So How Was It for You? Reliving RANTCon via Twitter

In Common ByAngus Batey / 13th July 2014

It was “emotional, controversial, and highly entertaining,” declared RANT Events founder Simon Hember at the close of yesterday’s second annual RANT Conference. And while he would say good things about his own event, the genuine delight that infused his valedictory address was very clearly genuine.

Translating the chat-over-a-pint atmosphere of the long-running RANT Forum format to a conference setting isn’t quite the no-brainer it might at first appear. The monthly, standing-room events put London’s infosec community in an environment of convivial intimacy that’s hard to replicate in a much larger room filled with chairs and tables, and where the speakers need more and bigger screens as well as a louder PA system. But there was none of the dry greyness that so often attends security-industry events. Debate and argument continued to be encouraged – even very deliberately sought out by some speakers. And, best of all, the sense was preserved that the serious work and the often intensely complicated debates that surround the vital business of safeguarding information don’t have to be conducted in an atmosphere of sterile dourness and exaggerated brow-furrowing. In short: RANTCon makes this stuff a laugh.

If you weren’t there and are wondering what went on, or if you were and fancy a quick re-run of the day’s highlights, here’s a virtual reconstruction of the conference culled from Tweets made during the programme. It’s not quite a set of minutes that would pass muster at board level, but as a collection of some of the head-spinning counter-intuitive wisdom and provocatively personal polemic that makes RANTCon the highlight in many an infosec professional’s calendar, it certainly serves a purpose.

Until next year, then…