Alright, so I’m gonna walk you through my little experiment, comparing security conference records from 2023. It was a bit of a dive, but hey, someone’s gotta do it, right?
First things first, I gathered data. I mean, a LOT of data. I started by making a list of all the big security conferences in 2023 – think Black Hat, DEF CON, RSA, you know, the usual suspects. Then, I dug around their websites, looking for anything I could get my hands on: presentation slides, video recordings, published papers, blog posts, even tweets related to the talks. Basically, anything that could give me a sense of what got presented and discussed.
Next up, data cleaning. Oh man, this was a pain. You wouldn’t believe how inconsistent the formats were. Some conferences had perfectly organized archives, others were just a pile of PDFs and broken links. So, I wrote a bunch of scripts to try and automate the process, mostly using Python and some libraries I found online. I focused on extracting things like title, author/speaker names, abstract/description, and any tags or keywords associated with the presentation.
Then came the analysis. I wanted to see what the big trends were, what topics were getting the most attention, and if there were any differences between the conferences. I started with simple stuff, like counting the number of presentations in each category, looking at the most frequent keywords, and trying to identify the main areas of focus. I used some data visualization tools to create charts and graphs to help me see the patterns more clearly.
After that, I dug deeper. I started comparing the content of the presentations across different conferences. Were the same researchers presenting the same work at multiple events? Were there any new breakthroughs or insights that were only being discussed at certain conferences? I tried to identify any overlaps or divergences in the topics and perspectives being presented.
Finally, I tried to summarize my findings in a way that made sense. I focused on highlighting the key trends and differences I had identified, and I tried to offer some insights into why these patterns might be occurring. Was one conference more focused on offensive security, while another was more concerned with defensive strategies? Were there any particular regions or industries that were dominating the conversation at certain events?
It wasn’t perfect, and I definitely could have spent more time on it, but hey, you gotta draw the line somewhere, right? Hope it was insightful!
