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Let us have a little chat about the person who accused @brysonbort of gaming RSA talk submissions by submitting a talk with me by "playing the diversity card" to get accepted. And all the people thinking it and simmering.

Thank you kindly for completely devaluing my expertise in my field, which I have worked in daily for over a decade and a half, served as a senior NCO in the military doing, teach, and speak on globally. Whether you consciously intended it or not, you implied I am a diversity token and not an expert in cybersecurity incident response.

It's actually good to purposefully share the stage with underrepresented voices in technology, because we still routinely have entire tech conferences that are 100% white and male speakers because of bad CFP boards and management. That was RSA keynotes, within my professional lifetime. It cost me and my colleagues a lot of goodwill calling them out at the time.

When I am "handed" a speaking slot explicitly because I am not a straight white man, it's usually on a droll topic I am totally unqualified to speak on, like "TeLL uS abOUT beINg a WomAN in TEch" that also devalues my expertise. Side note - this has turned out to be a huge red flag. Often done by people who go on to do Bad Stuff to women.

You, yes you are a prime reason women and nonbinary people don't want to submit to conferences.

Reference (in image):
https://x.com/brysonbort/status/1752474954975637699?s=20

@🦄
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Danny Palmer
Danny Palmer
• •

I lurk on a number of subreddits and forums related to the industry to help keep tabs with what's going on.

The amount of bigotry that's out in the open in some of them is really depressing.

I am very, very unclear how any straight white man can ever attempt to play the victim card here, especially given cyber and wider tech's poor track record over the years.

in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Frank Barton
Frank Barton
• •

For the record - If I had the option, I would go to any talk/keynote/presentation that you were in - hands down, over any of the 'techbros' (unfortunately, budget being what it is... I'm lucky to go to one small conference a year)

unconscious bias is a very real thing, and regrettably also it ends up becoming institutionalized

it sucks, and whoever was giving @brysonbort a hard time needs to go take a very long hard look in the mirror

in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

HTTP 1.1/418 Have You Ever Retired a Teapot by Mistake?
HTTP 1.1/418 Have You Ever Retired a Teapot by Mistake?
• •
Oh what the fucking fuck is THAT bullshit. Sorry you're running into this level of infuriating stupidity.
(Ya know, I really do have to get around to writing an RFC for the "Remote Dope-Slap Protocol" for situations like this.)
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

maswan
maswan
• •

Wow. That's both sad, and has me simmering with anger about men making such accusations.

For the other part: There are people who even like to be handed slots to talk about diversity and discrimination in tech. Because that's their field of research. You usually find them in a social sciences department.

in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

maswan
maswan
• •
I've been in the audience for both kinds of "diversity talks", and the one where someone in the field is enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge is a lot more rewarding to listen to as well.
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Noah Cook
Noah Cook
• •

An observation: your posts do an excellent job of showing the challenges and hard work that goes into these speaking events. It's work: difficult but rewarding and hopefully worth it.

By contrast, it feels like the people who complain about others being included seem to be viewing these events as more of a party or vacation or social event.

in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Agonie
Agonie
• •
I don't mean to devaluate your expertise and would actually be happy to have half of your skills.
Even if it was for the "diversity card" (which I'm pretty sure is not the case) that's actually a very good thing. In cybersec we lack too much of diversity, we are in a "between us" social env.
In my country, this "white men" culture tends to make toxic workplaces, where we are required to change ourself for fiting management idea of what should be a tech worker.
That's the best way to become in few years one of this pissed off worker who don't want to talk to anyone and hast his job but don't want to change because they don't want to learn new stuff.
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Tindra
Tindra
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1) OH HELL NO
2) I wouldn’t say I know Bryson well, but I get the sense he’s not someone who will attach his name to anything/one that doesn’t know their shit.
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Yellow Flag
Yellow Flag
• •

Puh… The average white man in our industry really never stops to think how those keynote slots are handed to him over more qualified candidates simply because he is a white man.

No, men are not ok. Men are so used to privileges that slightly leveling the field feels like being unfairly disadvantaged to them.

This is not the society I want to live in. This is not the industry I want to be part of. This needs to change.

This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Martin Boller 🇺🇦 :tux: :freebsd: :windows: :mastodon:
Martin Boller 🇺🇦 :tux: :freebsd: :windows: :mastodon:
• •
As an old white male I say kick old white males where it hurts (likely doesn't take much when they're that fragile)
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Claus Cramon Houmann
Claus Cramon Houmann
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no insult intended Bryson, but did this seriously happen Lesley?? People should be ashamed of themselves. On top of it being a nasty and stupid thing to do, it’s kind of like that article about Kelce and his 80k bonus 🤗 isn’t it folks :)?
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Stormgren
Stormgren
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"You, yes you are a prime reason women and nonbinary people don't want to submit to conferences."

Yeah... I once got accused of transitioning so I'd actually get accepted for conference talks because I wasn't good enough otherwise. Thankfully not someone in my professional community, but it was still someone I once respected who decided to be a complete dipshit in a linkedin DM.

I have to painfully admit that it really dampened my spirits to actually try to present things I work on.

in reply to Stormgren

Lesley Carhart :unverified:
Lesley Carhart :unverified:
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@Stormgren hollllyyy shit, and can you imagine anyone going through the years of transition care and it’s hurdles plus like, rampant hate and violence and anti trans legislation, just to get accepted to somebody’s stupid tech conference that doesn’t even pay? It’s like them accusing trans people of doing it to go into another bathroom or play amateur sports. I’m SCREAMING.
@Stormgren
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Wendy Nather
Wendy Nather
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The truth? If you’re not accepted to RSAC, it’s because your submission just wasn’t as good as the ones that got accepted. Really. I’ve been on the program committee for years, and we always look at the content WAY before we even consider who submitted it. By the time we try to guess at gender, we’ve already pretty much got the top ones ranked. Lesley and Bryson are tops in their field. And I’m sure their submission was top notch.
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Stormgren
Stormgren
• •

It's exactly the same thing. My career has had to take a massive restructuring and I've probably screwed myself over professionally by doing this, but it's better than dying early, but guys like that never understand that sort of thing, they just falsely see special privs being accorded to someone, rather than their mediocrity being the thing that held them back.

If I'm succeeding now, it's in part because I have extra capacity to excel due to not having to fight brain weasels every day.

in reply to Stormgren

Jared Parkinson
Jared Parkinson
• •
@Stormgren the first Dazzle represents my confused eyes while reading. The second Dazzle represents my baffled face while reading this. The last Dazzle represents my brain screaming WHAT!?!
A black cat peeking over the edge of a bathtub with a focused gaze.
A black and white cat with striking whiskers meowing or hissing, indoors with carpeted flooring and some furniture in the background.
A black and white cat with an open mouth, as if yawning or meowing, standing on a carpeted floor indoors.
@Stormgren
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Jared Parkinson
Jared Parkinson
• •
@Stormgren very much indeed! Light reflects off her fur most excellently, making it so much easier to capture how I see her. Plus, the primary basis between this kitty cat-human boy relationship is playtime. The second she see me every day she is visibly attempting to determine how long she has to wait until our bath time playtime. On days I am delayed, you can hear her prepping craziness while waiting.
A black and white cat lounging on a sofa with a shocked expression with various items like a remote, a bottle, and a tablet in the background.
A black and white cat stretching up on a sisal scratching post attached to a wall.
Black and white cat sitting on a carpeted floor with household items in the background.
A black and white cat sitting up on a blue couch
@Stormgren
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Peter Dodemont
Peter Dodemont
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Anyone who knows about you and spends a even a little time looking into what you do, know that you absolutely deserve to keynote.
I have had the joy of watching you do a keynote and it was brilliant. Full of valuable insights you gained from your years of experience.
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
• •
Great example why we should base decisions on merit which you clearly have.
in reply to specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:

Lesley Carhart :unverified:
Lesley Carhart :unverified:
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@specked yes, but a lot of times bias keeps us from getting slots based on merit, which is why sharing the stage and making purposeful outreach efforts for diverse speakers is so important.
@specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
• •
I see it differently. Seems like it's fighting bias with more bias. After all, this very same methodology is why we have Clearance Thomas. Just to be clear, I'm not calling you CT and I would go to any talk you speak at.
in reply to specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:

Lesley Carhart :unverified:
Lesley Carhart :unverified:
• •
@specked you understand that there were no technical women keynotes (they have a lot) at all at RSA until we recruited Monica Lewinsky to publicly make a statement and call them out. Even though around 20% of practitioners at the time were women.
@specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
in reply to specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:

Yisrael Dov :emacs: :nixos:
Yisrael Dov :emacs: :nixos:
• •

@specked
I also think the issue needs to be addressed but not in this approach.

When you add quotas etc, there will always be the feeling that you were "playing the diversity card".

Here, the government will give grants to tech companies that hire people from my demographic. It is a real problem, there is very open discrimination. But, If I knew a company took money to hire me, or hired me to fill some quota, I would always feel like I wasn't hired cause of my skills.

@specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
in reply to Yisrael Dov :emacs: :nixos:

Lesley Carhart :unverified:
Lesley Carhart :unverified:
• •
@yisraeldov @specked quotas are an ugly kludge to skip addressing statistical issues generated by bias, poor advertising, toxic culture, and lack of mentorship. People could do a lot better, but it's the easiest thing to legislate.
@specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr: @Yisrael Dov :emacs: :nixos:
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Yisrael Dov :emacs: :nixos:
Yisrael Dov :emacs: :nixos:
• •

@specked I think that the only way to fix basis is to prove people wrong. It requires working 2x as hard, or accepting less money.

But we also have to be willing to accept reality some times. I know I am something of an anomaly, because most people in my demographic wouldn't want to work in tech, and that is OK.

I doubt there is anyone, in FANG companies, and I don't think we would want to be, I know I wouldn't.

I'm not sure what "toxic culture" means. Example?

@specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
in reply to specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:

Shiri Bailem
Shiri Bailem
•

@specked :israel: :uk: :usa: @Lesley Carhart :unverified: @🦄 ... fighting bias with bias is in fact how you fight bias in most cases...

You typically fight malicious or subconscious bias with a conscious bias.

You can't just look at a problem of bias, wag your finger, and tell people to stop being biased. They either aren't going to care, or aren't going to think it applies to them because they're not consciously biasing their decisions. And it's rare that you have a situation where you can just fully eliminate the information causing the bias (especially as doing so requires going to ridiculous lengths because subconscious biases can pick up on the tiniest shit).

So... what you do is you put in a counter bias that specifically exists to limit the impact of the original bias. Usually one that's less strong of a bias so it doesn't entirely eliminate the bias it's fighting.

"Diversity hires" is a derogatory reference to one of the most well known instances. If a company hires 100+ people and every-single-one-of-them is a cishet white guy... there's bias in place, either in the person doing the hiring or in people interested in the job.

There isn't any law that says "X minority must make up Y percentage of your workforce". When you get a true "diversity hire", ie. hiring someone unqualified just to be able to say you not being bigoted... well that makes it very clear that they're bigots who've been explicitly excluding people based on their minority status. They're hiring someone because they know they're discriminating but are just trying to do the bare minimum to avoid trouble for it.

And we can't just run to "impartial systems" because those systems have bias baked into them. Companies have tried so many times to use software to combat bias... only to eventually find out that the software was more biased because it picked up on the implicit original biases.

@Lesley Carhart :unverified: @specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr: @🦄
in reply to Shiri Bailem

specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
specked :is: :uk: :usa: :pr:
• •
This seems to be an extensive opinion. For a more in-depth engagement with this topic, delving into a thorough study of history is recommended. Bias and societal challenges are not novel; a good starting point could be examining the post-World War II reconstruction. Working backward from there might provide valuable insights.
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

Ben From KC
Ben From KC
• •

I appreciate Bryson's response, and the fact that you didn't include whatever statement the original person made.

Smh that this is where we are.

@brysonbort

@🦄
in reply to Lesley Carhart :unverified:

A Cyber Expert
A Cyber Expert
• •

I’ve known @hacks4pancakes ’s career for more than 7 years, since they were only a level 12 rogue. They’re the real deal, very knowledgeable, friendly, approachable and happy to teach others.

Thank you Lesley. Thank you for your work on encouraging conferences to have more than the usual 5 white men keynoting. I appreciate your work and how it’s helped me.

Can’t believe I’ve had to exit my concrete bunker to find a wifi signal for this.

@Lesley Carhart :unverified:
in reply to A Cyber Expert

Lesley Carhart :unverified:
Lesley Carhart :unverified:
• •
@acyberexpert thank you for leaving your bunker. I will print this and hang it on my refrigerator. I’m not sure what prompted it, but it’s deeply appreciated.
@A Cyber Expert
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