Challenges of Setting Up a Security Conference 29
Orome1 writes "The founder of the SecurityByte conference talks about his motivations for organizing such an event in his native country and what he hopes it will achieve. He shares knowledge regarding the differences between the organization processes involved when setting up this type of event in India as opposed to North America, which he says have a lot to do with the fact that there is lack of awareness about security in India, and that the majority of such events held there are mostly vendor-driven and free for visitors."
Transcript anyone? (Score:2)
TL;DL version will be equally good
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I thought my situation was bad, with 15 year old speakers.
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Re:Transcript anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
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You could argue that "Indian" is really just English. I've worked with a number of people from India over the years and one of the interesting things I learned is that English has effectively become a common tongue in India.
The reasons for this are two fold. The first is that many schools teach classes in English from the beginning. The second reason is that English in a neutral language that doesn't leave any particular native group feeling like another native group's language was selected over theirs.
Indi
Just my two cents... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the third world country where I live in, vendor-driven and free events usually have their marketing guys do all the talking. This means biased information. On the other hand, paid events are the ones that have real knowledgeable guys in it. Unfotunately we rarely have such events since the price to have a very knowledgeable speaker in it is very high and only few people will certainly attend. The price is usually higher than an average sysadmins or developers salary (not employed in the top 100 companies in the country or converted 650USD a month). Affordable events do happen but in my experience there is always this one guy in the crowd that is more knowledgeable than the speaker (asks more indepth questions, disagreeing with the facts of the speaker with much more citations, etc.). The best option over here is just to find free webinars of past notable events. Of course you don't get to ask questions but the knowledge that is gained is priceless.
Re:Just my two cents...but wait... (Score:2)
I find this statement dubious given that it is in this US of A where a hospital was forcced to turn away patients [infopackets.com] because of a [simple] virus.
Lets remember that out beloved Google has also stored "sensitive" data in plain text. In fact there was a submission here at Slashdot....and... this site [securitynewsdaily.com] lists a li
Re:Just my two cents...but wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just bacause things are messed up in one place does not mean they are not more messed up in another place.
Have you ever been to India? I have, despite what Indians like to tell people it's very much a third world country with open sewers, piles of rubbish, and rats all over the place. It's hard to believe that they would have any great interest in computer security given the other problems they have.
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I have been to Philadelphia and Detroit so trust me on this:
If I had just fallen to earth (into these two cities) from some planet, after having heard that the the USA is #1, I would be very disappointed. Here's why:
These two cities were just as rotten as any 3rd world city. Save for one thing, the rats. Sadly they are still rotten.
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USA isn't #1 in almost anything... (Wikipedia links for speed)
You'll find them usually in the top 25 or so as a 1st world country, but I've rarely if ever seen them as #1 in any statistics...
Human Development Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
Education Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index
Per capita GDP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
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I have been to India. I have lived there and worked there. I even ran my own business there doing digital graphic design and image processing when it was just getting started.
As regards to India, along side the "open sewers, piles of rubbish, and rats all over the place," you will also find computer training centers all over the place. Practically every nook and corner and hole in the wall in all but the remotest villages has some sort of computer training center. And then the Indian public education system
Re:Just my two cents... (Score:5, Funny)
In the third world country where I live in, vendor-driven and free events usually have their marketing guys do all the talking. This means biased information. On the other hand, paid events are the ones that have real knowledgeable guys in it.
That's very often the case in the rest of the world too. The best events tend to be the ones that attract people who are professionally in the field, and yet where the sponsors are restricted/absent. That means they're usually held during the working week in substantial hotels in cities and so tend to cost a lot (hotels charging what they do, and not much sponsor money to bear the cost). Yes, this is hard but its just how it works; getting the people that make it really worth it just tends to push costs up, and many conferences are run on a razor edge in terms of costs, with even a small error in terms of income estimation — attendance really — leading to ruin or high profitability. (I'm on the committee for a small conference, but thankfully don't have to deal with the financial side.)
Local conference for local people (Score:2)
Makes sense to me. Huge software industry in India, some of them not so good, but definitely there will be some trying to improve their practice. More companies will send employees if it's a local conference rather than an international one: cheaper, more accessible. India's a big enough place to have the demand.
Must be a slow day! (Score:1)
The Challenge (Score:2)
I Didn't really read the article (if it was readable text at all, or was it audio)? But I assume that the challenge of setting up a security conference, must be making the wifi and other stuff secure, with all those hackers attending who want to prove something.
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I Didn't really read the article (if it was readable text at all, or was it audio)? But I assume that the challenge of setting up a security conference, must be making the wifi and other stuff secure, with all those hackers attending who want to prove something.
It's India. The challenges will be more along the lines of wifi points getting stolen, getting people in and out of the building when there is an army of beggers outside, and all guest speakers getting food poisoning.
US events are vendor-driven and free for visitors (Score:2)
>> the majority of such events held there are mostly vendor-driven and free for visitors.
What? Nearly all security conferences in the US are free for visitors. Even if there's a posted charge, you can almost always get free admission by promising to talk to a sponsoring vendor there. (Most sponsoring vendors either get a set number of free tickets to the event or consider a few hundred bucks to meet a real live prospect the price of doing business.)
Also, most security conferences in the US (e.g., RS
Dollars to donuts (Score:1)