If you’re into open source, you’re probably aware of the different kinds of free, thanks to the expressions “Free as in beer” and “Free as in speech”.
If you’ve dealt with some particular open source codebases, you’ve probably also internalized a third kind of free: Free as in mattress.
From 2000 to 2001, I lived in San Francisco, where I took advantage of opportunities to hang out at Def Con, and I got to know a lot of the dot-com-bubble/bust-era cybersecurity/hacktivism community. I kept those connections and as a result, ended up working on a project that the Cult of the Dead Cow originated: a little hacktivism project called Peekabooty.
Peekabooty was a peer-to-peer proto-VPN (remember, Napster was still in its original P2P file-sharing form back then, and at the time BitTorrent was just a concept that Bram Cohen was working on and telling us about) that was meant to circumvent the Great Firewall of China and provide Chinese dissidents with access to sites banned in their location. Paul Baranowski did the real back-end work, I was the front-end developer as well as the technical evangelist, and because it was a Windows desktop app, we did it in Visual C++, as one did back in those heady days of the early 2000s.
Here’s a couple of snapshots of the user interface, which acted like a screensaver — it used cutesy bears (which I illustrated) to show nodes in your particular P2P network:
We presented Peekabooty at CodeCon 2002 (you can listen to our presentation here). It’s still one of the proudest moments of my career, and we got to hang out with friends from our P2P days at OpenCola, as well as with new people:
And, of course, I learned so much!
I miss doing that sort of thing, and I think participating in The Undercroft’s UC Baseline program is an important step towards getting back to that kind of work.
Here I am in 2020 — laid off, but with a couple of side gigs to make a little extra money and prove that I haven’t been idle. Then last Thursday, I heard about the UC Baseline program and a scholarship. I decided to apply on a lark, figuring that they’d never pick me.
They did pick me, and between the greatly reduced cost of attending and my not living paycheck-to-paycheck, I’m able to attend. I’m willing to play the gambit of not taking a full-time job for the next five weeks while ramping up some dormant security skills, because I think it’s a worthwhile one.
At the same time, I think that I can also be useful to The Undercroft by writing about my UC Baseline experiences and promoting them.
I’m looking forward to the experience. It’s an exciting course being taught in an amazing space by interesting people.
Here are some articles about Peekabooty:
Remember that scholarship to the “UC Baseline” cybersecurity program that I wrote about last week? In that post, I also wrote:
(I’ll admit it: Although I’m not likely to qualify, I applied.)
Well, I applied, and I qualified. The combination of a promotional bonus and an I-got-laid-off scholarship gave me a deep discount on the standard $6,500 price tag for the inaugural cohort of the UC Baseline course, which starts tomorrow and runs until Wednesday, August 19th. Class starts at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.
Based in a gorgeous building in Tampa’s historic Ybor City neighborhood, The Undercroft could be described as a security startup incubator and coworking space, but they prefer to be described as a security guild and guild hall.
Here’s what Undercroft CEO Adam Sheffield has to say:
What we offer here is secure workspace for startups and medium-sized businesses in the security field that either want to start their businesses here in Tampa or make Tampa their home.
They’re also the home of a lot of interesting presentations, as this gallery of graphics for previous ones shows:
This isn’t my first exposure to information security culture, but it’s been a while, and I’m overdue for a refresher.
The first week of the program is Hardware 101, where we’ll spend five days covering the background and basics of the components that comprise modern systems. This should be fun.
For the next five weeks, I’ll be at The Undercroft (masked up, in a small cohort), learning. I’ll write about my experiences as I progress through the program.
All of a sudden, the next few weeks will be busy ones for me. I’ll post details soon, but if you read one of my posts from the past week, you just might be able to guess what I’ll be up to.
Hello, Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds! Welcome to the weekly list of online-only events for techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds based in an around the Tampa Bay area.
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The Undercroft, Tampa Bay’s cybersecurity guild/collaboration space, is offering scholarships to members and non-members for the July 20th cohort of their UC Baseline cybersecurity skills program. Simply put, it’s a chance to learn essential cybersecurity skills from the area’s experts for free!
The UC Baseline program comprises the following courses:
Here’s The Undercroft’s offer:
Are you looking to take control of your personal privacy and security? Are you frustrated by disappearing jobs and want to make an impact in the cybersecurity industry? Do you have what it takes to ensure your economic future and that of others?
The Undercroft’s Baseline program was built for those with the fortitude to fight against daily attacks that threaten our way of life.
In response to the global pandemic and increasing uncertainty in our economy, we are offering a select number of scholarships to guild and non-guild members for our July 20th, 2020 cohort.
Interested? Sign up on their scholarship page. You’ve got only until sometime on Friday, July 17th to apply!
(I’ll admit it: Although I’m not likely to qualify, I applied.)
