All right. All right. Here we go. It is that time of the week for the Globalbob show. How about that intro music we got going on here. You guys feeling a little old school Vegas vibe. Imagine the flamingo dancers and the time that when Elvis used to reign king over this beautiful city. I'll tell you what those that know me know that I'm a huge fan of Las Vegas. And if you listen to the last podcast, you'll know that the reason why your host is out here. That's right. I'm out here because of the DEF CON event. And the black hat event. And together we call it the summer camp prepare. We fired off the old Cadillac and headed west to beautiful Las Vegas. Now I'm kidding actually flew out here. But that's beside the point. I'd like to thank everybody that tunes into the show each and every week. like to really thank everybody that asked somebody else to listen to the show. Your support and encouragement makes a difference. One I like to do the show and to get new listeners all the time. Even the international ones. So really neat. All right. Well, I'll tell you what, we have wrapped up another wonderful year of info sec, and cybersecurity and the two conferences together. I believe we're just an absolute success. Now this week's podcast is not being recorded at the home studio. So we have left the Richard Cook broadcast facility packed up the minimum gear that we need to put a podcast together. And we traveled out here to Las Vegas. And this podcast is being recorded on the 63rd floor of Caesar's Palace. And very nice room here that looks out over the very awesome pools that are in kind of like the courtyard area of Caesar's Palace. So anyways, I guess if I got to be away from the home studio, then what a what a fine place to be able to record from. Now with that said, if you haven't listened to the previous episode, where I talked about hacker summer camp and kind of what the history was of DEF CON, we'll give you a real brief summary just so you know what brought me out here. And what brought me out here is the annual two events. It is called Blackhat. And then DEF CON. So Blackhat runs first. And then DEF CON runs after that. So there's a one day of overlap. And some people such as myself, they come in and they'll do a little bit of the Blackhat and then they'll head on over to DEF CON. Now Blackhat for the last many years, I don't know maybe a couple years for a while and then Blackhat has been at Mandalay Bay, and DEF CON kind of changes around this year. DEF CON was at Caesars forms. And if you guys ever come out here to a conference and they say it's at Caesars form, just make sure you pay attention because Caesars form is not really at Caesar's Palace. And it was a whole lot of confusion with people, which we'll talk about a little bit here in the podcast. But so here at Caesars you have the hotel complex, and then you have the shops, forms or Caesars forms shops. Anyway anyways, there's another part of Caesars that has the word form in it. And that's still not where you want to go. You want to go to Caesars form, which is across the street, and in this area called link. And it was just kind of crazy kind of confusing. And I think the reason why is is that a lot of people thought that it was here at Caesars because it's been at Caesars before. And when you see Caesars forms, you're like okay, well there's the forms, shops and very nice restaurants but ya know, two separate things. But yeah, the link area if you are familiar with Margaritaville, which is another global Bob hotspot that I like to visit so that's kind of the like the start of the link area. However, the conference, whether it be in separated like that, it was a little bit different. And I actually played traffic cop quite a bit, I would see the person kind of looking around looking at their phone, and they haven't gotten their badge yet. And then, of course, they see Globalbob with his badge on and the one couple stop me there's a young fella and what appeared to be his significant other. And he said, Excuse me, sir. Mr. Do you know where I can find Caesars forms? I've been looking all over the place for the last 30 to 45 minutes. And instantly, I said, wow, you know, I guess I must be getting old sir. And Mr. But so I explained it to him. I said, Well, you can't get there from here, which is one of the funny things that I've had somebody actually tell me before and no one you can get from here to anywhere in the world. But anyway, so I tell him, I said, Well, what you got to do, you got to get out the door here, you got to go to Las Vegas Boulevard, you need to cross over walk toward the Margaritaville, all this stuff. And his girlfriend looks at him and looks at me and says, I think that he's trolling you. And that's probably not where it's at. It's probably he's probably just saying that. I thought to myself, come on, I wouldn't do that. And if you don't know, in the hacker world trolling or online world, it can be used in both places. That's kind of like where you're trying to get a rise out of somebody. So anyways, I told him that I had just gotten back from there. But however, trust me go that way. And they started walking that way. So yeah, a little confusing on the the DEF CON part. Now, just how I met that couple, and hopefully get them convinced that I was not trolling them, get them going in the right direction. But that was pretty cool, right? Because that is what the heart of this conference is about, is making connections, and helping people and exchanging ideas and educating. And one of the cool things was is that this is DEF CON 30, which means they've ran DEF CON 30 times. And so they call this one, the hacker homecoming. And that was the theme, it was all about the hacker homecoming. And I know for me, this was kind of a homecoming also. Now, before, whenever I would come out to these conferences, especially black hat, I had obligations, there was times that I was given demonstrations of various exploits and stuff at DEF CON, we all know about the election hacking I did and also with a crypto mining on on routers. And so this was kind of the the first one that I came here. I said, Man, I have no obligations, I don't need to meet up with any customers. I don't need to give any demonstrations. And it was just really a breath of fresh air. Because before leading up to Blackhat, myself and some of the people I worked with, I mean, we would start planning out what we're going to do at BlackHat. And for months in the making, and then of course with all the media circus that sometimes surrounds Globalbob, when he would show various things that you know, I mean, it was a lot always had a good time, but it was a lot. But with this particular one, if you want to call it a homecoming, I'll walk you through some of the homecomings that I had. Now, as soon as I landed, I had a text message from somebody. And they said that they have a hookup for good ol global Bob here. And that was to get into Blackhat on what they call the business Hall. Now the business Hall is where all the vendors they set up these mega booths. I mean, it is like two story booths with coffee shops and, and this is kind of like where the vendors come and they, you know, are showing off their latest tech. But anyway, so I got to thank my boys out there. And my ladies, how about this? How about my family at rapid seven. So they really hooked a brother up here and they hooked me up with a business hall pass. Now when I say they hooked me up with a business Hall Pass I want to gotta let you know it is quite expensive. It's not like these passes are $30 So the rapid seven, fella he acts Lee emailed me the past and said, you know, you're good to go. And I go up there and I look at the receipt, I want to say it was like 500. And something dollars. I mean, don't quote me on it, it was pretty expensive either it's like 498 or five, something. But so I really think the rapid seven folks, now they don't sponsor my podcast, I'm not a customer of theirs. But I have worked with those guys in the past. And so I really appreciate that. Now continuing on, they tell me that they have a party that they'd like for me to attend. And so they told me about a phone number that I needed to text and I would be hooked up. So anyways, when you get out here, there's always something going on some kind of party some kind of something but not here. But so they hooked me up with the old biz Hall Pass and greatly appreciate that. And then I made contact with the with the person and was able to retrieve for not the one but for party passes, and a nother phone number contact of when I got to the location, the venue, then to get a hold of this person. And they would escort me in with VIP privileges. So myself and my compadres. We were able to go to the party. And so the the people I was with, right, there was three, three people that have not been to a rapid seven party. And there's those that have been there and talk about it and those that have been there and can't talk about it because they don't remember leaving. But that's I'm telling them all of this, like, Hey, we got to get these these passes on. And then we got to Texas guy, and I was thinking to myself, Man, I hope all this pans out, right? I hope I hope the dude didn't get drunk. And you know, or we make our way there and things fall through. But you know what? Sweet. It all came together, we had a good time, the rapid seven party was I feel a success. It was a very cool party. And so I really appreciate those guys, not only with the business, pass hookup, but also the party pass. So anyways, if you guys are in the InfoSec world, you probably know of rapid seven, they're the metal sploit people, and just really good people. I've worked with them in the past and other well, let's just say in other past employers, I worked with them. Alright. So you know, but it's all about making those connections, right? So I fly in, get the business pass, then I get my three friends that have never been to this party, and I get them into this party. And to me, that's what this is all about. Now, as soon as I get to the party, I started getting messages on signal. I got one on telegram. I got a few on Facebook Messenger. And everybody's like, hey, global you out here at the hacker summer camp. I'm like, Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. And so I was able to meet up with a lot of people that I had worked with in the past. And I was really just so honored that they actually reached out to me and said, Hey, let's meet up for a drink. And there was a lot of those occurrences. And it was just really nice to be able to connect with old friends. Now, going into DEF CON, like I said it was kind of across the street, whichever. The first thing I noticed was is that there was a few people that were texting me and say hey, what's the deal with his mask situation? We're being told that we got a mask up there's no mask mandate in Las Vegas. And plus DEF CON is more the underground right? So if you think of Blackhat think of the suits and ties and the you know CFOs and the control the money are out here with the CTOs that are trying you know and all that stuff right all the vendors and you know so so think of Blackhat is the more I would say the churchy suit and tie stuff and DEF CON that happens you know at the same time you know, with one day of overlap that's more of the underground grunge right so those guys leave their suits and ties at the Mandalay Bay and they put on their Jenko jeans if you remember those and their chains with the wallets on them and all that good stuff. So anyway, so DEF CON has always been kind of rebellious and actually is kind of rebellious. Whoa, you know, screw society. No one has any any hold over us. But yeah, they actually told him that you got to wear a mask, which absolutely perfect my wife had sent me with a mask in case I got into some areas of high concentration, then I could put my mask on and stuff. And that mask was my Elvis Presley TCB mask. So taking care of business, and I get it, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people that come out here to DEF CON that's International, there's everybody's kind of smashed together. At some point, they have lion con. And you know, it's just a good, good thing. And but I was talking to one of the goons there. And if you don't know what a goon is DEF CON, these are the guys that are kind of, and girls that are keeping the show going. And some of them are trying to do the registration. Some of them are trying to keep the various talks going the AV equipment, and some of them are enforcers. And so when you go to DEF CON, the big goons, the ones that look like that they could take you apart systematically. They're the ones that are like making sure everybody has their badge on and they this year, they're making sure that they have their, their their mask as well. So anyway, so I've been talking to the big goon. I'm like, Hey, man, have you run into any issues? He's like, Yeah, I mean, a little bit, but but word spread that, you know, we're not going to have any any tolerance for people that don't want to wear their mask. And he said, you know, the whole idea with DEF CON, is to come here, spread the love spread the knowledge. But let's don't spread the Coronavirus. I was like, wow, okay, that makes sense. So yeah, I mean, that was that was a little bit different. And as I mentioned, DEF CON last year, they did have an in person again, but you had to bring your vaccine card, and from what I understand it was verified by a third party. And then the year before that, you know, they had it in safe mode, which was online. Now, you know, I'm just glad that you know, kind of the progression where it was online. And then they have it where you got to have your backs card, and then this year Novak's card, but you had to be masked up. Now, whenever I met up for drinks and dinners, and all the various people that I worked with, and some of my different employers was really cool. Now, as you all know, I've been involved with the voting machine security issues. Some people call it election hacking, voting, machine hacking and stuff. And it was really like, to me that was like a real good homecoming event for me was to go see my buddy, Harri hursti. And Harry and I last time we had saw each other we were in New York City Times Square, and we were doing some filming there. But Harry has always been passionate about the voting village. And the voting village was absolutely amazing. I even told her, I said, Harry, look at what you've done. I mean, remember before when it was just this thing, and like, you know, a couple machines. And now look, you got the latest and greatest machines here. And these security folks, I took some pictures, which is kind of a no no at DEF CON. But you know, I asked everybody Hey, can I you know, I'm gonna We're wearing masks, I'm gonna, you know, try to, you know, limit your face. But I took pictures because I was like, Oh, my God, this looked exactly like my office whenever I was trying to develop the first exploits into it. And Harry and I, we took some pictures together, I put them out on Facebook, but actually saw him one other time at the conference and just told him said, Harry, you know, I mean, this is your thing. Keep going for it. And so that was that was a really cool one. That, you know, just just to make those connections. Now, one of the connections I made while I was here was yet again, there was a dude that was looking for Caesars forms. And he was down in the casino area of Caesars Palace. And in this particular situation, I told him, I said, Hey, look, man, I'm headed over there myself. Why don't we walk together? And I mean, when's the last time anybody's ever done that, you know, it's, you know, you go to Walmart and people get upset because people are bumping the line or someone's a, you know, a walker or a wheelchair, they get mad because they're going so slow. But, you know, with the vibe in the air, it's like, hey, let's help each other. Let's get together and help your fellow human. And so I walked with him, and it was about a 15 to 20 minute walk, and I told him, I said, Hey, like, just so you know, we're gonna, you know, go across the street, we're gonna go down here. I said, Hey, man, I'm not gonna take in McGee, or anything like that, but just follow me. It's a lot to tell you. So I got to walk in with him, and had one of the most amazing conversations. One of the things I'm really into is the open ledger technology. And when you hear open ledger, you want to think like Bitcoin and all the coins. But that's just one part. You know, the cryptocurrency uses open ledger, but there's a whole nother utility for the open ledger. And in this particular case, this this fella, he works for a major grocery store chain. Now, I tried for 15 minutes in every possible way other than just saying, hey, look, dude, you got to tell me who you work for. Because he would never come out and tell me. And he said that the grocery store chain has hired him about a year ago. And he is in the process of having all their transactions where they could use cryptocurrency. And you know, right now you go to the grocery store, and you can do Apple Pay or Google Pay, and you can tap your credit card, swipe your credit card, put the chip from the credit card, and but he said that he's working on a way for them to have open ledger technology for all their inventory system for their accounting system. But moreover, where they'll be able to take cryptocurrency. And you know, that's another ha ha moment for me is is that, you know, when cryptocurrency came out, which we've talked about it before, y'all know, my take on it, you know, I mean, I've made not tried to hide the fact that I think that some coins are nothing more than a Ponzi scheme with a lottery system attached to it. So if you want to learn a little bit about that, just go back into the archives here, the global Bob Show and pick out that one and listen to it. But he would not tell me who that store was. And but you know, so that's something that is kind of cool. Because after he went his way, and I went my way, at the conference, you know, where would I ever even begin to do research and get that kind of knowledge. And so when you guys are able to use your crypto currency at the local grocery store, then you can rest assured that Globalbob has met the person that was charged with implementing it. So I've given you a couple examples about, to me one of the most value bold parts of the conference is meeting like minded people, and meeting up with people that you used to work with meeting new people. Now, this takes me into my last connection story. So I was out here with some new friends of mine. And I will not mention their names. But you know, they were staying at a hotel. And then it was kind of, you know, some rooms dispersed around, and they're really into a hardware hacking. And of course, I'm a hardware hacker myself. It's kind of my, my specialty or the stuff I like to do. And so we got to talk and then they're like, Well, you know, we can have some people meet here. We can have some people meet there and I said, Hey, why don't we just meet at my room. And that was really cool, because I've never done that before. So we kind of had our own little our own little conference inside of a conference. And so I had some really good pictures of soldering irons, circuit chips everywhere, USB cables, and it was just a lot of fun. I was talking to my wife this morning and I said you know what, this is one of the best times I've ever had, you know, and I'm telling her all the connection stories and stuff but it's like for three days I think it is almost every day at least three times. I mean, we all descended on the global Bob Room here at Caesars and we had some people that were trying to hack into the badges that they give you and they were trying to do stuff with USB and with their Linux computers and stuff and then I had other people that were trying to solve like puzzles and soldering stuff and it was just good so we kind of dubbed it global Bob's solder con so solder like soldering iron. So yeah, I guess that was solder con one. So maybe 30 years from now solder Cana a takeoff and it'd be an underground conference whatever room global Bob's and so that was a lot of fun. It actually made me feel like I was back in high school or college because I didn't have a refrigerator in this room which I need to put that on my list of requirements. Last time I was out here had a very nice a room refrigerator, but made me feel like I was back in college. We went Got some beers, and we iced them down in the sink in the bathroom. And for those that did not drink, they had other beverages that were ice down in there. And it was just really a lot of fun. And whenever I got up one of the mornings, I'm walking through and I step on one of the solder leads, you know, half asleep and like, Yep, I've done that many times in my own office. But yeah, that was really something that I enjoyed. And my room was completely 100% trashed out now not bad trash, but yeah, beer cans and, and energy drinks and stuff. And we had, you know, the soldering irons everywhere, because they will leave their stuff here. And I'm gonna like, actually, I actually found some stuff that got like, shoved under the bed. I don't know what that was about, but I'll make sure to get it back to them. And like I said, that is what it's all about. Now, one of the things that I didn't find out here at Caesars is that you're only allowed to have two devices connected to the network, and you put in your room number and stuff. So needless to say, possibly somebody that you guys and girls may know, actually have a really neat way to get around that where you could, you know, get a couple more devices on that. So reach out to me, if you want to go over that particular scenario. So yeah, and that was cool, too, you know, so we had the ham radio repeater hooked up, and we're making contacts with people around the world, using DMR, made a couple of contacts with a friend of mine back in my home state. And it was just really, like, amazing that, you know, everything that came together and had just such a wonderful time, and this will definitely go down and Globalbob history as one of the favorite cons. Now, something I want to tell you, we talked about the connection. So make sure if you guys you know, I mean, as conferences start to open up, and no matter what business you're in, you know, get out there and just don't look at your phone the whole time. You know, if people are going to a conference, chances are you guys and girls or like minded people, whether it's a automobile conference, or it's a hacker conference, you know, just go out there and immerse yourself and you never know who you might meet, especially people used to work for and with, but what about the new people I met, I've gotten like five or six new friends from this and will probably keep in contact via signal Telegram, whichever Twitter and just know that we are getting older. And that's one of the things that I wanted to talk about in this podcast. Is is that that couple Yes, sir. Mr. Oh, my gosh, I mean, there was so many formalities, and it made me realize that I am getting slightly older I mean, I don't think I'm battled, it's not like I'm decrepit by any means. But you got to invest in the future. And so if you can take in your industry, find somebody that's hungry, maybe somebody that reminds you, of yourself back when you got involved, and try to foster that, you know, you don't have to, you know, set up a time and you know, really have an official mentoring program, but sit and talk to him. I had one fella that I met a new fella, and I was explaining to him about software defined wide area networks. I know a lot about it, I've developed code that does software defined networking, and his eyes were just like lit up. I'm not sure how old he is. Maybe he's 2122 years old. But he asked me, you know, over a couple different days at different times, and it was mostly about hey, how does this work? Or how does that work? So I knew from that first day, whenever I told him Hey, go out to this website, you can get a free version do this. Like he went back to his room. I mean, in research he would had to because the follow on questions the next day, we're you know more specific and just know that any spark you can put in somebody that that is going to be the people that are going to be leading whatever industry you're in, in the future and so you have to invest in that. Now no one of us like to admit that we're getting you know, a little older but now's a good time before you get too old to find that person and put a spark in them. And hopefully they come into the industry stay in the industry and make a really nice career and then know that you know, maybe you helped give them that spark to do that. Are right we are at the bottom of the Half hour. That means that the show is almost over. I appreciate everybody that tunes in each week. Appreciate your writing along the highways and byways of cyberspace with your host here, global Bob. Now, this is the first show that we've done remote. And I think we're on a pretty good track record if our first remote show is from Las Vegas, Nevada, at the beautiful Caesars Palace complex. So one little tidbit about Caesars real fast if you look at the name, and you look in and the way that the grammar is, there's no apostrophe. It's not Caesar's Palace. This is a his palace. They've purposely left that out of there. So it's Caesars because they want everybody to feel like a Caesar when they're here. So maybe I'll add that to my signature block. Cesar Bob, now I'm just good. All right, everybody. Well, thank you so much. And I will see everybody next week. And as always, you can reach me via Facebook Messenger. You can get me on Twitter, or you can just email Globalbob show@gmail.com. And with that, everybody stay safe. See you next week.