Security Weekly – Version 2.0 and beyond

Before I depart for a much needed vacation I would like to communicate our mission, goals, and intentions to all of the loyal Security Weekly fans/listeners/subscribers.
The original idea for this podcast was based on a monthly presentation I used to do which covered the month’s security vulnerabilities, research, news, how topics, etc… When that died on the vine, I felt this void, like I needed a vehicle to carry my message. I spend a great deal of time keeping up with events in the security world and take great pleasure in sharing it with anyone who will listen. Then I heard about podcasting and thought, “Hey, that sounds like a great medium for the content that I have, and it could be great fun!”. Yes, podcasting is a buzz term, but in looking at the underlying technologies, it just made sense. Record a show each week that covers security news, then people can listen to it anytime (I think that on the commute to work is the most popular).
So we set off to SANS LA to record our first podcast. Through some magic and stroke of luck, we also managed a very timely interview with Marty Roesch. I flew home on the plane loaded with raw Audacity files for episode 1 and the interview, and nothing else. No real blog, no RSS feed, no wiki, no recording equipment, no headphones (I had ear buds), zero audio engineering knowledge, and only the beginnings of a team (not certain if Larry had even made the commitment at that point yet).
Fast forward to today, and we have a very successful blog, wiki to hold show notes, interviews with some of the best and brightest in the field, 30+ shows under our belt, a full recording studio, a TV show, a frappr map with globe listeners, and a full team of people who make this all possible (Thanks to Larry, Nick, Andy, Mason, Dave, Jennifer, Snort/Sourcefire, OSHEAN, Syngress, Core, and all the FiT members, especially George). We’ve also gone through a lot of changes, very fast (okay lightening speed). We’ve tried numerous show formats, had our bad shows, and our good shows. The one thing that we have kept constant throughout is that we are true to ourselves and don’t pretend to be anything else. Other than that, we never really thought people would listen, and never took a step back and thought about what we want to accomplish.
So here we are today, a show that features security professionals hanging out, drinking beer, talking shop, and having fun. We have found our niche being the entertaining and informative podcast. We’ve pushed the envelope with hacking stories, burping, farting, porn references, nipple shows, and all sorts of stuff that just wouldn’t fly in a professional environment. If you asked any of us why, you’d get the same response as you would when as asking a mountain climber why they chose to climb the mountain, because it was there. For us, its because, well, we could. From this point on, it stops, and we get back down to business.
The new Security Weekly will be more professional. We will continue to be entertaining, but not grotesque. Its easy to be entertaining when there are no rules, unfortunately this leads to offensive material. We want to reach a larger audience and serve more if the community. In order to do that we’re turning down the raunchy from 11 to 3. Our new challenge will be to maintain a funny and entertaining podcast while upholding a higher standard of professionalism. This means that we will need to put more thought and effort into our show, which we believe is a worth while effort. We are not selling out, but merely looking to better ourselves and our show as a whole. So, we would now like to announce the official Security Weekly mission statement:
“Security Weekly Security weekly’s mission is to provide free content within the subject matter of IT security news, vulnerabilities, and research. We strive to use new technologies to reach a wider audience across the globe. The mixture of technical content and entertainment will continue to set a new standard for podcasting and Internet TV.”
In closing, I would like to thank the most important people of all, YOU, the listeners! Without you we’d just be a bunch geeks drinkin’ beer (yes, we will still drink beer) and geekin’ out. Thank you for listening.
Look for even better things to come….
Security Weekly Crew
Paul, Larry, “Twitchy”, & “The Mason”