A room is a useful test for an argument. People interrupt, disagree, and notice the slide you thought was self-explanatory.
This selected archive spans nearly two decades: running IT on a film production, building and questioning threat-intelligence systems, examining how groups preserve coherence under pressure, and making the 2036–2038 timestamp rollovers harder to ignore.
Where recordings, slides, transcripts, or audio survive, they are linked below. The archive is incomplete. Older talks are being restored from surviving decks, notes, and whatever the web has not yet eaten.
For a public talk or private briefing, bring me the audience, the date, and the question you want the room to leave carrying.
Why some groups remain capable under pressure while larger systems become brittle, fragmented, or unable to move.
BSides Lisbon ∷ ∷ Keynote
A two-thousand-year argument about coherence under pressure, moving from Timur and Ibn Khaldun through empire, burnout, red teams, and the 2038 rollover.
The talk introduces Nomad’s Razor, a heuristic for thinking about why coherent, mobile groups can outperform larger but brittle systems.
Field Note #12 returns to one practical fragment from the keynote: the Rick & Morty team ritual.
Public talks from the ongoing work on timestamp resilience and the 2036–2038 rollover cluster.
BSides Lisbon ∷ ∷ With Pedro Umbelino
hack.lu ∷ ∷ With Pedro Umbelino
BruCON ∷ ∷ With Pedro Umbelino
BSides Nairobi ∷ ∷ Solo talk
No recording is available. View the slides →
Talks about how security communities describe threats, exchange knowledge, build shared systems, and work across organisational boundaries.
FIRST Conference ∷ ∷ With Tom Millar
FIRST Conference ∷ ∷ With Alexandre Dulaunoy
FIRST Conference ∷ ∷ With Andras Iklody
RSA Conference ∷ ∷ With Jason Keirstead
O’Reilly Security Conference ∷ ∷ Solo talk
FIRST Technical Colloquium, Munich ∷ ∷ Solo talk
Before the later work in cybersecurity and standards, there was the practical problem of keeping a film production working.
USENIX LISA Conference ∷ ∷ Solo talk
A case study in running IT on the production of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, using commodity hardware and practical improvisation on location.
I am most useful when a talk or briefing has a real decision, tension, or shared problem at its centre.
A useful invitation says who will be in the room, what they already know, what is happening around them, and what you hope they will be better able to discuss afterward.
Public conferences, private briefings, standards meetings, and facilitated working sessions are all possible formats.
