Speaking

Last week I wrote about my upcoming congressional testimony and wow - you guys are awesome! Seriously, the feedback there was absolutely sensational and it's helped shape what I'll be saying to the US Congress, including lifting specific wording and phrases provided by some of you. Thank you! As I explained in that first blog post, I'm required to submit a written testimony 48 hours in advance of the event. That testimony is now publicly accessible and reproduced below. Do keep in mind that the context here is the impact on identity verification in "a post-breach world". My task is to ensure that the folks at the hearing understand how prevalent breaches are, how broadly they're distributed and...

Edit: I'm putting this up front as a lot of people are asking for it - the hearing will be live-streamed on YouTube and there's already an embedded video on the hearing page. There's a title I never expected to write! But it's exactly what it sounds like and on Thursday next week, I'll be up in front of US congress on the other side of the world testifying about the impact of data breaches. It's an amazing opportunity to influence decision makers at the highest levels of government and frankly, I don't want to stuff it up which is why I'm asking the question - what should I say? For a bit more context, I've been chatting with folks...

These days, I find myself spending more and more time in Europe. Four trips last year and one already this year versus only a single trip to the US each year (which I'm still on). There just tends to be more demand for events and workshops and if I'm honest, I particularly like the place. I've got a lot of history there having lived in the UK and Netherlands before and I love spending time back there sitting the sun at historic locations with a decent coffee or sampling the local breweries. Fun times. What's been less fun is European winters and spending long times away without my family. In order to rectify things, I've decided to come back for...

I was preparing for an upcoming event the other day and very nonchalantly fired off a tweet whilst doing so: As a conference speaker, about the most annoying thing you can ask me to do is to use your slide template... — Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) December 16, 2016 Within short order, it somehow received hundreds of likes and retweets with many chiming in about the things that frustrated them about speaking at events. There was a lot shared that resonated with people and it struck me as odd, not least of which because almost every speaker at almost every tech conference contributes their time for free. This is news to many people - they think we're riding the speaker tour...

International travel can look pretty glamorous from the outside and certainly it has its moments. But what many people don't tend to see (and indeed what's less interesting to share in 140 char tweets), is just how arduous it can be. So instead of just showing the good bits, I thought I'd jot down a bit more about just how much stuff I fit into one of these trips, my fifth (and last) big international one for 2016. If you think it's all fun and games or if you're just curious about what on earth it is I do, read on and do keep reading too because whilst it'll all start out looking nice, it'll inevitably have some very hard...

If you follow my Twitters, you may have noticed I can be a bit, well, "despondent" about the climate in Europe. No, not the whole Brexit political climate situation, I mean more like this: Crowds of people in Birmingham waiting for summer before they go outside: pic.twitter.com/7ImjmCt4Bf — Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) June 16, 2016 Yet I keep ending up back there so either it's my poor judgement or... I secretly enjoy it. Back in Jan (when it was much easier to complain about the weather), I was over in England, Scotland and Norway for four weeks then in May it was Belgium and Spain and last month was Norway and England again plus a few...

I just had an absolutely sensational trip over to Europe which kicked off with my favourite event of the year - NDC Oslo. I first came to this event two years ago and talked about How I Hacked my Way to Norway which was the first big international talk I'd done. Per the link to that blog post, the talk went sensationally well, topping the charts for the event with 100% positive feedback (there's a green / yellow / red card rating system). I went back again last year and did Making Hacking Child's Play and again, it was a resounding success going right to the top of the charts. (Incidentally, these talks have helped me realise how much I love doing...

I just spent almost a month in Europe and did an insane number of events: 7 workshops of 2 days each, 6 conference talks, video interviews, Pluralsight courses, media events, multiple user groups and amazingly, absolutely everything went perfectly to plan! Trips like that are both very intensive and very fulfilling and whilst 27 days was longer than I’d ideally like, I had a fantastic time in Europe so I’m coming back again – twice – in the coming months. I’ve give you the tl;dr version first then explain what I’m doing after that: May 3-4, Techorama in Belgium May 5-6, private workshop in Barcelona June 6-10, NDC Oslo June 13-14,...

As I wrote recently, somehow I have found myself over in Europe at the cold end of the season, including in Oslo which as I understand it is both cold and dark in Jan. But the invite to do what I‘m doing was just too tempting to say no so let me outline it here for those who may be able to get along. Hack Yourself First Workshop: Wed 20 and Thu 21 Jan I’ve written about this workshop many times before in various places, the piece here before some of my most recent travel is a good overview. In short, it’s a couple of non-stop days of teaching software developers how vulnerabilities in...

So a few months ago I wrote about having a little visit to London in Jan and offered to do a workshop or two while I’m there. Anyway, one thing lead to another and now I’m away for four weeks. In Jan. When it’s cold there. And hot here. But seriously, it’s wonderful there’s been so much interest in my “Hack Yourself First” workshops. I’m spending time with some really interesting organisations who are getting their developers trained up to help them avoid being the next Ashley Madison / Sony / Patreon / TalkTalk / Target / Home Depot and, well, you get the idea. I promised to publish my travel...