RSA Conference security breach! View the evidence!

March 10, 2014 6:23 PM

Stephen Colbert, as "Stephen Colbert" gave the closing keynote speech at the 2014 RSA Conference in San Francisco. While this speech has not been made officially available, it has been posted in its entirety to YouTube. Part 1, Part 2 [total length <20m] [warning - audience video of conference hall video screens -- content overcomes video shortcomings]
posted by hippybear (25 comments total)

I salute his writers for being topical under challenging conditions. But it felt as if Colbert came right up to the line of landing a punch, and didn't have it.
posted by wotsac at 6:45 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Why him?

What's next Jay Leno at Usenix?
posted by sieve a bull at 6:46 PM on March 10, 2014

it felt as if Colbert came right up to the line of landing a punch, and didn't have it.

Yeah. I still liked it though.
posted by postcommunism at 6:50 PM on March 10, 2014

How long before CloudFog exists as an item? Any bets?
posted by jim in austin at 7:19 PM on March 10, 2014

Stephen Colbert also did an audience Q&A after his speech.
posted by hippybear at 7:54 PM on March 10, 2014

it felt as if Colbert came right up to the line of landing a punch, and didn't have it.

I disagree. His point was that the blame of RSA accepting money lies in the hands of the american people. We all elected the people that paid RSA/microsoft/apple/facebook/ect to create the surveillance state. As a voter this is a hard thing to swallow, since all ballot choices seem to be between liers and criminals.

Maybe Im just an asshole but I make a point of voting against the incumbent senator every time, but on the other hand, maybe it because both my states senators are on this list.
posted by KeSetAffinityThread at 7:56 PM on March 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

jim in austin: "How long before CloudFog exists as an item? Any bets?"

There's already AppFog. Close enough?
posted by pwnguin at 8:03 PM on March 10, 2014

I may have buried the lede on this one. The Q&A session (Colbert is not in character for this) is pretty excellent overall, and well worth the half-hour.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on March 10, 2014

Both the speech and the Q&A are awesome, and both demonstrate that Colbert is a pretty smart guy (and particularly smart in the area of knowing his own weaknesses). He might not be an expert on cryptography but he does have an inside track into the beltway politicical world that few of us could ever hope to match, and a sharp eye informed by things like Tolkien and D&D which gives him a very unusual and interesting perspective.
posted by localroger at 8:52 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Split the NSA in Two, Says Security Firm Embroiled in NSA Scandal
posted by homunculus at 10:02 PM on March 10, 2014

What's next Jay Leno at Usenix?

If you want to get your message out, you need to leverage a popular personality like Colbert who is both skilled at getting the message out, and who has recognition and credibility.

It's PR 101, as they say.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:37 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Re the Q&A, just to be pedantic, "42" is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, which isn't, as far as we know, "what is the meaning of life?" But it was still probably the best comeback under the circumstances.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:32 PM on March 10, 2014

But it felt as if Colbert came right up to the line of landing a punch, and didn't have it.

You didn't think:

"And I'm sure that under enhanced liberty you can have all the privacy you want just like under enhanced interrogation you can breathe all the water you want"

...was at least a decent uppercut?
posted by digitalprimate at 1:50 AM on March 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yeah, that was the speech where Colbert dropped five notches in my estimation.

I'll take ten Ed Snowdens over one Stephen Colbert, any day, if I can pick my fellow citizens. Dude, you're a funny man. But you're not as smart as you think you are.
posted by spitbull at 5:26 AM on March 11, 2014

I'll take ten Ed Snowdens over one Stephen Colbert, any day, if I can pick my fellow citizens.

Huh?
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 6:08 AM on March 11, 2014

Regardless of the keynote (I could go either way*), I eat up out-of-character Colbert appearances, so thank you for posting this.

* I thought it was pretty funny, but that it didn't quite hit the highs I know the show can hit, probably because security and cryptography aren't the Colbert team's passion and because the show has the heck produced out of it.
posted by scottjacksonx at 6:28 AM on March 11, 2014

I suspect that Colbert deliberately held back a bit with the really searing humor like the kind he deployed at the (in)famous Press Club speech. I suspect he did this because, unlike the audience at the Press Club, he felt a lot of the people in this audience are still on the right side of history or could yet be redeemed. So no need to go full nuclear on them, just make those of them not to far gone to reject the road to perdition.

Or something less purple prose-y. Sorry.
posted by digitalprimate at 7:12 AM on March 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was fantastic, thanks!
posted by Arbac at 10:38 AM on March 11, 2014

What does RSA stand for?

going to RSA conference 2014 website & looking at FAQ and 'about' did not answer my question. apologies for my blindness and/or stupidity.
posted by yoga at 12:43 PM on March 11, 2014

yoga: What does RSA stand for?

The encryption method, the mathematics behind public-key encryption, is named RSA after the first letters of the last names of its discoverers: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman.

Those three people started RSA Data Security in 1982, which over the years has grown and changed and is now part of EMC* corporation, who runs the RSA Conference.

*Disclaimer: my employer is an EMC reseller, I'm an developer and installer of EMC software
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:54 PM on March 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the enlightenment AzrealBrown.
posted by yoga at 12:57 PM on March 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Government Employees Suddenly Worried About Surveillance As New Plans To Stop The Next Snowden Strip All Privacy
I'm hopefully amused with the idea of extending such mmonitoring through the upper levels of the U.S. government to obstruct lobbying.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:23 AM on March 12, 2014

There is a very poignant moment in the Q&A when Colbert talks of how tiring it is to be angry all the time -- and at that moment you can actually see it in his eyes, as how he goes on that it's his job to get angry in the morning and spend the whole day thinking of jokes about it. That is probably the single most telling moment I have ever seen about the real Colbert, a consummate professional who is making a difficult and sometimes exhausting job look easy and fun.
posted by localroger at 3:13 PM on March 12, 2014

Just tangentially Colbert related : Jon Stewart Tears Into Dem Sen. Feinstein for CIA Spying Hypocrisy (via)
posted by jeffburdges at 2:44 AM on March 13, 2014

NSA infiltrated RSA security more deeply than thought
posted by jeffburdges at 2:19 AM on April 1, 2014