The awesomeness of high-tech conventions....

Today I did a few hours of temp work for a company at an information security (read: anti-hacker) tradeshow / convention. Simply put, IT security has a lot of money behind it, so there were lots of big tech names there and even more smaller ones. Compared to MacWorld, which I did a bit of PR at a while ago, there were a lot more "trinket" giveaways, and much more expensive ones at that. MacWorld mostly gave out pens, or obscure Mac-related software. Meh.

This conference was really interesting! Here is a photograph of some of the things I received from running around on the floor for a few hours while working... and accidentally spamming my recruiter....



L-R:

• Russian Dolls which fit together - awesome!!
  
• Various packets of mints/ cinnamints (eww) (including one with the initials "LPT: Licensed Penetration Tester" which means something perfectly ordinary in security language. Another says "Certified Ethical Hacker")
• Small keychain bottle of handwash which says "employees please wash hands after using the internet"
• National Security Agency visitors booth pass - which a few people thought was real!
• Blue Coat chocolate (navy blue packet)
• Nokia flashing guitar pin
• What was once a wooden cube but I can't get it back into the right shape
• A shortbread bikkie/ cookie saying "Cert" - it looks plastic. Don't know if I would eat it.
• A purple mini highlighter
• A badge which flashes
• Another guitar pin
• What looks like a ping pong ball on a keychain - it strobes when you turn it on. Don't know why I liked this.
  
• A hacky-sack ball in the colour of a baseball
• A clear bouncing ball which flashes when you bounce it
• A keylight on a string - I totally need that!
• A universal remote so I can do sneaky things a la CES like turn off all the TVs in the gym. Now if only I could make the old lady next door's loud early morning TV turn off, that would be awesome!! (Hitachi encouraged me to do it! I blame them!) (Update: we tried. It doesn't work, since you need a direct line of sight for the infrared to work. Oh how I wish, though!)
  
• A T-shirt which says "Bad Reputation: Access Denied"
  

And on this side:

• Hacking Exposed book
• NSA notepads
• Little fan which says in LEDs, "Secure your web apps with Cenzic"
  
• White Tshirt
• Black Dell Tshirt (yes, those blocks are Tshirts!!)
• Blue-ish toy thing which is a paper-holder, and cleans your keyboard and screen.
  

I also was given a free (text)book and the author signed it for me! It's called, "HACKING EXPOSED". Someone, somewhere, is paying $100 for this book on their "core requirements" book list in school, I bet. It's surprisingly well-written and non-boring.

The US National Security Association was there, and giving away bags and passes with their logo on it. I got one since it was funny. Someone else said that they had a lot of people mistake it for the real thing!

Plus, everyone and their mother was giving away bags of varying sizes.... That white one was huge! The best one was Juniper, which gave away fantastic canvas tote bags which I am fully going to use. Wish I'd grabbed the Symantec one too. Maybe if I can find them tomorrow....



Brendan models some of the bags.

I am really going to miss the amazing high-tech business atmosphere here in San Francisco, it's so fun and interesting and exciting. There are so many small companies doing new and amazing things, it's like watching history being made.

Update: The next day I ran into one of the Intel founders at this conference, amongst various other people. It's crazy who attends this sort of thing. I also won a $200 Tiffany gift card! (Anyone want to buy it from me?)

In other news, the Olympic Torch is only going to be in San Francisco out of the whole of America, tomorrow. Tonight there were a lot of protests, and they're worried enough since there have been so many protests all over the world to China over Tibet, that they may actually have to cancel the entire Olympic Flame run!! Some people climbed up on GG Bridge....

I am hoping to get down to the Embarcadero to watch it!