BSides Newcastle. Where the weird certainly was.

[Wayne]

OK, let me start by saying I absolutely loved the event. It was weird, wonderful and I actually got to see some talks this time around too. It was definitely a diffeent beast to the others I've attended though, plus it's a LONG drive to get there.

We set off (Liam and I, attending his 2nd BSides event) on the Thursday. It took about 8 hours to get there and the place we stayed in was lovely. I'd booked an apartment just a half mile from the event for a few days. We'd stocked up on snacks for the journey, and picked up some pizzas to eat. Presides was on the Friday afternoon, so we got to have a lie in the next morning. It was at that point the problems started. It turned out I'd parked in the wrong place and my car was now locked in. We were going to drive to Presides, but ended up having to get a taxi. I managed to get the number of someone with a key, so I knew we could at least get the car out the next day.

Unfortunately the event was not well attended. That's OK though, you work with what you have. I was supposed to do my talk there, but that went out the window. We went with my playing some of my favourite scammer calls instead, which TBH was much more of a success. Everyone loved the Houdini call, even the people who arrived a bit late and had to be caught up on what was happening. Their faces were a picture! Imagine being told "So, we're talking to a scammer who we're pretending we think is the late Pope, and we have him praying for the safe return of a talking hamster who's gone missing". They wanted weird, and they certainly got it with that call! We managed to do a few scammer calls too, which went really well. One involved us accusing a scammer of being a hitman, and the other was all about trying to get COVID compensation so we could build a brass statue of our dog, Fluffy, who died of COVID. The thing people took away from that was that it's essential to say the first thing that comes into your mind, and never overthink anything. I'll put links to the calls at the end of this post so you can hear them. When the evening session came a lot more people turned up, and got to hear/join in with some great rewrites of famous songs. By this point though we were pretty beat, so made an early exit. How did I find day 1? It was chaotic, nothing went as planned, but we really enjoyed it. What was fun was hearing people in the calls saying things as I was writing the exact same thing down on the whiteboard we used to communicate. I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as we did.

Day 2 and I manage to get my car out of the parking place and drive down. Thank you to the very kind lady I'd woken up and had driven down to unlock the gate for us, even staying a little longer to make sure I actually did own the car before leaving. Day 2 was a lot better attended. So now we're on to the main event. As usual, I managed to talk to people before we'd even got our badges, which were cool flashing badges what also work as a soil moisture probe. I swear the badge game at these events are getting better and better each time. There was even jars of jam for the atendees. This time I actually managed to attend some talks, and they were a pretty eclectic mix. Everything from how the badges were made, to hiding malware in images to listening to bats were on the agenda. The talks were absolutely brilliant. Even though I wasn't a speaker on the day I still got my speaker swag, which included a special t-shirt and a baseball cap that actually fitted my fat head. Liam initially joined in with the kidz track, but was eventually asked to be a volunteer as we'd offered while we were on our way there. He genuinely got a huge kick out of that, and told me after that it was the best part of it for him. The talks I attended were excellent, the atmosphere couldn't have been more welcoming and there was a genuine feeling of fun the whole day. I take my hat off (my new baseball cap) to the people who ran the event. As usual I got to talk to a lot of people, and the subject of the Houdini call was brought up a number of times by the people I was talking to.

Then it all fell apart for a while....

We'd decided to skip the afterparty as it'd been a long day and we still had another 7-8 hour drive the next day. I went to my car, only to find it had been broken into. Now I don't for a moment think it was anyone at the event. Absolutely not. Some scally had gotten into my car, adjusted the seats (so there must have been at least 2 of them), moved the mirror and even adjusted the AC. My car was parked at the back of the building, and my assumption here is that someone came out for a smoke and they ran off. No damage, nothing stolen, so it was more of an inconvenience than anything. Trying to get back to the apartment was a nightmare due to the 1 way system and the fact the satnav kept on trying to take us to the wrong place. Eventually we managed to get back after driving around about a half dozen times and eventually saying "screw it" and driving the last maybe 30 feet down a 1 way street to the apartment. We were finally back, tired but both still buzzing from the event. I managed to find a different parking spot and we both headed off to sleep.

The journey back was uneventful and took about an hour less than the journey there due to it being a Sunday and therefore quieter on the motorways. I dropped Liam off, went home and slept for about 16 hours.

And that brings us up to date. What were my impressions of BSides Newcastle? It was bonkers! It was great! We had an absolute blast! I can genuinely say it was the most fun I've had at one. Would I go again? Oh, absolutely. Next time though I'll learn from my mistakes and park the car up where I'm staying and walk it. I met some old friends, made some new ones and also came away with my head swimming with ideas. More baiting workshops, maybe a talk where I take one of the calls we've done and dissect it, explaining why we did what we did during it. So BSides Newcastle, if you'll have me back next year I'm all for it.

I just want to finish off by saying that the staff and volunteers work damn hard at these events and deserve all the kudos. I got to see a little more of the inner workings this time around and I can say the event takes a lot to run. If you've never attended one, go to it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

For those interested, the scammer calls made at @bsidesncl can be found at https://scamsurvivors.com/hitman1mono.mp3
https://scamsurvivors.com/hitman2mono.mp3
and
https://scamsurvivors.com/fluffymono.mp3

[Wayne]

I just want to say as well that I had a message earlier asking me to thank Liam for volunteering as he's not part of the Discord group. I thought that was a nice touch. When I spoke to him after the event and asked him what he thought was the best part, he told me "Being able to help people." He's looking to volunteer at any other ones I attend now too.

One other story I wanted to share as well that I thought was really cute. Right at the end I went upstairs to help pack stuff up, and a few of the kids were still there drawing. These kids were heart meltingly sweet. I was chatting with them and told them how far I'd traveled to be there and one of them told me where she lived while I was showing them the map of my journey. Unfortunately I couldn't really understand what she was spelling out when we were trying to see how far she'd come, so I asked her if she was able to type it on my phone. She looked at me like I'd just grown a second head and said to me "I'm only FIVE!!"

Oh, and a group of flamingoes is called a flamboyance. You'll get that if you attended.