[LRUG] Intro

[Marc Wickenden]

I just found out about the LRUG and am planning to get down as regularly
to the meets as I can. I wanted to give a quick intro and try and gather
some idea of who goes and what your interests are.

/me:
I've was in operational IT for about 8 years before getting into
information security "officially" in 2007. These days I work as a
security consultant where a significant proportion of my time is spent
doing web application assessments. I have always been a bit of a closet
developer and I'm lucky enough that these days that forms a big part of
my job and spare time, coding tools and small apps relating to security
in some way.

I'm a relative n00b to ruby but having been coding in it as my primary
language for about the past nine months, there's a lot to like IMHO. My
coding life started in Perl before moving on to Python but along the way
I've coded most common languages including Java, C#, LUA, even some C
for my sins.

Initially I'll be coming along to listen but once I get a feel for what
people like I'd be keen to talk and share some of my experiences if
they're useful, with an obvious focus on security, particularly for web
applications. I'm very active in the London and Birmingham infosec scene
but I'm really keen to branch out and experience life outside the
security "echo chamber". I'm particularly interested in hearing
real-life war stories from developers with regards to securing
applications in the face of conflicting priorities and business drivers
and anything which developers have found particularly effective in
managing these, often competing, goals.

I'm also keen to understand just how much security plays a role in the
average developer's day-to-day life.

Feel free to ping me on or off-list or you can catch me on twitter
@marcwickenden or in #lrug as wicky if you prefer. I look forward to
meeting some of you soon.

Cheers,

Marc