Infosec revolution: SOURCE Boston 2011, BeaCon

SOURCE Boston 2011 is next week, followed by a smaller get-together called BeaCon. I won’t be there for reasons I explained here. But anyone else who can make it should, because it’s really one heck of a gathering.

What’s different about SOURCE Boston (April 20-22 at the Seaport Hotel) compared to other conferences is that, instead of being run by a paid crew from whatever company puts it on, it is run by Stacy Thayer, founder and executive director of the event, and an army of volunteers from all corners of the industry. The volunteer effort gives SOURCE a more grassroots feel compared to something like RSA Conference or Black Hat.

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The opening Wednesday keynote will be given by James Beeson, CISO of GE Capital, who just gave a talk at CSO Perspectives last week on the need to use social networking as a security enabler instead of something to be shunned.

Other speakers include Paul Asadoorian of Pauldotcom, Aaron Cohen

of MAD Security and Dino Dai Zovi.

Security legend Dan Geer, computer security analyst, risk management specialist and CISO for In-Q-Tel, Alex Hutton, principal for Research & Intelligence with the Verizon Business RISK Team, and Greg Shannon,chief scientist for the CERT program at Carnegie Mellon University, will do a panel on “The Use of Prediction Markets in Information Security.”

Andrew Hay, senior analyst, 451 Group, and Chris Nickerson, CEO, Lares Consulting, will give a talk about something near and dear to my heart — the need for hackers and business to “hug it out.”

After SOURCE Boston, on Saturday, April 23, MassHackers will hold the BeaCon event. My friend Zach Lanier, @quine on Twitter, sent me the details on this one a few weeks ago. It’s MassHackers’ inaugural “mini-mini-mini conference” meant to showcase presentations on hacking and other security topics.

A message on the MassHackers’ wiki says, “Succinctly, this includes but is not limited to: vulnerability research and exploit dev, penetration testing, malware, and whatever else in the same vein that might tickle your fancy (or ours).”

Full details are as follows:

WHEN: Saturday, April 23, 2011 (right after SOURCE Boston).

WHERE: The Red Hat Cafe, Boston, ?MA

WHO: Hackers, especially those with an interest in computer security

REGISTRATION: https://beacon2011.eventbrite.com/

COST: Nothing (except ya gotta buy ya own food and drinks, ya chowdahead)

SCHEDULE/INFO: Right here, bub.

WHY: Why not?

Sounds like a nice way to cap the week of SOURCE Boston.

Watch this space all week for many more posts about what to expect at SOURCE next week.

–Bill Brenner