FTR : BruCON has never done and will never do sponsor-paid keynotes. While it may be that the company where one of our speakers (keynote or not) is<div>employed will sponsor the conference, the keynotes are preselected by the core organizers and the talks are selected by an independent committee</div>
<div>without sponsorship as a criteria for either.</div><div><br></div><div>So, I would argue on over-generalization but I agree that the trend is very visible.</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div><br></div><div>Wim</div>
<div><br></div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 2:26 PM, Dave Aitel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dave@immunityinc.com">dave@immunityinc.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Why is it that every conference has gone the full hog and decided
that you must sell keynotes? When I tried to watch the Whitman
Diffie keynote at BH EU, it was proceeded by a 30 minute Fortigate
infomercial. RSA had like 5 paid-for keynotes for every one real
keynote. Everyone who hasn't should watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7iM5CbBLBY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7iM5CbBLBY</a>
to see why this is a terrible idea. Even if the paid-for talks (and
they're not just keynotes!) were good, it should still be considered
an unacceptable way to run a technical conference.<br>
<br>
Here's my promise about INFILTRATE 2013 - there will be no paid
talks. None. We choose talks solely based on technical content,
speaking skill, and amount of Buffy quotes.<br>
<br>
Example (assuming you are speaking about some part of the industry
perhaps?):<br>
<dd style="text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-variant:normal;text-align:-webkit-auto;font-style:normal;margin-bottom:0.1em;font-weight:normal;line-height:19px;margin-right:0px;text-transform:none;font-size:13px;white-space:normal;margin-left:1.6em;font-family:sans-serif;word-spacing:0px">
<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xander_Harris" title="w:Xander Harris" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(102,51,102);background-image:none;background-color:initial;background-repeat:initial initial" target="_blank">Xander</a></b>: Well, how about this: we
whip out the Ouija board, light a few candles, summon some ancient
unstoppable evil? Mayhem, mayhem, mayhem; we show up and and kick
its ass.</dd>
<dd style="text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-variant:normal;text-align:-webkit-auto;font-style:normal;margin-bottom:0.1em;font-weight:normal;line-height:19px;margin-right:0px;text-transform:none;font-size:13px;white-space:normal;margin-left:1.6em;font-family:sans-serif;word-spacing:0px">
<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Giles" title="w:Rupert Giles" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(102,51,102);background-image:none;background-color:initial;background-repeat:initial initial" target="_blank">Giles</a></b><span> </span><i>[pauses to contemplate]</i>:
A wee bit unethical.</dd><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<br>
<br>
-dave<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
INFILTRATE 2013 January 10th-11th in Miami - the world's best offensive information security conference.
<a href="http://www.infiltratecon.com" target="_blank">www.infiltratecon.com</a>
</pre>
</font></span></div>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>Wim Remes<br>Security Afficionado<br>
</div>