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UPDATE: Please see this link for the most current agenda. The one in the post is outdated: http://sintixerr.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/cyber-program_1020.pdf
So, one of the things I get to do as part of my job which has been pretty exciting is to put together the agenda for our 2nd annual Cyber Security in Transportation summit. It’s happening November 1 & 2 this year in the DC area and is going to be full of outstanding talks for all ages and backgrounds. ;) The summit is aimed at executives and decision makers from within the transportation industry who might be effected by cyber security or whos actions may affect the security of their organizations. We’re covering general cyber security themes as well as transportation specific ones. If you’re in the transportation sector – pipeline, aviation, freight rail, mass transit, highway & motor carrier – and want to attend, let me know at sintixerr@gmail.com.
The tentative agenda currently looks like this:
Summit Schedule (Click for Larger)
AGENDA DESCRIPTIONS
Industry Case Studies
Four discussions of transportation-specific cyber security concerns and perspectives: Incidents, Best Practices that worked, Lessons Learned, Soap Box Scenarios , etc.
Public/Private Partnership
Sector Collaboration
Based on outcomes of this summer’s Transportation Cyber Security Exercise
Panel: Maritime
Representatives of the Maritime mode will discuss topics of common interest
TBD DHS
General Cyber Security Awareness Talks & Panels
Panel: Offensive Perspectives
Non-technical perspectives from well-known offensive researchers
Panel: Threats in the News
Current threats in the news such as APT, Stuxnet, and Anonymous
Panel: Executive Perspectives
Concerns and solutions in today’s environments
Panel: Risk Management
Cybersecurity impacts on business risk management
Verizon Data Breach Incident Report
An empirical overview of current trends
Social Networking
Ups, downs, concerns and impacts of social networking on cyber security
Users and Awareness
Exploration of the most critical aspect of cyber security: Users
Verizon Data Breach Incident Report: Bryan Sartin/Verizon Business
Industry Case Study 1: Boeing Mike Garrett/Boeing
Panel: Offensive Perspectives: Kevin Finisterre Ruben Santamarta Mark Fabro
Social Media: Patrick Gray/CISCO
Panel: Maritime Stakeholders (USCG & Industry)
Panel: Threats in the News: Scot Terban (Anonymous) Liam O Murchu / Symantec (Stuxnet) (APT)
Industry Case Study 2: Transportation Control Systems Darryl Song/Volpe
Keynote: Vice Admiral Parker/ USCG
DHS
Panel: Executive Perspectives: Amit Yoran/Netwitness Gus Hunt/CTO of CIA
Sector Collaboration
Users & Awareness Mike Murray/MAD Security
Panel: Risk Management Jack Johnson/PWC Russell Thomas Jack Whitsitt
Last week, I had the perfect storm of random happenings. I was outside having coffee with Stacey by the Pentagon City Mall. I got a twitter from Rebecca – some mumbling about a guy with a machete getting off the same bus as her. Quite surprised (and amused), I shared the message with Stacey. Just as I do that, who walks up to us but Rebecca herself! You have to keep in mind – Im not sure Ive ever run into her outside of Artomatic before in my life. The timing here is too weird. So weird, in fact, that the only thing I can think of to say to her is:
“Machete?!?!”
Turns out, some guy in a suit got off the local bus near where we were…manicured and everything….but with a machete on his back. Hrm. I cant say I havent felt the same way myself before, but most of us dont DO that :)
Anyway, Rebecca wanders off to knit (in Starbucks I think?? or some secret hole to Neverwhere) and Stace and I finish up.
Heading into the metro, the next Yellow line to DC is 8 minutes away, but a blue line will be right there. I figure Ill catch that and jump across above ground from Farragut West to Farragut North and catch the red line home.
And…that brings us to the point of this post.
Once I get up the stairs, Im surprised to hear….love shack….by the B-52′s. I check my ipod. No, no it’s not coming from there. I look around and realize there is an actual live band in Farragut Square doing love shack. Not that that’s my favorite song mind you – by any means – but the fact that the typically dreary shuffle of end-of-workday commutes that normally happens here has been completely supplanted by random live 80′s music in the middle of the square. How freaking cool.
Apparently they were playing for the last day of OnTap’s “Sounds in the Square”. I wish I had seen the others. I need to read my OnTap notices more carefully!
Luckily, I actually brought my video camera with me to work that day (???? I never do that ????). I grabbed it from my bag and immediately started filming.
As the song went on, I realized that these guys were pretty good (By pretty good I mean dont mean I’d fly to Hong Kong to see them, but they were FAR and away better than what you normally find laying around there in the afternoon) AND had a great sense of humour. All the guys were wearing moon pants, the guitarist had a Karate Kid bandana on, the basist had big white sunglasses with slits in them, the female singer was Madonna’d out, and the male singer had Rick-Springfield sunglasses.
I ended up filming six songs in High Definition and I think they all came out really well – especially as it was spur of the moment and I couldnt move around much. I’ve included two of my favorites in this post – Walk Like an Egyptian (top) and Jessie’s Girl (bottom). I particularly like the footage of Walk Like an Egyptian…the singer walked out and was dancing with a couple of kids egyptian-style. It was adorable.
Anyway, the band’s name was “The Reflex”. They’re based in DC and if you want a bit of entertaining eighties in your life, check them out!
Just to let everyone know, Rebecca famous (and infamous, I hear) asked Angela and I to help out with moderation of the Artomatic forums on artdc (probably because we’re -always- there gabbing). That’s cool. :)
She actually said the funniest thing in her email to me:
What I really like best about what you do on the forums is get people to think and interact instead of flame and run. And you both do so with much humor, but with the all important “go fuck yourself” at the ready. We appreciate that. :-)
That’s a compliment, right? Right? :)
Anyway, there’s a lot of good information about Artomatic and DC art in general on the board, so if you haven’t visited, you should. Becoming a member is free.
Check it out here:
http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?board=37.0
First, I finished the python code I was working on that will allow two -color- images to be merged into one color mosaic. The color transformations it has to make to fit in the smaller picture to the larger one seem to result in some pretty wild effects – I’m digging it. I’ll clean up the code and post it here tomorrow.
As far as social stuff goes: Angela Kleis’s blogger night at Artomatic was pretty cool. I don’t want to post a lot of thoughts on that yet (I will tomorrow), but it did reinforce the fact that a lot of event management will have to be done at the June 6th ArtDC Artist’s tour dinner. Unfortunately, people have short attention spans and the time each artist speaks will have to be managed and expectations set ahead of time. 5 minutes seems to be about the “max”. We’ll have to bring a timer or something. It’s going to be a -really- interesting night, though, and a lot of fun.
More info on the upcoming dinner can be found in this thread:
http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?topic=8997.0
Pictures of Blogger’s Night can be found here in a set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sintixerr/sets/72157605133432629/
Finally, Erin Antognoli took a couple of great shots of my space while I talked about it to what was left of the crowd:
Last night was fantastic. It started off kind of quiet, but even at 6-something, plenty of people were milling about. The number of people there was perfect. Enough to feel well-attended on all 9 floors, but not so many that you couldn’t move around.
Early on, I had a lovely conversation about art, politics, technology, cataloging, and other sundry topics for about 20 minutes with a woman whom I found out later was a friend of Rebecca.
Not many of my most recent “friends” made an appearance, but I did see quite of few of my old and good ones. Justin Marino, for example, and his girlfriend were there. It was funny, but in the time (years?) they’ve been together, this is only the 2nd time I’ve met her and I was wearing the same scary paisley shirt in both cases, heh.
Similarly, another friend – again, Justin-Bryce – came to chat for awhile. Justin and I grew up near to each other in Daytona Beach Florida, met at Duke University during a middle school summer program, and have had many various adventures together. We’ve even worked for the same company here in DC. Twice. His girlfriend is actually on artdc (which I found out last night) as craftpunk….whom Id had suspicions about, but no confirmation 
This was the first time Id seen Justin since he became one of only 45+ people since 1950 to cut his esophagus open swallowing a sword.
Throughout the evening, I was entertained and interested in watching people interact with my art and really As more and more people cam by, I started seeing a pattern. Some of them saw the “big” picture. Others just saw the small ones. So, I put some tape down on the floor in the shape of a “1″. Then made a straight line of tape closer to the piece with a “2″. The reaction to the piece was SO much more interactive after I did that and the response improved even further. (Ill post a pic of that Wed of this week.)
Notables:
- A couple didnt want to buy my piece, but asked if I did commission work and enthusiastically repeated (more than once) that they’d be in touch. I doubt they well, but I was happy to have that kind of interest.
- One girl walked up and down my tape line then went to grab 5 other people to bring them and show them the piece from another side of the floor completely.
- One couple spent 5 minutes just talking about it.
- Etc.
The best time, though, was spent with Secret Sean, Kerri, Brad, Erin, Michael, and other artdc’ers. Secret Sean and Kerri, and particular, spent a great deal of time with us. It really made the night.
(Especially on the metro on the way home. Because….thats the way we roll)
We also made a stop at Miss 5 NE C3′s space to see what kind of art she had brought to the table (after she trashed -everyone else’s art- at Artomatic. It’s too bad her attitude was so bad, I would’ve thought better of the art. (Can find the thread here: http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?topic=9112.20)
Two nights ago, Paivi, Angela, and I worked our second Artomatic volunteer shift together.
I got to look at my installation finally that night in a variety of lighting conditions and Im -really- happy with how the plastic helped out. It doesnt prevent the glare completely, but it does fix it from all the important angles.
It was also definitely still satisfying to watch people look at the installation from a distance. They’d look at it from 15 feet away. Walk up to it. Move back. Walk up to it. Interact with it…too cool.
We came in beforehand so Paivi and Angela could talk to Paul (britishink…I didnt have much to say, though, I was zoning out for whatever reason – sorry! ) and we got to roam around for a bit. Waved at Danny and the crew manning the blood drive (sorry I didnt give, lost track of time…I was a bit distracted when I arrived). Saw jennifer, who was fun to talk to as always…
And we saw Tracy‘s piece beforehand as well, which I honestly liked a lot. As I’ve said things about Tom’s partition resonated with me, so did Tracy’s. I think using pieces from one’s life and arranging them into art can be dramatically effective, as hers was. Particularly (and Im not sure this was intentional), but she had a lot of materials there from her childhood….things that smelled like everyone’s childhood does after it’s been sitting in a box or the attic for decades. That made the installation tangible and personal, to me. It enhanced the impact and created a connection to the piece that wouldn’t have been there otherwise (for myself).
On shift, I helped out Barry with lighting (and worked it on my own for most of the shift) and worked as an errand boy in between problems. I -really- enjoyed this shift a lot more than the last one and felt I made some more concrete impact on the event. I enjoy solving problems – mine or others’. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of which floors had which lighting problems other than to say there is probably a short or something odd on the 6th floor that makes it markedly different from the others.
I took care of issues on 5, 6, and 8 at least. If you had a problem on another floor which wasn’t resolved, I apologize – I didnt hear about it. (Someone told me the THIRD floor had an issue. Uh. Yeah. It would :P )
Did some trash duty…found out Aaron is in a similar profession to mine 
….and did other odds and ends. At some point, a guy who had seen my piece started gushing over how good it was to meet me. I didnt really know how to respond to that.
I also met Angela’s 5th floor volunteer-mate, Ann Saybolt, who was nice, conversational, and has some photos up on 5 that I particularly like.
At the end of the shift, I transitioned lights over to one of the incoming volunteers that indicated he’d had lighting/electrical experience.
We roamed around a few floors for awhile, but I was a bit too gone to remember much of it by then….Paivi pointed out -her- volunteer-mate’s (they were on one of the 1st floor bars) photos on 8. Some of them were from the south pole, where he took a job there for 4 months just to be able to go there and take pictures. The south pole ones were cool, but that guy had THE BEST picture of Burning Man I’ve ever seen. Really, it’s fantastic. First name was Pat…8th floor…can’t remember the rest. Try and check that piece out if you can.
