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Security B-Sides: The Next Power In Security Conferences?

At some point during Black Hat USA this year, you will inevitably run across an industry colleague, peer, friend or foe and ask them what they've been up to during the week and why you haven't seen them.  One answer that you may hear is, "Oh, I was over at B-Sides."

For those of you who are not familiar with "B-Sides", you soon will be.  Security B-Sides, as defined by the founders, "is a series of community-driven events built for and by information security community members.  The goal is to expand the spectrum of conversation beyond the traditional confines of space and time.  It creates opportunities for individuals to both present and participate in an intimate atmosphere that encourages collaboration. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. It is where conversations for the next-big-thing are happening."

Competition is born out of necessity
In it's second year and what is now known as Security B-Sides Las Vegas or BSidesLasVegas, B-Sides was born out of a number of rejections to the Call For Papers (CFP) for Black Hat USA 2009.  And as is described on the B-Sides Community Wiki, "A number of quality speakers were rejected, not due to lack of quality, but lack of space and time.  Any constrained system must operate within the bounds to which it has defined itself.  Conferences constrain themselves to the eight hours a day for however many days they run.  Our goal is to provide people with options by removing those barriers and providing more options for speakers, topics, and events."

Security B-Sides points out (scroll down to "What B-Sides Is Not!") that they do not compete with any other event and that, "The goal has and always will be to expand the spectrum of conversation and enable a greater variety of events.  Certainly one can take the business perspective and say that any and every security conference competes with each other, but this would ignore the fact that these events are FREE and simply offer people another alternative to everything else."

Make no mistake about it, free or otherwise, Security B-Sides does in fact compete with the conferences that it runs alongside.  Maybe the events are not currently competing for dollars and cents, but they are most certainly competing for time and the mind-share of attendees, be it security pros and industry influencers alike, including members of the media.

And while B-Sides was initially based on rejected sessions for Black Hat, one wonders if the time will come (if it has not already), where speakers may actually prefer to present at the B-Sides events as opposed to the other larger, more established conferences that are taking place concurrently. 

A bright future ahead for B-Sides
There is no question, as the fledgling player, B-Sides is doing the right thing by downplaying the competitive aspect and snuggling up to its competition.  However, just take a look at the infrastructure that B-Sides is building and tell me that they aren't poised to become a true competitor to some of these events.  More and more, this continues to look like a brilliant model that the B-Siders have built.  Go where the industry will already be.  Provide a different, unique and dare I say...better product.  The latter remains to be seen over time, but in the meantime, B-Sides appears to be here to stay and they are slowly stealing some of the spotlight from Black Hat and other conferences that they run alongside.

In 1997, Jeff Moss put in motion a vision for Black Hat when he staged the very first Black Hat Briefings.  Take a look at what the very first schedule looked like here.  There is no question that Black Hat has sure come a long way, adding Black Hat DC, Black Hat Europe, and the now defunct Black Hat Asia (2000-2008) and Black Hat Windows (2001-2004) events.  In its fourteenth year, the line-up of speakers and schedule of the Black Hat USA 2010 Briefings is drastically different than it was during its inaugural event.

Will B-Sides become the next power in security conferences and be spoken about along the same lines as Black Hat, RSA or others?  Time will tell.  In 2009, Security B-Sides embarked upon its journey with their very first event (now known as BSidesLasVegas01).  Check back with me in 2022 at BSidesLasVegas14 to see how far along they have come. 

In the spirit of our destination next week, I'd wager that we will see great things to come from B-Sides this year and in the future.  One thing is sure, the security industry is going to have one heck of a time in the desert next week.  Las Vegas, here we come!  Share your thoughts and experiences on the B-Sides events and help take this conversation to the next level by adding your comments.

Posted by Tim Whitman on July 23, 2010 at 9:06 AM