Category: Fireside Chats

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In this episode I catch up with an old coworker who I worked with on vulnerability scanning software and has since become a red-teamer or “adversarial simulation”. He started as a gamer, and we talk about how he learned the foundation of his hacking skills from his days of gaming.

Chris opens up on the importance to face trauma in order to heal, and shares that during the time we worked together he was in fact dealing with a traumatic incident in his life — which was a surprise to me, even working with him I couldn’t tell externally about the problems he was sorting out.

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In this episode my guest is DocWho, the fez wearing, multiple winner of hacker jeopardy, and all around good guy!

We catch up about what his life has been like for DocWho, who has had some detours in life, like returning to college at an older age to finish his degree, and moving from the place he lived for over 30 years into the Bay area, and all the troubles that go along with that big of a life change.

We share a ton of great stories from conferences, from shenanigans to volunteering and conclude talking about the importance of a health work-life balance.

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In this episode I catch up with GeekSpeed, an offensive security expert. 

We talk about life, family, conferences, and more. About his foray into the silicon valley life at a young age, and how that failed and he ended up back with his parents for a short stint while he got a normal IT job at various places while he was finding his feet to becoming a consultant and incident responder for hire.

We get philosophical about raising families and how times have changed, and discuss a bit about separating work and family, and the value in looking out for coworkers when they show signs of needing help outside of work.

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In this episode of fireside with lei, I chat with Lance James someone I’ve heard and seen of in the community but never had a chance to ever sit down and chat. 

I learn of Lance’s background on how he got introduced into the hacker slash security scene via creating crypto and peer to peer software back in the early 2000’s, which lead him to presenting at events like toorcon and more.

We talk about successes and failures that Lance has faced, how he deals with them using buddhist and zen practices. It was wonderful to have Lance open up about the topic of grief and he shares with us how he handled a death in his immediate family. At the end of the podcast is a very special gift, a song Lance wrote in honor of his son which he has agreed to allow to be shared here for you.

To hear more of Lance’s music, including Gabriel’s Psalm, please see: https://soundcloud.com/lancejames/

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In this episode I catch up with Arclight again, we have a discussion on the hisotry of the 23b shop, and why the 23bshop has prevailed for so long while other hackerspaces have dissolved.

We also discuss SparkleCon, a yearly event hosted at the 23b shop space coming up in early Feburary 2019. More information about sparklecon is available at sparklecon.org

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In this episode, I talk with Lock from the san diego saber and san diego sabers podcast, but originally I met lock through hacker conferences.

Lock’s background is fascinating, from building himself up in the IT world to the executive level to being a core volunteer at def con. He has experienced it all, and really bring home some fantastic points on pursuing a passion, when that pursuit gets out of hand, and how to understand yourself best to be able to walk that line.

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I get to catch up with the infamous Nick Farr, and hear about how he came about in the hacker scene as the “guy in a suit” and other communities.

A serial volunteer, Nick has had a lifetime full of helping or creating events from Hackers on a Plane to improving mail services at Burning Man. In this episode we talk about shenanigans from the now defunct Rubi-Con, how hackers on a plan got started, and the troubles one can face when with volunteering.

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In this episode I talk with Arclight of the 23b shop and ACCX products about growing up in hacker community of the 90s to running a hacker space in the 2000s.

We talk about the days of being a BBS sysop, dumpster diving, urban exploration, the mojave phone booth and how things have changed in a post 9/11 world.

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In this weeks’ episode, I catch up with Shane MacDougall a world cup street luge competitor, former fire fighter and long time security professional back from his days of red teaming during the late 80s and early 90s.

Shane has had his fair share of set backs and disruptions in life, but has always sided with his internal morality. We talk about his career path from tech and infosec, to becoming a firefighter, then landing back on red teaming and pentesting and then blue teaming and defense. He’s blown the whistle for some nefarious or immoral business practices made by previous employees, and has found a new life and support community that has bolstered his new passion in extreme sports.

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In this episode I interview Marcus Carey, a US navy veteran who came up and succeeded in life from humble beginnings in rural Texas to now the CEO of Threat Care.

I hear from Marcus about his early life struggles being a “good guy” while many of his peers take advantage of his loyalty.

Marcus covers how he breezed through college based on his aptitude for taking tests, and taking advantage of the Navy’s options for paying his tuition and testing fees.

Marcus and I discuss a book “The Four Agreements” which recommended to me before the recording. I read the book and we review the high-points of the four agreements book and share our stories on how these agreements provide good advice on how to avoid stress and live a better life.

Marcus ended the interview extending his hand towards those in need of help in the community to reach out to him on twitter at @MarcusJCarey.