pages/blog/nullcon-2020.md (view raw)
1---
2template:
3slug: nullcon-2020
4title: Nullcon 2020
5subtitle: An opinion-filled review of Nullcon Goa, 2020
6date: 2020-03-09
7---
8
9**Disclaimer**: Political.
10
11This year's conference was at the Taj Hotel and Convention center, Dona
12Paula, and its associated party at Cidade de Goa, also by Taj.
13Great choice of venue, perhaps even better than last time. The food was
14fine, the views were better.
15
16With _those_ things out of the way -- let's talk talks. I think
17I preferred the panels to the talks -- I enjoy a good, stimulating
18discussion as opposed to only half-understanding a deeply technical
19talk -- but that's just me. But there was this one talk that I really
20enjoyed, perhaps due to its unintended comedic value; I'll get into that
21later.
22
23The list of panels/talks I attended in order:
24
25**Day 1**
26
27- Keynote: The Metadata Trap by Micah Lee (Talk)
28- Securing the Human Factor (Panel)
29- Predicting Danger: Building the Ideal Threat Intelligence Model (Panel)
30- Lessons from the Cyber Trenches (Panel)
31- Mlw 41#: a new sophisticated loader by APT group TA505 by Alexey Vishnyakov (Talk)
32- Taking the guess out of Glitching by Adam Laurie (Talk)
33- Keynote: Cybersecurity in India -- Information Assymetry, Cross Border
34 Threats and National Sovereignty by Saumil Shah (Talk)
35
36**Day 2**
37
38- Keynote: Crouching hacker, killer robot? Removing fear from
39 cyber-physical security by Stefano Zanero (Talk)
40- Supply Chain Security in Critical Infrastructure Systems (Panel)
41- Putting it all together: building an iOS jailbreak from scratch by
42 Umang Raghuvanshi (Talk)
43- Hack the Law: Protection for Ethical Cyber Security Research in India
44 (Panel)
45
46## Re: Closing keynote
47
48I wish I could link the talk, but it hasn't been uploaded just yet. I'll
49do it once it has. So, I've a few comments I'd like to make on some of
50Saumil's statements.
51
52He proposed that the security industry trust the user more, and let them
53make the decisions pertaining to personal security / privacy.
54Except...that's just not going to happen. If all users were capable
55of making good, security-first choices -- we as an industry don't
56need to exist. But that is unfortunately not the case.
57Users are dumb. They value convenience and immediacy over
58security. That's the sad truth of the modern age.
59
60Another thing he proposed was that the Indian Government build our own
61"Military Grade" and "Consumer Grade" encryption.
62
63_...what?_
64
65A "security professional" suggesting that we roll our own crypto? What
66even. Oh and, to top it off -- when
67[Raman](https://twitter.com/tame_wildcard), very rightly countered
68saying that the biggest opponent to encryption _is_ the Government, and
69trusting them to build safe cryptosystems is probably not wise, he
70responded by saying something to the effect of "Eh, who cares? If they
71want to backdoor it, let them."
72
73Bruh moment.
74
75He also had some interesting things to say about countering
76disinformation. He said, and I quote "Join the STFU University".
77
78¿wat? Is that your best solution?
79
80Judging by his profile, and certain other things he said in the talk, it
81is safe to conclude that his ideals are fairly...nationalistic. I'm not
82one to police political opinions, I couldn't care less which way you
83lean, but the statements made in the talk were straight up
84incorrect.
85
86## Closing thoughts
87
88This came out more rant-like than I'd intended. It is also the first
89blog post where I dip my toes into politics. I've some thoughts on more
90controversial topics for my next entry. That'll be fun, especially when
91my follower count starts dropping. LULW.
92
93Saumil, if you ever end up reading this, note that this is not
94a personal attack. I think you're a cool guy.
95
96Note to the Nullcon organizers: you guys did a fantastic job running the
97conference despite Corona-chan's best efforts. I'd like to suggest one
98little thing though -- please VET YOUR SPEAKERS more!
99
100