09 March, 2020

Nullcon 2020

An opinion-filled review of Nullcon Goa, 2020

   Disclaimer: Political.

   This year's conference was at the Taj Hotel and Convention center, Dona
   Paula, and its associated party at Cidade de Goa, also by Taj. Great
   choice of venue, perhaps even better than last time. The food was fine,
   the views were better.

   With those things out of the way -- let's talk talks. I think I
   preferred the panels to the talks -- I enjoy a good, stimulating
   discussion as opposed to only half-understanding a deeply technical
   talk -- but that's just me. But there was this one talk that I really
   enjoyed, perhaps due to its unintended comedic value; I'll get into
   that later.

   The list of panels/talks I attended in order:

   Day 1
     * Keynote: The Metadata Trap by Micah Lee (Talk)
     * Securing the Human Factor (Panel)
     * Predicting Danger: Building the Ideal Threat Intelligence Model
       (Panel)
     * Lessons from the Cyber Trenches (Panel)
     * Mlw 41#: a new sophisticated loader by APT group TA505 by Alexey
       Vishnyakov (Talk)
     * Taking the guess out of Glitching by Adam Laurie (Talk)
     * Keynote: Cybersecurity in India -- Information Assymetry, Cross
       Border Threats and National Sovereignty by Saumil Shah (Talk)

   Day 2
     * Keynote: Crouching hacker, killer robot? Removing fear from
       cyber-physical security by Stefano Zanero (Talk)
     * Supply Chain Security in Critical Infrastructure Systems (Panel)
     * Putting it all together: building an iOS jailbreak from scratch by
       Umang Raghuvanshi (Talk)
     * Hack the Law: Protection for Ethical Cyber Security Research in
       India (Panel)

Re: Closing keynote

   I wish I could link the talk, but it hasn't been uploaded just yet.
   I'll do it once it has. So, I've a few comments I'd like to make on
   some of Saumil's statements.

   He proposed that the security industry trust the user more, and let
   them make the decisions pertaining to personal security / privacy.
   Except...that's just not going to happen. If all users were capable of
   making good, security-first choices -- we as an industry don't need to
   exist. But that is unfortunately not the case. Users are dumb. They
   value convenience and immediacy over security. That's the sad truth of
   the modern age.

   Another thing he proposed was that the Indian Government build our own
   "Military Grade" and "Consumer Grade" encryption.

   ...what?

   A "security professional" suggesting that we roll our own crypto? What
   even. Oh and, to top it off -- when [1]Raman, very rightly countered
   saying that the biggest opponent to encryption is the Government, and
   trusting them to build safe cryptosystems is probably not wise, he
   responded by saying something to the effect of "Eh, who cares? If they
   want to backdoor it, let them."

   Bruh moment.

   He also had some interesting things to say about countering
   disinformation. He said, and I quote "Join the STFU University".

   ¿wat? Is that your best solution?

   Judging by his profile, and certain other things he said in the talk,
   it is safe to conclude that his ideals are fairly...nationalistic. I'm
   not one to police political opinions, I couldn't care less which way
   you lean, but the statements made in the talk were straight up
   incorrect.

Closing thoughts

   This came out more rant-like than I'd intended. It is also the first
   blog post where I dip my toes into politics. I've some thoughts on more
   controversial topics for my next entry. That'll be fun, especially when
   my follower count starts dropping. LULW.

   Saumil, if you ever end up reading this, note that this is not a
   personal attack. I think you're a cool guy.

   Note to the Nullcon organizers: you guys did a fantastic job running
   the conference despite Corona-chan's best efforts. I'd like to suggest
   one little thing though -- please VET YOUR SPEAKERS more!

   group pic

References

   1. https://twitter.com/tame_wildcard