Twitter, The Cigar Bar, Social Networking and Security Bloggers

Sometimes I see myself as something of a social anthropologist. I'm really fascinated by the social, interpersonal and individual dynamics of how people interact, communicate and work together. I had a great opportunity to observe exactly that through the social networking that occurs among the network security community while at Black Hat this week. It truly was fascinating to observe and be a part of.

At conferences such as Black Hat there is always a big push to find out where the corporate parties are and make sure you score an invite. Some of them can be tough to get into, making getting that ticket, wristband or special invite card a really coveted item. Wednesday evening one of the better parties was sponsored by Core Security Breach at the Caesars Palace Shadow Bar. The VP of Marketing at Core Breach was kind enough to give me a ticket to attend. The party was crowded and difficult to move around in but I was able to spend time talking with Rothman, McKeay, Andrew Storm, my buddy Alan and a bunch of other friends. It was a bit crowded and kind of hard to talk so three of us decided to head out and go to Casa Fuente to talk over cigars in a little bit quieter environment. So three of us headed down to the cigar bar.

When we arrive, we entered Casa Fuente's sizable humidor to pick out a good smoke for the evening. I had just picked out a nice cigar when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I'm Ryan Naraine and I've really wanted to meet you Mitchell. I'd like to buy you that cigar you've picked out." Whoa. I've probably read a thousand tweets (Twitter messages) of Ryan's but have never met him before. Ryan is not only a prolific Twitter content generator, he is also a widely read journalist for ZDnet's security blogs. He wants to meet me? I want to meet him. I feel like I know the guy better than half the people I work with on a day-to-day basis because of his Twitter feed and his writing.

Ryan and Tim join us and now the group had grown to five. Sometime soon Ryan and Andrew tweeted we were down at the cigar bar. Pretty quick Rothman and Martin left the Core party and joined us, followed soon after by Hoff, Ryan, JJ and then Mogull. The group grew 2 and sometimes 3 or 4 at a time. Everyone learned from their Twitter community that a new group was forming at Casa Fuente. Within 45 minutes the group had grown from 3 to 40+ people.

If you've been to Casa Fuente in Caesars you know it's not a huge place so 40+ a very sizable group, enough to take over half the joint. I'm sure our waitress was glad to see her night's tip increase by the minute. The group was a human example of soap bubble surface tension dynamics at work as one table after another gave way its individual space and became part of our group. I felt bad for the guy next to us whose personal space was taken over faster than a biblical grasshopper plague. We invited him to join us multiple times but he resisted our attempts to assimilate him into our collective and eventually left when there wasn't much left to either his space or his cigar.

The group participants ebbed and flowed, moving around to talk with different people. Many of us follow each other's blogs and/or Twitter feeds but haven't met in person before. I met many people I've followed and whose blog I read but wouldn't recognize from their tiny Twitter picture or blog portrait. The group makeup was very diverse; there were people from a few independent analyst firms and from Gartner, small and well known product vendors, consultants, four or five different press outlets, security researchers and every day security practitioners. Blogging is probably something commonly shared by a large portion of the group.

I was then and still am fascinated at the dynamics that lead to the formation of this event. It wasn't one of the much sought after corporate events, it was a blogger / social networking impromptu driven event. While there are certainly a number of vocal and well equipped leaders that could rise up to such an occasion, this wasn't a "leader situation". No one was the group leader or organizer, we were just our own self forming group. It didn't hurt of course that we had a source of capital, thanks to one person's corporate credit card. (Thanks dude, I don't want to get you in any more trouble by naming you here.)

A number of people were letting Twitter messages fly over the wires to announce what funny thing happened or ridiculous comment this person or that made. I'm sure a few iPhone, Blackberry and camera phone pictures made their way out too. These were all part of the dynamic that helped the group form and grow, and make it attractive for others to want to come join in. Yes, people Twittered there's a party over here but a good bit of what likely attracted people to come join the group was that the Twitters communicated there was a whole lot'a friends and fun happening over here. The large group broke up at 11pm when Casa Fuente closed their doors for the evening. Smaller groups reformed and headed out to different parts but the tweets kept happening so most people knew what was happening and where for the rest of the evening.

I've been reading about some of the differences between formal organizations and social networking, particularly about self forming groups, in the book Here Comes Everybody and this situation was a great example of it. We all worry whether cell phones, social networking and web 2.0 apps are making personal relationships impersonal. I think the situation I've described, which is only one of what were likely hundreds or thousands of similar examples during the conference, shows how social networking technology lets you build relationships with people before you've ever met or talked in person, how it collapses distance, enables the dynamic formation of groups, and and continues relationships whether people are present together or physically far apart. I've been following the conference through tweets long after leaving the conference. Taking in the whole situation is simply quite marveling to me.

One thing's for sure; social networking, web 2.0 apps and camera phones have totally destroyed the belief What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. I wouldn't put much faith in that saying any longer. (I'll let you find the more incriminating camera phone pictures from Black Hat yourself, and don't ask about me about the hamster -- I can't tell you. But you're welcome to follow him on Twitter.)

Comments

[alan shimel]

Mitchell - it was the Breach party not Core that we left from. Core was the next night ;-). But it was fun!

[Mitchell Ashley]

Corrected. Thx for catching that, Alan.

[Marisa]

HamsterTwitty! That is one lucky hamster...

[Sam Van Ryder]

I LOVE that cigar bar. I was in there a couple weeks ago with my brother drinking pisco sours while the wives shopped :-)

[Karl]

Who doesn't love cigar bars. I am going to post some cigar bars on the social networking site http://www.rankmybar.com

[Karl]

Who doesn't love cigar bars. I am going to post some cigar bars on the social networking site http://www.rankmybar.com