Clay, you're still around?

01:25:47.630 --> 01:25:48.890
You want to say something?

01:25:50.290 --> 01:25:51.630
That's a negative.

01:25:52.170 --> 01:25:53.370
He's going to say something.

01:25:53.370 --> 01:25:54.410
Go, go, go.

01:25:54.910 --> 01:26:01.450
I'm just thrilled and honored and humbled to be a mentor.

01:26:01.450 --> 01:26:06.030
And I look forward to to what the future holds.

01:26:07.850 --> 01:26:09.270
Classy Clay words.

01:26:09.270 --> 01:26:10.850
Love you, man.

01:26:10.850 --> 01:26:12.270
That's gooey.

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.

01:26:18.810 --> 01:26:20.510
Maybe just one thing.

01:26:20.510 --> 01:26:27.030
I think you said that there's 200 people that are subscribed as a mentee.

01:26:27.030 --> 01:26:32.310
So I know that a few of us today worked on recruiting more mentors.

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.

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.

01:26:44.870 --> 01:26:47.710
So keep following.

01:26:47.710 --> 01:26:50.590
I think you won't be disappointed with what's coming.

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.

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.

01:27:05.870 --> 01:27:06.530
Awesome.

01:27:06.530 --> 01:27:07.270
Thank you for that.

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.

01:27:17.510 --> 01:27:20.590
And we really want you to maximize the time.

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.

01:27:27.570 --> 01:27:29.330
We also have a very important rule.

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.

01:27:36.010 --> 01:27:37.410
And that's completely anonymous.

01:27:37.630 --> 01:27:40.570
And, you know, we're making a path to be able to deal with those things.

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.

01:27:46.390 --> 01:27:48.670
Will, you know, will any of those matter or not?

01:27:48.670 --> 01:27:51.270
Well, we don't know, but we're doing our best part.

01:27:51.270 --> 01:27:54.250
At this point, we're running basically out of time.

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.

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.

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.

01:28:14.310 --> 01:28:19.470
Thank you, all of you, mentors, to be part of this, you know, program and journey.

01:28:19.930 --> 01:28:22.570
You know, we're, I'm very looking forward to see what it is.

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.

01:28:33.270 --> 01:28:37.170
Shellcon is, you know, doing call for papers, so there's plenty of opportunities.

01:28:37.590 --> 01:28:40.330
I'll end with, we have the Meet a Mentor's channel.

01:28:40.330 --> 01:28:41.810
Come in, sign up.

01:28:41.810 --> 01:28:45.250
If you're a mentor, please sign up, reach out to us.

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.

01:29:00.110 --> 01:29:02.630
So, you know, be part of this adventure with us.

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.

01:29:10.610 --> 01:29:11.430
All right.

