B-Sides Detroit Security Conference

B-Sides Detroit was this weekend, woke up early and headed out to Detroit with a couple of buddies for the con for the day.  Got there bright and early and I got really excited when I saw this:

The conference was being held in a semi-warehouse/studio apartment building and it was actually really cool.  Considering this conference is FREE, it wasn't a big deal and it actually added a nice bit of personality to the con.  I should mention for free you get the speakers, a super awesome t-shirt (see below), and lunch (at least the day I attended).

The quality of the speakers were kind of hit or miss for me.  All of them had prevalent information; however, I thought that the some of it was kind of basic and others were more technical (which peaks my interest a bit more.).  Again, this con was free and there were a lot of great enthusiastic people around to chat up and socialize with even on the conferences USTREAM.  The event was very low-key and didn't press any vendor products at you, which is always a plus.  To help pay for the event they had a nicely priced snack bar with some excellent beer to choose from.

Overall, I thought my B-Sides experience was amazing!  I would recommend that anyone check one out, as they host them all over the country and they're growing in popularity.  The environment promotes and encourages new ideas as enthusiastic security professionals gather to talk about the subject they hold a deep passion for.  This con had a personality all in its own and you can't help but like it.

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A little background on my experience to gain perspective to my review.  As you can guess from reading this blog I am a undergrad student of 'Information Assurance' here in Michigan.  I have come to love the security field over the last year or two.  The only other conference I've attended was the Minnesota High Technology Crime Investigative Association conference a few months back.  I enjoyed that experience quite a bit, but as it was law enforcement centric it lacked the passion I found in Detroit.