Sponsors needed! #BSidesBelfast26 wouldn't be possible without the support of local employers and organisations that make #BSidesBelfast the centerpiece of the Cybersecurity calendar in Northern Ireland. bsidesbelfast.org/sponsor/ #securitybsides #infosec #communityconference

Putting the finishing touches on to this years @bsidesbelfast.bsky.social sponsorship, transparency, and most importantly, logo discussions this week. #bsidesbelfast26 #securitybsides #belfast #conference #infosec #watchthisspace bsidesbelfast.org/sponsor

Before anyone else ventures into the @niauditoffice.bsky.social #NICS report; Data gets mentioned 44 times (1 every 2 pages) Transpar(ent|ency) gets 5 Open gets just one. 🤷‍♂️ /c @OpenGovNI www.niauditoffice.gov.uk/publications...

I should play #RDR...

Hell of a quotable from @edzitron.com this morning "It feels like the dot com bubble was created by the excitement about the beginning, and this is people trying to pretend that something's happening, and that we're not at 'the end'"

Turned off auto-renewal for 7 "I'll definitely get around to building that" domains...

The greatest metaphor in print this year, courtesy of @edzitron.com

🎉 BSides Belfast 2026 IS GO! Writing this from @bsideslondon.bsky.social ; the community energy is INCREDIBLE and #BSidesBelfast26 will be epic! 📅 Sept 10, 2026 | 📍 Belfast 🤝 Sponsors wanted! 📽️ 2025 on YT #BSidesBelfast #CyberSecurity #Community #securitybsides bsidesbelfast.org/2025/an-earl...

reading slaughterhouse 5 for the first time and i was absolutely knocked senseless by this passage, which is so true and relevant that it feels like it was pulled from a history book

What prey tell is the point of a bus lane when I've been lurking here for over an hour and only 1 (full) bus has passed by? 2 miles of single lane traffic wasted. I'm not grumpy you are.

Number go up, number go up, no think about number number always good number always up number up number up number up

My latest newsletter is about how Internet culture died, and why the centralization of the web around a handful of large platforms is responsible for making the web a duller, more boring place. whatwelost.substack.com/p/the-death-...

Never change, @blindboyboatclub.bsky.social , never change open.spotify.com/episode/2zIR... (Also featuring Beauty and the Beast, which I didn't know was originally written by a woman)

Last week the new ‘second-box’ got its first outing at @bsidesbelfast.bsky.social and the folks there used it to raise a cracking £407 for Marie Curie ! Next up, @bsidesncl.bsky.social ! As ever, new stickers into the supply are every bit as welcome as donations for the stickers already there!

Here's part 2 of this week's two-part episode of Better Offline. I walk you through how America’s economic growth has become dependent on Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta’s AI capex - and how this will harm both our economy and markets. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b... linktr.ee/betteroffline

Random weekend pondering while listening to @edzitron.com / #BetterOffline, if Agentic AI was any good, buying Labubus at scale avoiding all the gamification shit would be a great eval...

Good piece on the rationale behind charging $200 a month for a subscription, though I’d add the other reason is that power users are costing these companies so much money and $200 a month is *closer* to making actual money, even though they’re still unprofitable www.wheresyoured.at/anthropic-is...

With GA just over a week behind us, and Sponsor Close just over a week ahead of us, it's a great time to talk about how we fund and operate #BSidesBelfast; so we're trying out a "Financial Transparency Report"! Let us know what you think! #securitybsides bsidesbelfast.org/2025/bsides-...

We dropped the @bsidesbelfast.bsky.social transparency report yesterday, and we spend far too much on coffee and lunch! 🤣😭🤣 bsidesbelfast.org/2025/bsides-... #bsidesbelfast25 #bsidesbelfast24 #securitybsides

Greta Thunberg makes a statement upon arrival in France after she was kidnapped and abducted by the Israeli regime in international waters.

Early Bird 2 SOLD OUT! Last tickets are going to be released in July so the best way to get access to #bsidesbelfast25 is to speak! bsidesbelfast.org/speak/ #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast25 #securitybsides #infosec #cybersecurity

Second Early Bird Release for @bsidesbelfast.bsky.social at 1100! bsidesbelfast.org/register/

Heading down to @bsidesdublin.bsky.social and find myself in possession of a couple of spare tickets! Free to a good home, if you can repost with a quotable about what #securitybsides means to you & I'll pick winners. Disclaimer: my decisions are personal, arbitrary, and final 🤣

Thanks to #Cytix for supporting the #BSidesBelfast25 conference as a Giga Sponsor! #bsidesbelfast #securitybsides #infosec

Thanks to @BlackDuck_SW for supporting the #BSidesBelfast25 conference as a Giga Sponsor! #bsidesbelfast #securitybsides #infosec

Thanks to @cmegroup.com for supporting the #BSidesBelfast25 conference as a Giga Sponsor! #bsidesbelfast #securitybsides #infosec

Thanks to @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social CSIT for supporting the #BSidesBelfast25 conference as a Giga Sponsor! #bsidesbelfast #securitybsides #infosec

These generally sell out within 2 minutes, so get those F5 fingers flexed and ready for Monday Morning!

Tonights @infosecni.bsky.social devolved into getting #nerdsniped by www.timeanddate.com/sun/@2655985 I was originally looking at it for "excuses to party" with the "first day of the year with sunset after 5pm" etc, but then got holed by the varying difference between Belfast Solar Noon and GMT

Bit of geekery this week; @infosecni.bsky.social started as a lockdown movie night where we'd chat along in real time watching hacker-movies. Post COVID we didn't put much effort into more movie nights & settled in to the monthly #locksport sessions, but now the new crop are bringing them back!

Lol, there's a blast from the past; I think I still have one of the #NI21 facebook pages somewhere :D

Still debating the name and venue, but our first Infosec night in Cheltenham is a Go 😎 (waves at @infosecni.bsky.social buds 👋)

Housing in Northern Ireland: is housebuilding at a sixty-year low? Yes, according to evidence. According to the ONS, the total number of new homes finished in 2023 was 5,380 – the lowest number of completions since 1959, when the figure was 4,890.

Newsletter: Generative AI is a marketing con perpetuated by Sam Altman and Dario Amodei through a mixture of lies and half-truths carried by a tech media that fails to ask the right questions. Outside of ChatGPT, generative AI companies barely get any traffic at all. www.wheresyoured.at/longcon/

Conveniently enough, @bsidesbelfast.bsky.social seem to have synchronised their #bsidesbelfast24 publications to finish with our #locksport social tonight at The Woodworkers from 7pm! Impromptu watch party? www.meetup.com/InfoSec-NI/

Good read for anyone in peoples orbits that's more 'Activist' than 'Hacktivist' infosecforactivists.org #infosec #resist

Mark Megarry gave us a horrifying demonstration of "Hackers with Radios: Security and the Physical Layer " #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast24

Stuart McMurray blew our SOCs off with "A Lazy Programmer’s Tips for Avoiding the SOC"! #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast24

Remco Sprooten of Elastic took us on a tour of "Malware Code Similarity Through Vectorsearch" #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast24 https://youtu.be/vNM9969i7F8

Nico Shyne joined us from stateside to talk about "Domain Persistence in Active Directory: Detection, Triage, and Recovery" #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast24 https://buff.ly/3Erik28

Our own Michelle Simpson is back again, with "When SSL Fails: Tracing the SSL vuln to the most shocking real world impacts" #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast24

Next up it's "Hardware Hacking the Internet of Things (IoT)" with Deral Heiland #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast24 youtu.be/aCiSQUntG0E

Next up we've got Holly Grace Williams of Akimbo Core on "Ten Years of Penetration Testing" #bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast24 youtu.be/QygionHxCvI

Over the next days; we're finally letting #BSidesBelfast24 out of the vault and kicking off our sponsor solicitation for #BSidesBelfast25 at the end of this week! First up is our Chair, the inimitable Michelle Simpson kicking off proceedings. youtu.be/4C2hwGVvKjk

Bogans?

Definitely stealing this phrasing.

2^9 = 512 Subscribers. Can we make it to 2^10 for next weeks news? Also, Hello from our new @bsky.app account! 👋 #bsidesbelfast25 www.youtube.com/@bsidesbelfast #bsidesbelfast #securitybsides

The #BsidesGalway CFP is OPEN! They’re looking for talks on all things #CyberSecurity Technical deep dives, policy insights, career journeys, & everything in between. Got something to share? This is your chance! Deadline: January 15th, 2025 All the details can be found here: bsidesgalway.com/cfp