TampaBaySec

May 8, 2008 - All call

The next meeting of TampaBaySec will be Thursday May 8th at 6pm.  We will meet at the Westshore Starbucks at Kennedy & Westshore.

If you work in information security or have a passionate interest for infosec, come on out and enjoy the evening.  Tampa needs a good opportunity for professionals to get together without a pre-determined agenda or a series of vendor presentations.  We talk about whatever is on our minds, learn from each other, and enjoy some caffeine for a couple hours.

If you have a suggestion for a better venue for June, please leave a comment or shoot me an email to Charles Gardner.  I’d love to find a good venue where we can enjoy some good beer along with the meeting.

April 2008 Meeting

TampaBaySec will meet on Wednesday April 9th at 6pm.  We’re changing venues this month to the bar at Lee Roy Selmons.  If you aren’t familiar with it, Selmon’s is across the street from Tampa’s International Mall, at the corner of Boy Scout and Lois.  You can get the map & details from Selmon’s site.

If you have any questions or thoughts, please leave a comment or you can shoot an email to Charles.

 Yes, we know that is the day after Patch Tuesday, but logistics left only that day this month.  Next month, we’ll slide it out a week.  Maybe this month the timing is a good reason to come and have a beer with us.

Past Meetings

We have had a few past TampaBaySec meetings. Prior to now, they were announced over at the ServerGuys blog. If for any odd reason, you’d care to see what we’ve done before, you can check out the old posts there.

What is TampaBaySec?

TampaBaySec is the local meeting for the Tampa Bay area for security professionals, formed from the CitySec.org idea of an informal, open meeting format.

From the CitySec.org website on “What Is A CitySec Meetup?”:

CitySec meetups are gatherings of information security professionals. Are you an information security professional? You are if you (ever) write firewall rules, read log files, apply patches, follow Bugtraq, help select products, rack and stack security appliances, find vulnerabilities, write secure code, test other people’s code, write policies, manage people who do any of these things, assist people who do any of these things, or just want to one day do any of these things.

CitySec meetups are like any other professional society meeting, except:

• There’s no professional society
• There’s no membership
• There’s no dues
• There’s no cover charge
• There’s no corporate sponsorshop
• There’s no vendor pitches
• There’s no requirement to RSVP
• There’s no fixed agenda
• They’re publically announced and open to all comers

The rule of thumb is, no more structure than is absolutely necessary to get people into a room (where “room” usually means “bar”): if structure (like “name tags” or “surveys”) would even possibly prevent one person from attending the meeting, don’t use it.

Frankly, I like that attitude so we are trying to get some traction here in central Florida. Please leave a comment here or on the CitySec thread if you have any questions or suggestions about date or venue.