Making Big Things Better the Dead Cow Way

The speaker discusses their experience working at a cybersecurity consulting firm and their transition to hacktivism. They emphasize the importance of solving problems they are passionate about and the impact of automation in vulnerability analysis.

• The speaker hacked the government contracting process to reduce the time it took to get a contract and fund a project.
• They developed a system for automating the analysis of binaries to find vulnerabilities and help fix them.
• The speaker's goal was to apply their algorithms to as many programs as possible and address the problem of scaling security solutions.
• The speaker's experience at the consulting firm taught them the limitations of the venture math and the importance of aligning values with clients.
• The term 'hacktivism' was coined by a member of the speaker's group to describe the use of hacking skills to make the world a better place.
• The speaker emphasizes the importance of solving problems they are passionate about and the impact of automation in vulnerability analysis.

The speaker recalls their experience of being hired by Microsoft to do audits after spending the majority of their career criticizing the company's security in public. They also mention the legacy of the consulting firm, including the many successful alums who came out of the area.

Trying to change the security culture of a single company can be daunting. The Cult of the Dead Cow managed to change the culture of the entire security industry.In this session, three key figures from the 35-year-old group's history — Mudge Zatko, Chris Rioux, and Deth Vegetable — will discuss the cDc's evolution from teenage misfits into industry leaders, its many contributions, and the enduring lessons for other hackers out to make a difference. They will be questioned by Joseph Menn, author of "Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World," published June 4. Appearing for the first time under his real name, cDc Minister of Propaganda Deth Veggie will discuss the group's formative years and how he engaged with the media for fame and infamy.After achieving notoriety, the Cult of the Dead Cow added tech luminaries like Zatko and Rioux and pushed the industry forward in a series of remarkable jumps. The release of Rioux's Back Orifice 2000 in 1999 forced Microsoft to grapple with unhappy business customers and hire hackers as security consultants, including those from Zatko and Rioux's @stake.Zatko went on to lead cybersecurity grantmaking at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the people who brought you the internet. Rioux co-founded Veracode, which dramatically improved code review by major software buyers. And Veggie continued as an internal leader at cDc, keeping the conversation moving forward in the politically charged areas of hacktivism, WikiLeaks, the hacker part of the #MeToo uprising, neo-Nazis, and the presidential candidacy of cDc alumnus Beto O'Rourke.