Deane Hutton

CREATING THE FUTURE
with Dr Deane Hutton
Deane was invited to present the opening keynote address at the annual conference of the Australian Information Security Association in March. Craig Ford, Editor of CSO Online Newsletter, summarized Deane's opening address.
CRAIG FORD (CSO Online) on 01 April, 2019:

It was Friday morning. I looked over at my alarm clock waiting for it to cilck over to 5 am. It was time to get ready to take the train down to Brisbane CBD for the conference. I have been looking forward to the conference for a few weeks now and I am ready to go . . . I sat down a few rows back from the front of the room. To be completely honest, I had no idea who the first presenter was and didn't even know how it was going to relate to security. I was a little sceptical of how it was going to be.

I wasn't going to single out any presenters in my article, but the first presenter really set the tone for the whole day and blew me away completely. His name is Deane Hutton and was the presenter on a show called "Curiosity Show" between 1971 and 1990. This guy was good at telling a story and making his points get across with a bit of humour and entertainment all wrapped in together. Yes, the primary content of his presentation wasn't about security, but it was. He told this great story about how his grandfather, who was a dentist, saw a picture of a girl in the window of a photography store. His grandfather was taken aback by the image. He needed to know who the girl was, so the next day he finished work early and went back to that store and told the shop owner that he would like to order a copy of the image of his cousin in the window. The shop keeper told him, "So your cousin is ....." Social engineering at its finest there, Then he paid for the photo and left.

He now has this girl's name and would soon have a picture of her. When he goes back to get the picture. The guy over the counter looks up the detail in the book he records all the picture details in -- and his grandfather saw the girl's name and other details listed above his in the book where his reprint had been recorded. When they went out back to collect it, he took note of her address. (A bit more social engineering and some shoulder surfing to go with it.) His grandfather then went by the address on a few different occasions before, in the end, knocking on the door and asking the young girl if he could go for a walk with her on the weekend. She did, and became Deane's grandmother. The last parts of this may have been a little bit like what we would call stalkerish in today's times but that is social engineering in a nutshell. I was surprised, how it was linked, Deane did a great job with that story and to be honest the rest of the presentation wasn't security related but the whole audience was already hooked so it didn't matter. The story stuck, and he finished his talk with a final statement that rings true: "What is my moment?" He said we need to look out for it and take it. I love that point and totally agree with it.

The rest of the conference went as expected with the usual security related talks with the following main points that seem to keep coming up through the day.
- Fighting cybercrime is everyone's business - not just Sec professionals.
- IT - Everyone needs to get involved.
- Be good corporate citizens. It's your story. Own it.
- SMBs don't care about cybersecurity, it costs them money with no intrinsic value . . .

You're probably thinking I have given 600 words of my article to Deane and only about 150 words to the rest of the presentations. That's true and not a representation of them being bad presentations or talks. They were pretty good with some exceptional ones, but I just loved Deane's -- I thought it was brilliant . . .

The remainder of the conference was a mixture of food, coffee and vendor discussions but none of those really stood out to me. Don't get me wrong, there are some good products out there, but I am not going to do any sales pitches for them - that's not me. I think we could see some good developments in the future but nothing to write home about just yet.

So overall it was a good conference . . . It had some good content. If you can get to it next year, it would certainly be worth a look . . .as even non-security folk can learn a few things from the day.

If you want to know anything specific, or would like me to give an opinion on anything through the day, make a comment or reach out to me. Let's get a conversation started and solve some of these issues that seem to keep popping up again and again. Now to finish off in the words of Deane Hutton, "What is my moment?". Keep an eye out for yours, you never know when it could be.
CSO Online

POSTSCRIPT
For presenting the opening keynote address "Creating the Future", Deane Hutton received the following thankyou note from the Australian Information Security Association Board:

THANKYOU FROM THE AISA BOARD

Dear Deane,
On behalf of the ASIA Board and the BrisSEC committee, I wanted to write a personal thanks for your fantastic presentation last Friday.
Your presence and presentation were both very much appreciated. In the history of BrisSEC I have never seen attendees queue for photographs with a speaker. Thank you also for staying after your presentation. It was lovely to speak with you one on one
I know you travelled a great distance to attend and I hope you enjoyed our beautiful city.
A number of us have you to thank for our careers in engineering/science, me included. Thank you once again for your attendance at BrisSEC and also for your contribution to our lives.
Australian Information Security Association
Cyber Smart Safe & Secure

Deane was well prepared in both his presentation and relevance to rotary with a delicate mix of rotary and science enjoyed by all.
Rotary International District 9780
 
The audience got really involved in the show and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. “Everyone seemed entranced by his presentation - once again a great success.
Hoechst
 
Excellent.  Deanne gave a very professional presentation with audience participation, it was great fun.
McCormac Cooper & Assoc

Our Closing Keynote is usually something light and entertaining, but informative with a take away message. When I received your Bio from ICMI, I “knew” instantly that I wanted you. As a child, I was a fan of “The Curiosity Show” and later on “Hey Hey It’s Saturday”, so I figured if you can make science entertaining & informative, then you would be ideal for the role to end the conference on a high note.

Your presentation contained the right balance of information, entertainment and audience participation and you stuck to the brief. Everyone I spoke to loved it!! Furthermore, your flexibility to act as our MC that evening was appreciated and your unique sense of humour and wit added to the enjoyment & atmosphere of our Gala Awards Dinner.

I would have no hesitation in recommending you as either a Keynote Presenter, or as an MC with a difference for a special function / awards dinner.
Advice Division
IOOF