[Music]
thank you
[Music]
all right
foreign
how many of you are familiar with Star
Trek the Next Generation
that's a lot of hands I like that okay
good I don't want to single people up
now you are welcome to Heckle you are
welcome to interrupt and ask questions
whatever you feel like is fine I will
give you a warning I quite likely left
out your favorite episode because
there's a lot of Star Trek and I did my
best
to talk about the things I thought were
funny so this is not a serious talk in
any way and if you're easily offended
please leave
it's meant to be fun and it has been so
much fun working on it all right so
let's get cracking then
so who am I my name is Josh pressers I
work at a company called Encore actually
my company gave me some swag which I put
on a chair in the back and it looks like
most of it's gone now so if there's
anything on the chair in the back you're
welcome to it
so I work at a small startup called
Encore we do supply chain things I am a
huge open source security nerd I've been
doing open source security forever I
worked at red hat for a decade I worked
in elastic before that I'm an incor now
so the only thing I'd like more than
Star Trek is nerding out about open
source security so feel free to talk to
me about either of those things I'm Josh
brasser is on the socials like say hi I
love interacting with people let me
answer the questions Heckle me on
Twitter I love it and I also host two
podcasts one is called the open source
security podcast I've been doing that
one for a really really long time and
the other is called the hacker History
Podcast I do hacker history as part of
ciphercon which I'm yelling at Mike
later when he's not so stressed out
about not putting it in the program but
there is a podcast called hacker history
everyone is welcome to be a guest
everyone has a fabulous story to tell if
you just thought my story isn't
interesting every person I have talked
to on the higher credit history podcast
so far has told me those exact words it
is always a lie so by all means reach
out tell your story we all have amazing
stories is a ton of fun
are we good yeah
so what did I do right I make bad
choices that's what I originally titled
this slide and then my the people who
reviewed it said you shouldn't say that
but I watch all of the Next Generation
so the way this worked is I originally
thought of the title of this
presentation and I thought it would be
very very clever and then I thought I
figured okay I need to actually watch
Star Trek now and take notes and figure
out what the talk is actually going to
be about now that I have a clever title
there are 179 episodes of The Next
Generation right it's like 120 hours if
you're doing the math give or take I
watched this at least four times all the
way through putting this together it
sounds like a really cool idea and
something really easy to do but it's not
like you just watch Star Trek and then
you're done right you take notes you
rewind you re-watch you watch an episode
later and then you think back to
something that happened earlier and it
took forever it took me literally about
two years because real life kept getting
in the way but about two years of
watching Star Trek and taking notes and
then I was going to do this talk at the
last ciphercon and then the pandemic
Camp so you figure that was in 2020
we're 2022 now so I'm four years into
this talk I was becoming concerned that
it was cursed at one point so I'm I'm
not done yet but I'm I'm pretty sure
we're good now so anyway it was a ton of
work and it was totally worth it I
absolutely adored every moment of it so
what happened right I noted things like
the threats in the episodes potential
mitigations that could have helped out I
look at like what did the Enterprise
crew do and just start figuring out like
what does this mean and this isn't
scientific by any means I'm you are
welcome to disagree with me I am not
doing something that I'm going to say
like this is absolutely what happened
you know this is this is my
interpretation of a well-written science
fiction show will say and that point is
probably debatable by everybody so
anyway 178 threads ended up in my data
Nine episodes had no threats there's a
bunch of like crack filler episodes that
nothing really happens in those are
basically those but I think the most
interesting data point is 54 Insider
threats most of them are Wesleyan data
which surprise nobody but there are yeah
54 of the incidents are caused by
Enterprise insiders which I don't think
is unlike the real world right we all
have organizations we all have consider
threats so not terribly surprised
I took the
all the threats I put them in a
spreadsheet and this is I don't know if
you can read the the writing on the side
it's very hard to read but the big the
big line is just a catch-all I call
aliens that's uh 73. and so what that is
is there's lots of episodes that have
just like some random alien that does
something weird and that's what that is
because at first I started breaking them
all out and I realized like this is
stupid and it's going to be too much
work but then the number two is romulans
no surprise right anyone who's a Star
Trek fan knows that romulans are the
historic enemy of the Federation
basically the Soviet Union right back in
the early 60s when we were spelling all
this up Klingons come next data is after
Klingon so data is the basically the
third most dangerous thing they
encounter in big surprise
ah then Ferengi then Q then the
Enterprise itself the ship actually is a
danger to itself on multiple occasions
like we'll talk about the time it
becomes sentient and takes over but uh
I'm not making that up uh then Wesley
comes after the Enterprise no surprise
there right and then I can't read the
other two the other Kardashians thank
you and then humans themselves so the
Kardashians I suspect would be higher up
if they weren't introduced so late in
the series for those of you who don't
know there was a spin-off show called
Deep Space Nine we'll talk about it
comes up later on in the time but in
Deep Space Nine there's a new villain
called the Kardashians which are just
kind of basically the romulans but they
look different and so they they were
introduced very late in the show though
but I had a strong suspicion had there
been no Deep Space Nine all of the
cardassian threats would have just been
wrong but anyway all right quick
observations right
this ship has no Authentication
like for real and occasionally there's
passwords they're always terrible like
there's these crap like one one a or
something if they use voice but
generally speaking if these people hit
Yuba Keys like 90 of their problems
would just go away
yeah which is which is something right
sandboxing still doesn't work you know
we're all familiar with using sandbox is
to try to keep our adversaries in in the
24th century
nothing's better so I don't know if
that's good or bad probably bad uh my
favorite thing they do is so you know
they all wear those little communicators
on their on their shirts which are
uniforms and the communicator is how
they talk to each other but it's also
how they get trapped in the ship if you
take that off no one can find you on the
ship which seems ridiculous because they
can scan the ship for anything except
humans apparently which is a hilarious
problem later on and then my favorite
the guy in the picture is Lieutenant
Commander Wharf he is the head of
security I don't know what he does for
his job says it's clearly not security I
think if you look at most organizations
you hire the ciso to fire them when
something happens right he keeps his job
for seven years and he's incompetent
so anyway and I found a funny cowboy
picture of him which is the best okay so
we'll start with some of the simple easy
fun Insider threats the Holodeck right
they don't know what sandboxing is they
clearly never try they repeatedly have
issues with the Holodeck the character
in the upper right that's Professor
Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes he gained
sanctions and takes over the ship twice
which you think you've learned the first
time but no no we're not going to learn
right uh data they hook up data takes
over the Holodeck at one point the
Holodeck takes over the Holodeck at one
point when the shift becomes self-aware
and and creates a new life and I love it
that this every time something goes
wrong the safeties are disabled it's
supposed to be a safe place for us to
all go right where you go you have your
fun nothing bad happens except every
time someone sneezes the safeties are
disabled and they can start shooting you
and beating you up and killing people
and it's just like
you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to
maybe just like not disable I don't know
these people are morons that's going to
be the consistency throughout the
entirety of this talk
data is the number one Insider threat on
this ship by far right and I'd say if
you're going to break it down number one
stop hooking the damn robot up to the
ship that's a pretty easy one because it
repeatedly happens every time they hook
them up to something Madness right not
granted it's good storytelling my
version of Star Trek would be extremely
boring I will end so by all means uh
two-factor off right data takes over the
ship at one point we'll actually talk
more in depth about that episode he
takes over the ship if they had
two-factor authentication he could have
taken over the ship it wouldn't be that
hard to
hard Androids more trouble than interns
I was told that to change intern to
Wesley could not defending internally so
if there are any interns here I
apologize for offending you and and then
Androids at least the sample size we
have of one they all have evil twins so
that's something we have to concern
ourselves with also
Wesley the intern right so for those of
you okay I want to clarify when I grew
up in the 90s I was young like Will
Wheaton was my hero so I picked on
Wesley a lot in this talk but like I
loved this guy when I was a kid but
basically in the first couple episodes
Wesley is just a menace to everyone and
everything on this ship he causes a ton
of problems he takes over the ship I
think twice once was sort of on purpose
the second time was sort of accidentally
and now later on though once he's not an
annoying child
becomes vaguely useful to the Enterprise
crew so he does help out a couple of
times so that kind of begs the question
is the the threat aspect of Wesley worse
than the I've helped out threat impacted
with I will leave that one up to the
audience I have some fun notable attacks
that happen in the show this is my
favorite slide in the deck
data exfiltration from a supply chain
attack
there is an episode and I work for a
supply chain company so like this
everyone loves this one I work with so
there is an episode where the guy
standing next to data his name is fajo
he collects rare items and he decides he
wants an Android there's only one well
there are technically two because data's
evil brother but he only knows about
Lionel said so fagio creates a supply
chain attack by poisoning the water on
some Planet I'm not going to try to
pronounce all these words because
they'll just screw it up he poisoned the
water and there's only one way to solve
the poison and he has the chemical that
can fix it so the Enterprise goes to him
you can't transport this chemical
because story and so they have to move
it on the shuttle and they have data
moving for them and then so what happens
is data moves a bunch of the stuff and
on the last trip they knock them out
they scan what he's made of which from a
supply chain attached right that's like
the bill of materials we've got here get
data's bill of materials put the right
amount of stuff in the ship in the
little shuttle put the shuttle up blow
it up Enterprise is like oh David's dead
for data and then they go and do their
thing right and then of course there's a
variety of events that happen but I this
amuses me to know it just because it was
like this crazy long time very Star Trek
all to kidnapping Android and then at
the very end of course everything goes
back to normal because that's what
happens at the end of Star Trek episodes
so
there's an insertion of malicious data
in the ship this one happens I I don't
I'm still not sure about the first one
is data's evil twin pretending to be
data does that count as an insertion of
a malicious data I think maybe maybe not
then there's the
then there's an episode where a guy
named IRA Graves takes over the Android
he he goes in he transfers his mind into
Data then acts like just a kind of jerk
and they figure it out eventually
there's the episode where an ancient
civilization takes over data and so this
again just amused me from the aspect if
we get to make a plan words with data
uh fishing we see a phishing attack
there's the the lady on the left is
Tashi Yar for those of you who don't
watch Hashi Yara was a head of security
in season one and then she came to an
untimely demise uh they heard actress
Denise Crosby and she didn't want to do
the show anymore and maybe she was
didn't want to be seen as the
incompetent head of security I don't
know but uh then dwarf takes over after
hurt and she dies and her sister shows
up in a later episode and and pretends
to be all friendly and nice and oh she
wants to get to know the the crew
because they knew Tasha and it turns out
she was just using them all for her own
not evil but we'll say questionable
means so it it resonated as a phishing
attack malware I love this one this
episode is called Contagion
so there's a sister ship to the
Enterprise which not everyone would know
it's called the Yamato it looks exactly
like the Enterprise which no doubt could
decrease the model budget when they were
filming this episode and the Yamato
catches a virus
and the Enterprise goes to help and they
talk to each other and everything's like
wigging out on the Yamato just like
you'd expect if you had some sort of
malware and then it explodes and then
everyone's like oh crap the Enterprise
catches the virus so now the Enterprise
is doing the same things and they're
freaking out because obviously they saw
what happened to the Yamada and they're
concerned they're going to blow up then
romulans show up and the romulans catch
the virus because I mean why not right
then eventually data catches the virus
when they go down to the planet and the
best part of this is data catches a
virus and the Android shuts itself off
and then starts itself back up again
later and everything's fine right it's
classic turn it off turn it back on
again
yeah right they didn't try that with the
ship and then data wakes up it's like oh
just turn the ship off and back on again
and everything will be fine and then
they did and everything was fine
from everything I've learned watching
this show
the tech in the 21st century is as bad
or worse than ours so I refuse to
believe these people don't just turn
things off and turn them back on again
as soon as anything goes wrong because
that's what we all do and 99 of the time
it works and then my favorite part is
they basically tell the romulans oh hey
uh you got to turn your ship off and on
again good luck we're out and then they
then they take off and we don't know
we'll assume they're wrong
a denial of service attack there's an
episode called night terrors which is
one of the most terrifying episodes of
Star Trek ever where nobody can dream
and there's these like anti-dream aliens
trying to send them a message and it
messes them all up they can't dream
everything gets super weird the only
actually one person can dream the the
greenish picture on the right is
counselor Troy she is a beta Zed which
has uh what's that oh thank you yes half
beta that half human half data is in and
she is an empath so apparently she has
the ability to sense the message from
the dream aliens but other people just
can't go to sleep and So eventually they
go through their their night terrors it
gets weird data actually helps
surprisingly you can't sleep yet and so
all in all everything works out and it
all goes back to normal at the end of
the episode right
social engineering this is one of my
favorites there's an episode called
data's day which is kind of a boring
episode except for the fact that there's
a Vulcan Ambassador on the ship and for
those of you who don't know if you look
back uh Spock Mr Spock right I'm sure
everyone knows Spock from the early
start Star Trek that's like just part of
the Zeitgeist about the pointy ears so
one of the plots in the early Star Trek
episodes is that the romulans look like
vultures and then of course everyone's
like oh Spock might be a Romulan even
though he's been on the ship for like
you know 20 years and he's always helped
out but so anyway romulans and Balkans
look like each other there's a Balkan
Ambassador on the ship at one point and
she's acting weird but Balkans are weird
so it's fine and then she goes to
transport to a Romulan ship to do
diplomatic something or other and dies
on the transport and then the Enterprise
being the astute solution they are they
figure out that she didn't die the
Romulan stole her so they go back to the
romulans and they say give us back our
ambassador and they go haha she's not an
ambassador she's a Romulan spy and so
now the social engineering aspect of
Star Trek though there's an amazing
amount of social engineering in this
show and it's it's all pretty good
actually it's really fun to watch and
see where they they kind of get sneaky
and trick people I didn't put a lot of
it in just because there's so much of it
I could easily write multiple hour-long
talks just on most of the social
engineering they do in this show it's
fascinating and it's really fun
there's an episode that's home alone in
space
this isn't has anything to do with
security I just really like it so I put
it in so there's an episode called
Starship Mine where they have to get I
think the bed bugs or something taken
off the ship and so they go to get like
some weird space beam sweep across the
ship and and remove whatever it is
that's wrong with it and Picard goes to
get his saddle which we find out he
likes to ride horses so that's actually
Wharf holding Picard saddle in the
middle picture because he lost it and
then they had to go find it
but they they basically uh card goes to
get a saddle he finds out the burglars
are on the ship trying to steal
something or other I don't remember what
he's picking up a crossbow in the
picture on the left and the picture on
the right is one of the explosions he
sets off to trick the Woodview burglars
and then at the end uh they I think I
think he kills them all and then
everything goes back to normal and yeah
just pretty classic Star Trek but it's
fun it's a great episode I love it
I also put together just some some
interesting events I took note of that
help explain some of what we see on this
show and some of it's just for fun like
this one in the very first episode
encounter at farpoint the guy Q who's
kind of dressed up like the old-timey
I don't know columbusey person I don't
know what to call that
what
Cyrano oh thank you cool okay that work
I'll go with that easterno and I learned
that from Authority just now and
basically he's chasing the ship and
doing his normal thing he's kind of a
pain we'll get to him later and at one
point when the queue is chasing the Ship
Captain Picard tells everyone over the
PA system that you need to use printouts
instead of the screens on the ship so
that the attacker can't read the screen
which is ridiculous to us now I think
like printing things out is somehow
safer than showing them on a screen I
don't think any of us would claim that
but I also think I I thought about this
one a lot and the reason I left it in is
this show debuted in the early 80s and I
think in the 80s if there was a computer
there was a printer next to it so I
think it was just a natural progression
that if computer then printer and for
whatever reason the writers decided that
printouts are safer than computers which
I don't know maybe maybe not doesn't
matter it just just amused me so I left
it
this is the episode though everyone says
why does the ship not have
authentication it's explained here
there's an episode called the neutral
zone data finds some Frozen humans the
doctor thaws them out and then just kind
of hilarity ensues as people from our
time end up in the 21st century and they
act like a bunch of morons and whatever
but at one point one of them calls the
captain on one of the ship panels and
the captain's like who is this why are
you talking to me and the guy's like you
need to come talk to me you know I'm
important or whatever
Picard goes to talk to this guy and he's
like never call me again and the guy
says well why don't you protect your
panels with a password or something and
Picard says that people in the future
don't mean passwords because they've
evolved Beyond needing that that is a
lie
everything we've seen in this show
before this episode and after proves
that humans have not evolved to be some
sort of species that doesn't need
passwords definitely a lie
there's this this one's great too so
it's an episode called evolution
Wesley's doing his homework and he
forgets to close the container holding
the the Nano Bots or whatever he's he's
using and they accidentally get out and
become sentient because things just
become sentient in Star Trek and that's
normal then they take over the ship and
of course the ship is everyone's
freaking out because the ship is is
being taken over by such a Nanobots that
the intern let go and then the solution
to this is they let the Nanobots infect
data so he can talk to them
what
no don't what just I I don't even know
what to say to this like I can't
parallel this is like saying there's an
attacker in the system uh attacker could
you take over the phone network so we
can talk to you like no don't don't do
that it's and these people are morons
that's that's the thing so now one of
the the best time data takes over the
ship is an episode called brothers and
this is it's a lot of poetry in this one
there's Brothers on the ship having an
incident data and his evil brother have
an incident down on the surface they
meet data's father it actually fun fact
I I scrubbed this episode I went through
it with a fine-tuned coma trying to find
a picture of data lore his evil twin and
uh Dr noonian soon who is the old dude
in that picture and then I realized
they're all the same person like I'm
never gonna see all three of them in the
same scene because that's just like well
beyond probably the budget the show had
way back in the day but that didn't stop
me from wasting more probably two hours
trying to find a frame so anyway data is
on the ship he like goes into this
trance he turns off the life support on
the bridge so all the humans have to
leave he's a robot he doesn't need to
breathe so he just stays there and
everyone leaves he locks the door they
can't get on the ship he takes over the
ship he mimics Picard's voice to lock
the computer which that I'm pointing to
a password that's a password that's
actually a pretty solid password I would
I would say that'll get like all the
green bars if you're using the password
oh meter right and so he locks a ship
with that password with Picard's voice
of course because that's normal
apparently and then he goes down to the
planet and they're trying to break back
into the bridge and it's just a big mess
and it's everything you can possibly
imagine and anyway then kind of at the
end everything just goes back to normal
like it always does in Star Trek and
they clearly did no postmortems they
didn't ask any questions about how did
any of these events happen they we see
this again where they get locked out of
the bridge again like these people suck
at security Wharf should not have a job
now there's another episode called
disaster everything like just fails the
computer the ship they like crash into
something no one knows what's going on
they have problems eventually Commander
Riker the second in command and Dana's
head only his head I won't tell you why
end up in engineering and they hooked
data's head up to the computer
but that was good because he actually
saved the ship so that time hooking data
up to the computer was okay we'll say
but only that time
there's this is this is another good one
the game
so this one I I think about a lot from
the just perspective of as a defender in
the industry so there is
a game that makes its way onto the ship
that when you play it it turns you evil
basically it turns you into a zombie of
some other alien race we never see again
which is a common theme in the show
the aliens take over most of the adults
the adults turn off data because data
apparently can't be taken over in this
one he does in other episodes but
whatever and then Wesley's like the only
person left and this is actually an
interesting incident where you have a a
good guy The Blue Team who has a ton of
internal knowledge and has to use their
knowledge to basically defend against
the all of the other insiders who have
turned evil and this is one of the ones
where Wesley takes off his com badge and
they're like oh no we can't find Wesley
anywhere on the ship everyone what are
we going to do
and they eventually find him after he
does a bunch of ridiculous things one of
the things he does is he turns data back
on so actually Wesley and data together
saved the day in this episode so that
was very interesting to me however it
makes you think like what would happen
if everyone turned evil and he was the
only good guy I don't know
another one I love this one conundrum
everyone loses their Memories We as the
viewers are aware that something is
wrong but none of these people do so
what happens is the Enterprise pulls up
to a ship there's like a bright flash of
light and then when everything comes
back we see this guy here that's a
commander McDuff which we've never seen
before but everyone's like oh
everything's fine because they don't
remember anything and the computer says
this guy's second in command and his
viewers were very confused but then it's
amusing to me because these aliens have
no technology capable of ending the war
they're in because what they want to do
is they want to take over the Enterprise
and use the Enterprises vast power to
just wipe out their enemy so they have
the technology to wipe everyone's Minds
modify the computer without being
detected and then insert themselves into
the ship and try to convince everyone to
go to this other planet and kill
everyone else
and it's like
you can do all those things and you just
like can't build a freaking bomber or
even just send your damn mind wiping
ship to the bad guy like it's it's
hilarious anyway the Enterprise goes and
and just sanity wins because they're
like wait a minute we can't kill all
these people like they have they have no
way to defend themselves and then they
shoot the bad guy and he looks like that
and everything goes back to normal again
and and this one I like because I think
uh if you had like anything resembling
backups or signed you know data
Integrity of your system or anything
then they don't have like them ah this
one is great fist full of datas
they hooked it up to the ship why not
and he takes over the Holodeck all the
carrot dwarf is there with his son and
counselor Troy reenacting a western and
so hence the name you know it's Fistful
of Dollars being the the old Western
Title Fistful of Davis here
they hooked it up to the computer data
takes over the ship and of course the
Holodeck safeties are disabled because
why wouldn't they be and so now you have
Commander War his son and the counselor
in the Holodeck up against a a bunch of
datas trying to kill them all and of
course they don't die because you just
don't kill people in the Star Trek
usually and then yeah at the end
everything goes back to normal and
nothing changes
because that's how we roll here this is
my favorite of all okay so data this
episode takes place on Deep Space Nine
okay so this is where kind of like the
Star Trek d59 crossover is one of those
ways of like Deep Space Nine ratings
suck we need to do something everyone so
they go to deep space the Enterprise
goes to Deep Space Nine
they find they found a device on a plan
right that like thing that's kind of
glowing there in the picture they found
that
and then they're like we should turn
this on and see what it does
and then of course data's standing in
front of it because why wouldn't you do
that he stands in front of it it zaps
them did they find it in the parking lot
it was on a planet in the camouflage it
might have been in a parking lot
all right no that's is that is it I
think you're right I think that is by
the war of course I did it well done
okay we're going after the center right
right yeah see these people are idiots
so anyway anyway they take this weird
unknown device they plug it in they turn
it on it zaps the robot robot starts to
dream which is a little weird oh granted
but whatever and then they wake data up
the data's like he's startled because
you know when you wake up from a dream
that's what happens to you and then
they're like I just had a dream I saw my
father they're talking about it and then
he's like we should do this again
and then they do it again
and then he drinks more which isn't it I
mean it's a very interesting story and
some of the dream episodes with data are
like chef's kiss in the show but
come on how many of us this is like the
classic Trope if you find a USB drive in
the parking lot right like go plug it in
I mean how many of you plug into your
cybercon flash drives yeah I plug mine
in I'm not gonna lie I run Linux though
so if I run Linux like I can't get my
stuff to work most of the time so I know
they're not going to get it to work
either but they do like that's cool
anyway there's it's fine there's there's
only the eCard test wires out there
you're fine
um go plug it into your corporate
Network
so anyway
they're more ads we'll keep going Max I
love this episode too just from a
storytelling perspective it's fabulous
they find an Alien Probe they scan the
Alien Probe the Alien Probe takes over
the ship and takes over data for some
reason
and then everything starts turning into
an Asian Temple and this again is one of
those incidents of like
what is wrong with you people validate
your damn inputs or something here how
do you scan something and get hacked
this is bananas but whatever it's just
what happens
and again this is one of those episodes
everything's crazy the ship is turning
into an ancient Temple there's one point
they were going to blow up the probe
which is in the picture in the middle
you see how big it is like the
Enterprise looks really small they're
gonna blow it up and they they get their
their Photon torpedo ready
and they they it turns to snakes like
it's just a weird episode but it's bad
it's fantastic uh what about some threat
modeling ideas right we love to talk
about some of the weird things the ship
has but what about some of the threats
we think about in real life uh there's
an episode where Picard best the devil
and it's it's a very good episode uh
there's if you there there's I put the
devil picture in because it's Top Notch
but there's a lady named Audra who goes
to a planet that apparently made a deal
with the devil thousands of years ago
and the devil came to collect on his bed
or her bed I guess in this case
and then the Enterprise shows up and the
devil claims oh we own the Enterprise
now too and she appears to have all
these powers and she claims she's the
devil and the solution is instead of a
fiddle competition they have a trial and
they put the Android in charge as a
judge and luckily they figure it out
because they Star Trek their way out of
it and at the end of the show everything
goes back to normal so it's fine but yep
yep I love it uh time Loops how many of
us have been stuck in a Time Loop for
two years maybe
this is a great episode too this is oh I
forget the name of it off the top of my
head doesn't matter what time what is it
well three is the message they send back
right is it three yeah it's three
because it's this episode if you've
never watched the entire you know the
name
common factor
cause and effect thank you I'm sorry yes
it's like one of the best stuff it's
probably my favorite Star Trek episode
by far cause of effect and they get
stuck in a Time Loop and it just made me
think about like sometimes these
security incidents truly feel like time
Loops I think log for Jay that was like
I felt like I lived the same day for two
months of my life when that happened and
I don't think that'll ever change with
this episode fantastic
uh what about unlimited beings how many
of us account for omnipotent beings and
our thread levels I don't think many of
us run into these this is where there's
a character named Q who appears about
once a season give or take and he just
causes General hilarity and Mayhem he's
an omnipotent being he harasses Captain
Carr it's fabulous every time he shows
up something ridiculous happens and I
absolutely love it but anyway it got me
thinking like what if we had an
omnipotent attacker what would we do I
don't know they need him every time just
by the way so it's possible
um Mark Twain Mark Twain is a threat in
the Star Trek universe
due to a series of events I won't get
into here because it takes too long to
explain they end up back in time and
they interact with Mark Twain who is
about as annoying as you'd expect Mark
Twain to be if you've ever read his
words and then eventually through a
series of hilarious events he ends up on
the Enterprise in the future and he of
course is annoying and weird and then
eventually he saves the day when they
send him back in time again after he
messed everything up and and they've got
it's it's a it's called Uh Time Zero
it's a two-part episode it is absolutely
fantastic and the guy who plays Mark
Twain is fabulous it's so good yeah he's
like he's such a jerk I love it uh Eagle
twins so in in the Next Generation I I
found two Riker has an evil well Riker's
twin isn't evil yet he gets evil so I
count that and then Dana has a brother
who's evil and very annoying and
actually the the episode with Dana's
evil twin called datalore is the famous
shutout Wesley that everyone references
all the time so you gotta love that
uh but anyway
what about if the competitions Nikes
your senior leadership for reactions
inside of knowledge right what happens
then
in in this particular episode the Borg
the Borg which we get and funny enough I
took out all of the board except this
the board could fill like 10 talks on
their own they're an awesome bad guy
that the humans always beat it's it's
one of those things that at the end of
Star Trek like every enemy they come up
against is easily defeated in an hour I
love it so anyway the board kidnapped
card they obviously gained access to all
of his knowledge and insight and then
they use that to their advantage when
attacking the earth and the Federation
and of course they kidnap a card back
eventually they
on board came a bit and then he uses his
board Insider knowledge to help them
defeat the board so haha touche board
but then they put him back in charge the
next day
I'm just saying if if I had leadership
who was kidnapped by an adversary
probably brainwashed definitely abused I
would not put them back in charge
immediately probably never but I'm just
saying this is Star Trek everything goes
back to normal everything is fine right
that's fine that's fine uh what about
ghosts how many years to come for ghosts
this is a terrible episode actually this
one uh this is
Dr Crusher is like the main character in
this her grandma dies her Grandma's in
love with the ghost that's her grandma
sort of coming back to life from the
ghost weird
um this episode sucks but there's a
ghost so it was funny if I left
uh what about attackers who only speak
in metaphors
if you know any
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anything darmok and Gillard at tanagra
and no one knows what the hell that
means they figure it out eventually
Picard and the other Captain become
friends after they kidnap a card and
send them to the planet and they fight
some elect like lightning monster or
something but the whole episode is
fabulous but it's one of those things
like what happens I don't know
what if the CEO is replaced by an exact
duplicate who acts weird there's an
episode where an alien species kidnapped
Captain Picard they put him in a jail
cell with a bunch of other people in one
of their plants is there which Picard of
course figures out eventually and then
they put a duplicate of a card on the
ship who acts really really weird and
then everyone figures it out they know
there's something wrong
um would you know though if your CEO act
really weird does your CEO already act
really weird just saying
all right so now all that that was a lot
of talk why did I do this I did it
because I wanted to watch a lot of Star
Trek
but that's probably not a good enough
reason but
I think there is a lesson here for us
and I I legitimately started this talk
because I just wanted to watch a lot of
Star Trek I'm not going to pretend I had
some like higher meaning in all this I
thought of the title name and thought
I'm just going to watch a lot of Star
Trek and I did and a lot like four years
worth but I think there is a lesson here
for us and it says security doesn't have
to be boring necessarily like I've been
talking for 37 minutes now about stupid
hilarious Star Trek stuff and if you're
a Star Trek fan this is super amusing
this talk was so much fun to write I
have been through it like a million
times I've shown it to a bunch of
friends I can't wait to give it again
because it's just been a treat going
through this data looking at what I can
learn and so this is kind of
this is the thing I've been thinking
about is what if we took some of this
and we brought it to the next level like
I I truly plan to put together a if
you're in the corporate world we have to
do these things called tabletop
exercises where you like pretend you
basically Drew like Dungeons and Dragons
style role-playing a security incident
right what if instead of doing your
tabletop against modern infrastructure
you did your tabletop on the Starship
Enterprise
and you put together some sort of attack
that was so ridiculous no one can
nitpick because one of the complaints I
always have is anyone who's ever done
these tabletop exercises is you try to
make a semi-realistic environment and
there's always that well actually guy
and you just want to punch him in the
freaking face because it's like I know
it's not exactly like this it's close
enough just play the damn game so we can
get done okay and and that's the thing I
keep thinking about is I think we can
make some of this fun if we take it and
like even this talk I there are real
security lessons in this that you can
take away I mean I think the two-factor
off is a big one it's easy to look at
the ridiculous authentication on this
ship and say like literally if they had
a human key like this show would have
sucked you know and that's okay that's
cool I like them I like the fact that
you can say like don't let your Android
go and do anything alone you know
there's so many things we can learn from
this don't let the interns have like
unfettered access to technology maybe I
don't know I don't know so anyway all
right this was
that's it questions comments concerns
all right I have one
one question everyone asks am I going to
do this with another Star Trek series no
it was it was too much work I I no just
no way
there's I have news coming out about I'm
not doing it but there's a Star Wars
thing coming out uh uh the fourth the
fourth of April they're being
announcement I'll let you know what's
that start again you know I only ever
watched a Stargate movie I never really
watched the show it I know I know it's
supposed to be good I just haven't ever
done it
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but
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yeah it was it's been a treat any other
questions no
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no I did not and I thought about that
and then I was like you know what I've
been working on this long enough but I
do think the movies are super
interesting because they have like
there's what they put like the hack into
Georgie's visor in one of them which is
great the one where the board go back in
time to change you know to create their
Paradox or whatever and and I agree the
movies I think are even dumber in the
show in many respects so I think they
could be way more fun to tear apart but
and and they just ah they do such dumb
stuff in those movies anyway the whole
show is like this but whatever whatever
it doesn't matter it's all fake all
right all right any other questions
awesome well thank you all this has been
an absolute truth
right here
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