welcome to DEF CON. Hopefully you all are having a good time. My name is Priest and I'm the mean man of DEF CON. So if you haven't heard me, what I want to go into, I want to talk a little bit about what we're doing here today. Back at DEF CON 9, and yes I am that old, I've been here since DEF CON 4, we had someone from the CIA come out. And you know, they got ahold of MKUltra or something and volunteered to actually get up on stage, if you've got that, thank you. Everybody else like what? To actually get up on stage and answer any question you wanted to ask of them. The understanding is that there will be some questions that you will ask that they cannot answer. And as I said in the program, we promise no extreme renditions or mind control unless you really deserve it. So if you see me reaching for my microphone, don't run. You'll just get caught tired. I put together a panel of people who are kind of off beaten path. You're seeing some retreads, you're seeing some faces you may have seen before, because they also do serve a joint purpose, you're also seeing faces you probably never have seen before. We were a very heavily military weighted panel. The reason for that is because our military, one of their missions that they're realizing is what we do is very important. So we're not spotting the fed, sir. Don't give it away. We're very lucky to have them. I ask that you, you can ask anything you want, just be prepared for the answer. So keep that in mind. And we reserve the right to make fun of you. And you can try to make fun of us. So with that, I'd like to get started and have everybody introduce themselves on the panel. Starting with this gentleman right here, whom you should know. Hi, my name is G. Mark. G. Mark Hardy. I've been here since DEF CON 4. He's one of our pet feds. We have our own little petting zoo here. 30 years U.S. Navy, retired two years ago. Private company, national security corporation. No, hold on. Where did you work? Farmer defense. Okay. Sometimes you have to beat it out of them. All right. Full disclosure here. My career was not in the intelligence world. It's interesting because I'm wearing an NSA shirt and NSA lanyard, but things are not what they appear to be. It's always kind of embarrassing because everybody says, oh yeah, you worked with the agency, you were the fed. Earlier this year, out of the conference on the east coast, I took a group of people up to NSA to the crypto museum for tour. And Hal McConnell was there. And Hal's about 80 years old. He's been around forever. And he turns around and says, G. Mark, how are you doing? Everybody's convinced he really does work here. The point is that it's all in the right direction that we all work together as a team. You believe that? He doesn't. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Any more? You got to ask me a question. All right. I'm John Idaunasie. This is, I have not been here since DEF CON 4. I think I was, I don't know, maybe. I don't know if you were born here. Yeah. Something like that. I spent about nine years in the military, specifically in the Navy. I was a Navy SEAL. And yes, we do other things other than shoot guns. We have a lot of computer affiliated operations. He's the guy who read the comic books to the other SEALs. But he still had to move his lips when he's reading. Right. No, it's an honor to be here and priest. I appreciate the opportunity. Jim Christie actually pulled me as a sophomore in college out of one of the classes and said you really should get involved in a lot of the stuff going on. And I found as I was deployed all over the world that more and more a mindset is needed to defeat adversaries and that mindset is what this conference represents. I do believe and I started a company around it that your world is a white canvas. You can paint whatever you want. The question is how much time do you want to put into it? So if you want to spend your time doing the puzzle out there on the hardware board to try to figure out what that means, you can probably solve it. If you want to spend your time in near-field communications, you can probably do it. If you want to become a Navy SEAL, you can probably do it. So we're in an unbelievable time where we have digital ubiquity and as we continue to approach that paradigm, knowledge is in abundance, although time is not. So the choice is yours in being able to find what you'd like to go down the path but understand you define your own limitations. And you're going to get a lot of questions about that video game. What is it? So calm and call it duty. So be prepared. Inactive valor. Inactive valor, yeah. Hey, good afternoon. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Mark Colfin. I'm a U.S. Army active duty officer with 25 years of experience. I'm currently stationed at U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska. Normally that's associated with nuclear but also we have the lead for cyber, not cyber command. We're the higher command, above cyber command. All right. I'm the cyber branch chief in the J3. The J3 is in charge of all operations. Prior to the strat comm is at European Command in Stuttgart, Germany where I was also the cyber branch chief there as well. I'm an offensive guy, not a defensive guy. He's actually a really nice guy. I don't believe him. So if you have questions in regards to policy, strategy, doctrine, planning, and execution of cyberspace operations, feel free to ask those questions. Also, I had the best job in the Army prior to that. I was one of the Army red team leads where I was allowed to break inter-legally around the world, which we were successful in doing every single solitary time we went out, which gives you some indications of the status of our networks that we would find both physically and electronically. I'm sorry, sir. I get this out of the way. Where are the nuclear vessels in Alameda? Thanks, priest. So part of the intent of this panel here is to help build a community of interest. As part of that building a community of interest, I'll also serve as the managing director of a forum on LinkedIn called the Cybersecurity Forum Initiative. About 15,000 people, both national and international. It's a discussion form of all things cyber. So if anyone's interested in continuing the dialogue, we can also dial up there. And we'll all be available after this is over for the question and answer sessions across the hall. And I'm also working behind the registration counter. So if you see me tomorrow and you have something you don't want to ask today or over there, just stop me and we'll be glad to chat. Thanks. Feds are people too. They are, all these guys are very approachable. Hi, my name is Mike Fox. I'm currently an Army DAC, working for G2 and INSCOM. I assumed that position about four years ago. I spent 36 years in the Army in Intel and special forces after my retirement became a civilian. For the last eight years, I've been building Army cyber capacity, working with INSCOM. And what we've created is a brigade. Part of that brigade is made up of 400 civilians. And so we're looking for people just like you to fit in. That brigade does both things. It does offensive and defensive things. So I have a recruiting team here with me and they've been walking around and during the Q&A, if you'd like to discuss what we do and how we're looking for talent, you can talk with myself and that same team next door. Two things. I speak Fed and I speak English. So if they say something gobble, gobble, gobble, G2, blah, blah, blah. And you have a question raise it. I'll be happy to translate for you. And we are serious with the government is hiring. And I went back into government service after 9-11 and it is a very rewarding career with some very, very cool toys. I have a half a million dollar a year budget just for myself for toys that we put together. It doesn't pay as much. But like I said, you get the really, really cool toys.  My name is Jim Lent. I only had 21 years in the army, but I started out in 1975. And I got to go to some other places in the government. I'm currently the G2 for CCOM and it's a civilian bill that's been civilianized to the G8GG, 13 or 15 bill. And it's a very unusual that positions are civilianized. So those of you who didn't want to go active duty and run PT and run long miles, there is really hope. There is civilian jobs. Right now he's got the money to hire. And it's a lot of fun. But it's a lot better on your body too. I started out in the Marine Infantry, then went into Marine Corps counterintelligence, then Army counterintelligence, retired as a Army special agent in counterintelligence, and then ended up working overseas civil service in Korea. Got a job with DHS Intel for a couple years as they were standing up. And I was a lead cyber intel analyst. Moved from there to department of energy, worked security of the national labs, 10 national labs, $81 million budget. Good God, you think that's a lot of money? It isn't. It wasn't as much as we needed. And obviously cyber is a big issue at DOE. Currently, the army came up with a great promotion and an opportunity for me to go over to the Army Communication Electronics Command. Basically, it's not as sexy as a lot of these other places. But think about all of the sensors, the sigint, and the communications equipment. Basically, the Army has WNT, a tactical land. We can put it up in any country and soldiers will use that. Just like your telephones, just like everything that you have here. We build it in another country quickly. Now, my silly job is to figure out how to do research and development and acquisition, security and intelligence for those toys.  Lots of neat toys, but how do we keep that safe and secure? And later on, in question and answer, you guys might ask how we do that. By the way, I want to point out there is one fighter pilot on this panel. If we've already gotten to him or when we get to him, I'd like to see if you can guess who it is. It should be pretty obvious. If you notice, you know, I'm uglier than sin. There's really only one movie star quality guy on the stage who is perfectly proportioned, has a six pack at his age. Any guesses by the way? Anybody? No guessing? Priest, how do you know he has a six pack? Sir, sir, it's my understanding you can only ask me those kinds of questions, sir. Priest, you can ask those questions and I gave you a six pack of corona just a couple minutes ago.  I'm the fighter pilot. My name is Punch Moulton. I grew up in the Air Force in the 70s and 80s and 90s, flying F-15s. I spent four different times I was assigned over in East Asia, but what matters most to this organization is that my last job I was the director of operations for European command. That's a job that, for those who don't know the vernacular, I was the J3. It's a job that tackles all the U.S. military operations and coordinates with any other government agency that would be in the European region that's doing U.S. federal government kind of national security stuff. So we dealt with the State Department. We dealt with the NSA. We dealt with the Department of Energy and USAID and the like. That job spanned 51 countries. That's from Vladivostok to Greenland, from the North Pole down to the southern edge of the Mediterranean. And it was air, land, sea, space and cyberspace. And the reason why I'm up here is because when I took that job over three years ago I felt that we, the Department of Defense, we, the federal government were way behind in thinking about cyberspace. I left after three and a half years of doing that job, believing that we're still way far behind. But what we did try to do is tackle some larger, bigger, strategic, how do we use cyberspace for national security and how do we organize our use of cyberspace for national security? And so I'll be happy to talk to people if they want to down that path. One quick statement. Let me give a shout out. I have retired from the Air Force now and I'm working for a firm doing cyberspace strategies. But I want to give a shout out to CSFI. Mark mentioned it a minute ago. I consider it to be a vital community that tackles cyberspace security on a day to day basis. You're now going to hear from the very scary person. Not really. I'm Cathy Roberts. I did 32 years in the United States Air Force, mostly in space, some also in cyber. In the first fed panel, they mentioned eligible receiver. I was a party to all of that as a younger officer. I spent a lot of time in and out of the NRO. And my last position in the NRO was as the director of the signals intelligence satellite acquisition. I retired in 2009 and didn't want to go back to a fairly regimented in lots of hours so I worked for myself. I highly recommend it. Does everyone here know who the NRO is? Very good. So when you go outside and smile for the satellite picture, she's the one who gets to see you. They are still and were one of the most secretive organizations in the U.S. government. They didn't even acknowledge that they were officially existed until 1992. To give you an idea. The next gentleman I'm going to introduce myself because he's too modest. This is the real Mark Harman from NCIS. You had the posers on stage. Here's the real Mark Harman. Honestly, God. Go ahead, sir. My name is John Lee. I recently retired from NCIS after 24 years. I started out of LA with Leon Carroll who was on the panel previously. Some of the things I did, I was assigned as a special agent of flow to board the U.S. as Kitty Hawk when she was commissioned or still commissioned. And as a special agent of flow, one of the things we were officially known as a special agent at Drift because once you pulled away from the pier and where it was in the middle of the ocean, everybody forgot about you in the office. Subsequent to that, I went overseas and I started doing cyber investigations. I was a cyber street agent for about six years. Moved into management for four years. I was a division chief for the Pacific Cyber Division. And after that I said, I believe I drank the Kool-Aid and I went to headquarters because they said it was a career enhancing position. They lied. They did. As a result, I've since retired and doing well. Do you have any questions on federal law enforcement getting into it or what you need to do? The process, please see me afterwards. He also got to kill people. I'm Jim Christie. I've been with the government for 41 years now. I started out as a system administrator and then a programmer and then I got the opportunity to go to the Air Force Special Investigations to run their computer crime unit. Things people don't realize is that OSI was the first law enforcement agency. That includes NCIS. First law enforcement agency anywhere in the world to have a computer crime unit. And they formed it way back in 1978. After 11 years running that program, I had the opportunity to be detailed to Senator Sam Nunn on the Permit Subcommittee for Investigations and we ran hearings back in 96 on the cyber threat to national security. From there I was detailed to the President's Infrastructure Protection Task Force down at the FBI headquarters for two years. Glacier, like man. Anyway, all you FBI agents in there, raise your hand. And from there I went over to OSD, worked for Len Wells who was on the previous panel. And for the last 10 years I've been at the DOD Cyber Crime Center where we have the world's largest accredited digital forensics lab with about 110 forensic examiners. And we're always looking for talented people and that's why we've been coming to DEF CON for about 14 years now. Well, let's go ahead and open the floor to questions. If you could please, okay, we're just going to rush the podium here. We'll start with you three and after they're done. If you raise your hand on Connie, if you please go to the mic or if you have a pair of lungs strong enough to enunciate to the back row, please stand up and shout out your question. Okay, this question was originally intended for the previous panel. Since they didn't get it, you're getting it. I'm going to change it slightly. Originally it was going to talk about FISMA, FIP standards, and all the HSPD stuff. But basically, basically it's about the difference between compliance and security. Let's say somewhat disappointed. In the federal... Are you all getting this? On the civilian side, there is this process that we go through for security that ends up with a lot of paper artifacts and very little security. FISMA 2.0 failed in the Congress and there's been a couple things since that really were misguided. But now we have a few thought leaders like the State Department where it's about continuous monitoring. What I'm looking for here is some hope that we're going to go in a direction that is not purely defensive, not purely compliance driven, but has something to do with actually reaching out and touching the bad guys when they come in to attack our systems. Unicorns exist, sir. They really do. Unicorns do exist. Does that give you hope? There's a lot of unicorns in this room that can do what I'm talking about. Does that give you hope? I think we have the ability to do it but it's not legal and it's not policy. So I'm wondering is there any possibility that we're going to change to a paradigm shift here and become not offensive but a little less passive in our defense? Actually, if you look at the bottom of every e-mail I send out, my tag line is threat-based security. And you talk about compliance for the sake of compliance and I think there's a lot of people in the government who are against that. You know, rigidly following regulations we all, a lot of us have grown up with security Nazis who only read the regulation and my guys, we got to do it that way. Well as we grow up, as leaders, we get an opportunity to decide right and wrong and accepting risk. We learn to accept risk for the commander. But you have to learn to accept risks for the commander based on intelligence and what the threat is. I will not build a 10-foot fence when I know I'm being attacked by two-foot midgets.  So I have to know what the threat is. And that is where the intelligence people come in. We have to know what the threat is, advise the commander and let them make decisions based on that. That's like the problem with that is you never know when the two-foot midgets are going to come with a 12-foot ladder and that threat environment keeps shifting and if we're only reacting, we're never really different. That's what intelligence is all about. Smart-ass disgruntled whistleblower. And we'll burn your ladders. All right. I'm going to take a stab at this one. Now, before I do it, I must just tell you now that the views that I express here on the panel are not those of the DOD, the United States Army or U.S. Strategic Command. They're my own personal views based upon 25 years of experience and doing this for some quite some time. Yes, I know. I'll be drinking glass of water while he talks. Yeah. So the question, the very long question, was in regards to whether or not we were doing anything other than defense. Here's the answer. Yes. But more importantly, it's the skills that you have that we need to bring into the fold to make what happens to defend networks that much more proactive rather than reactive. And just to add on top of that, think about what's happening in our corporate world now in regards to the attacks they undergo and the theft of intellectual property. You see what they have done on their own as a corporate entity to help disrupt those attacks. They've not just been purely defensive. Also, they've not just taken place within the cyberspace domain. They used all assets of power available to them in order to help execute an action to stop the pain. Don't you think your government is able to do the same thing? But you don't, by the way, you're not going to see it all the time. It's not going to be done for everything all the time. And it's going to be done for the most critical things of all. That's a fact in reality. Capacity, capability. Smart people, some of you, most of you are in the room now. You have the ability to do things that we need done in defense of the nation. All right. Question becomes whether or not you seek to step up and serve? Not necessarily as a military uniform like I wear or a U.S. government civilian but willing to serve in some shape, form or fashion. Thanks. By the way, I'd like to add, you only hear about when the government screws up. You don't hear about when we have a win. And there's a reason for that. I'd like to get a clarification first. Are these people off limits for spot the fed during this panel?  That's not nice. And I can't do it. They're off for spot the fed. I'd just like to say something. I've been here since I've been attending DEF CON since about 1997. I'd say about 12 of them. And during that time I was never spotted and I was really worried when I worked for the government. But so you all fail. And here I am. He would run the other way when I was coming. Literally. He'd see me. And also he handed out business cards.  Next question, ma'am. Go ahead and form a line. We do want to get this on tape. Generally the U.S. military is prohibited to operate on U.S. soil against U.S. citizens. And here we go. No, it's okay. When I was in a seaweed battalion, it's an electronic warfare battalion. We were explicitly prohibited from using our equipment even for receiving civilian broadcasts. They didn't want us to even go that far like TV stations. That's what the Canadians are for, sir. Exactly. So my question is what sort of techniques or steps are you taking to ensure that any offensive reactions they're taking on behalf of the U.S. government or on behalf of the country as a whole are not adversely impacting U.S. citizens? I'm going to preface the answers with as far as you know. As far as you know. So the answer is that we are a nation of laws and those that do intel for the nation and DOD, the first and foremost thing we stick to is understanding what the Fourth Amendment means and the laws that drive that. Actually, with all due respect, the answer is that everyone that does SIGINT as you did in the seaweed battalion has to be trained twice a year and understand UCID 18, which is the compliance with how you protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. And the fact that if we do a foreign intel mission, that does not mean you do it in comas. And so we strictly look at that and INSCOM is tasked with managing that effort for the entire army and it does so quite robustly.  How many people like retirements? Yeah, I was about to say, you know what, I'm a civil servant just like everybody else. Everybody else in this panel is, I have a wife, I have a child, I have a mortgage. I really don't want to go to jail. And I guarantee you, you have experience? Only two days in a Italian jail. We'll get to that in a minute, sir. That is the philosophy that pervades. The movies are great, you know, oh yeah, big bad CIA breaking in, you know, enemy of the state, I got bad news for you. We're all civil servants. We all work nine to five. We're not plotting how to get you and we are not going to break the law and it will come out. CIA selling drugs in South Central Los Angeles, not going to happen. It's going to make the post. It's going to make CNN. Someone is going to be disgruntled and pissed off and leak it. It will get out and it just isn't done. We don't want to go to jail. I know I don't.   No, not going to do it. So just as a follow-up, do incidents occur? Of course. I mean, we're people. Things happen. Every incident, though, is reported and it's investigated and that report goes all the way up. Some of them result in action against individuals, but most of the time it comes back to training. Priest, let me make two comments to this. First of all, a lot of people are focused on U.S. citizens. The law is actually much broader than U.S. citizens. It talks about U.S. persons. And that's a very different definition. So you should go to the legal document and look at U.S. code as to who all is included in that because it's a lot broader than U.S. citizens. The other thing in support of what was just said, before people jump to the idea of conspiracies, conspiracies are hard.  I have one comment. Everything you see on the NCIS TV show, you can believe it's true.  You know what? I've been a subject of investigation peripherally. They are not nice people. They have no sense of humor and they are deadly serious and you will go to jail. Someone made a mistake and it was an honest mistake, but they went to jail for a very long time for doing it. You do not pass go. You do not collect $200.  You're done. They treat it very seriously. So. My question is for the entire panel. In 1989 and 1993, the Department of Defense and other government agencies engaged in two very high profile searches for high value targets. Individuals that were bad guys. Since then priorities and technologies have changed. So this is a higher priority and we obviously have new techniques, technologies for chasing high value targets. I know that the gentleman from the Navy was involved on the kinetic end of that and Stratcom is now has responsibilities in that area as well. So if the panel could speak about in the public domain what, how technology has changed the hunt for individuals in the real world rather than the virtual world. How virtual tools have changed that process? I'll start off. What I think you're asking is sort of where we operate and we see that there's a nexus between the virtual world and the physical world and they very frequently we try to arrange that they come together. So for instance, technology has changed our job in digital man hunting requires understanding the digital terrain. People's digital exhaust. Everybody has a presence online or maybe three or four etc. Sifting through that understanding what that means. Understanding a person's digital terrain enables you to begin hunting them online. However, through that continuum it must and in our cases will result in some sort of physical engagement. Maybe I run into you at a bar because you've been an online friend of mine and all we're doing is having a drink but I'm pulling all your phone information into my pocket. It's still a physical example that has a virtual nexus to it. So from our standpoint and what I still am involved in doing is building a full spectrum holistic capability that combines utilizing the virtual world technology with physical reality for an end state. What else? So I would tell you that based on how we do support for Iraq and Afghanistan it's really a multi-disciplined effort where you have to have human and SIGINT and OSINT all those ints come together and help build what is a profile of what your target set is so that then you can take the right actions to key the right intel mechanism to enable the actions that need to be taken against the HVT that you're looking for. High value target. I'm not an intel guy but I will tell you that as a user of Intel I've continued to watch it. This is not only happening in the government but it's happening in the private sector as well. And I could very specifically spot a company over in Europe whose mission it is is actually to support government agencies generally law enforcement kinds of things but to tackle searching for bad guys in the virtual world to create a physical arrest. The best examples that they continue to use routinely as they describe their capabilities go down the path of some child porn guy that bounces through cell phones rapidly like a drug lord and goes through that whole sequence but they have multiple techniques. This is a company not a government that's doing it. Now they only do their, they only provide their services today in the open to the best of my knowledge. Two law enforcement agencies with the appropriate judicial rids, et cetera but that doesn't make any difference as far as I'm concerned because the techniques and the processes exist completely outside of the government. Anyone else? Yes, the domino story. Yes, thank you. You know that answer was kind of like eating sushi, you're full right afterwards. Then about an hour later you're like, man, I'm hungry. So there's a lot of words in there but not a lot of information.  Watch the Discovery Channel actually or come to the talk on the drones. We're having a talk I think later on today on drones. I was yesterday, I'm sorry, I was yesterday. We got a talk on temporal displacement this afternoon, so go back. That's right. Yes sir. Hi, thanks for coming before us and a few months ago I left a top five financial institution and because of our inordinate market share we had much more communication with government officials and military forces than most other companies yet it still felt like a one way street. What are some ways that you can give us in the private sector meaningful information that we can act on and defend our critical infrastructure because right now it's only one way and it's not beneficial to us. I'll start that one. Who in here has heard of the defense industrial base cyber pilot? One, two people, three people? Yeah, I wanted to spot some feds, there you go. Goodness. All right, you can Google it. It is a new initiative, well I said new in the last two years, it's been fully approved. Sir, for those of us who didn't have our notebooks ready, what was the name of that initiative? It's the Dib Defense Industrial Base. It's actually enhanced security now but it was a cyber pilot. The intent is for those organizations and entities, corporations who wish to participate and there are certain gates you must obtain is that the national security agency will share select signatures with you in an effort for you to put them into your system so that when malicious traffic comes your way it's dropped, redirected, et cetera, et cetera. In exchange you will also advise NSA about the attack, right, so they can get a better understanding of where the attack is or it's coming from and what it's doing. It's all open source and it's available to any corporation who wishes to participate and meet the individual standards. There's basically got to be standards, you realize that, right? It's a give and take, it's a two way street. Only corporate, well sir, the Secretary of State Nevada is right down the street, they have the forms to incorporate. You see how I'm going with this. I'm thinking like large EUs that might have really, really large target rich environments. There's also DHS, one US CERT has a whole portal for you reporting and they have I think five different list servers for stuff going out. When I was there 2004 to 2006 they were coming up with a program for pushing information out to corporations but because of the proprietary information of the corporations and the government holding that, there were problems with that and that's where you have to sign up for their program, get into their program and both the company and the government signs an agreement. If you look on the DHS website they have the newer information that I would have. But definitely they've got a program and that's really at DHS level, that's beyond the military side, they have the information there for sharing. Okay, don't fall over but I'll be plugging in an FBI program. How many of you here have heard of the Infer Guard program, a few of you? That's a public, private partnership between the FBI and private industry. You can sign up for that, they have regular meetings, they've got a good information flow, you've got to contact your local FBI office, they're a cyber squad and they can provide information to you. And you get a really cool fez, because fez are cool. There's also one other thing, there's a program with Carnegie Mellon, where Carnegie Mellon actually acts as a filter if you will or a spacer between the government and industry, so that you don't have to expose all your corporate secrets, but you can transfer information back and forth. Do you know the name of that program that Carnegie Mellon has? We always just called it the Carnegie Mellon CERT program. Take a look at the CERT program at Carnegie Mellon. Okay, thank you. I'm gonna springboard off this just a minute. I want to say this to all those answers that just came up. Thank you very much, sir, because they're so sanitized in many instances that they're useless. Here, those are all, those effectively, you said, how do we drain the Pacific Ocean? And we said, well, here's four or five little tin cups, knock yourself out. We as a federal government need to stop and reorganize. We are not set properly for this mission set in a large sense. I will tell you, I'll give you the anecdote. Nobody on the planet said that the Department of Defense should be prepared to shoot down airliners on the 10th of September, 2001. And everybody on the 12th of September thought that that should have been done. We're gonna go through this same metamorphosis in cyberspace, unfortunately. My belief is that you don't want DOD in charge of securing our cyber lives as a nation. Most people would say DHS is the right place for that. It might be organizationally, but it's not the right organization. They can't do it. So Punch Moulton's answer is that we need a whole new way to think. And what we need to do is capture what the federal government does well and what private industry does well. And then to try to cover each other's weaknesses. The federal government's good at looking broadly at problem sets. And your bank probably is good at looking at its niche, but doesn't care about that other niche that Cisco does care about or Google cares about. So the federal government is actually good at thinking about the holistic problem. But the federal government is wholly inadequate to be flexible, to be dynamic, and to be responsive. Private industry is. And so what we need is a marriage. And I'll tell you that I've thought long and hard about this, and we've done some work trying to work on Capitol Hill with little success so far. But my proposal, which is first draft and should be probably modified so much it doesn't even look like it after you guys all think about it, is that we actually take a model that does work sort of, and that's the Federal Reserve. It's quasi-governmental, but outside of the political process. It would probably have a board of governors of this new cyber Federal Reserve thing that is some people from government and have a holistic, probably some people from academia, but a bunch of people from the spread of what cyberspace companies are about in our country. Some of them macro, the Googles, the Apples, the Microsofts, the Cisco's, some of them smaller, probably some of them just past startup in the cybersecurity arena and have them all on a board of governors that leads then a staff of people that tackle the large questions that we have about cybersecurity for our nation, which would then, if you had that large infrastructure on top, remove from politics, but inviting in the entities that really benefit from this in the corporate world, you would create an environment where sharing public and private would actually really happen. Actually, I'd like to say you set that up because it's a great segue for one of the things. We need new thinking, as he says. What I've got is, I want you to all think is really new thinking, except that DHS was doing it 2004, 2005. CIA and DIA was doing it in the 80s, I think. It's called Red Cell Analysis, and get your pens out. And basically, it's the portion to think the unthought. One of the things in the 9-11 Commission was that Intel and the intelligence community had a failure of imagination.  All of us get rigid. And it's harder to think out of the box when you're inside a box. And we think of set answers, we think of SOPs. And you guys don't even know the SOPs. So this is a neat thing. What Red Cell Analysis is, not red teaming, Red Cell Analysis is basically coming out and bringing in, we brought in academics and regular civilians off the street at DHS and asked them, we did one on WMD, we did one on cyber. I can't remember the other ones. Me pandemic, I think. And we asked people who were specialist in those areas to give their wacky thoughts. What's worst case scenario? What's not so worst case scenario but possible? And the Intel analyst in the back of the room kept their mouths shut and didn't ask too many questions because they did not diverge classified information. The entire event was unclassified. But as a result, we're able to walk away. I'm a big proponent for using the intelligence cycle to make it work. And you have to put in requirements. But you have to think up requirements. And how the hell am I going to think up that airports are really ammunition centers on the 12th of September. It was an ammunition center. Airplanes are a weapon now. How do we start thinking about those things in cyber? So what I'd like to do is I've got both a charity and then my day job at work. My charity will pull things for blogs that the charity does. It's a national security charity. But we're looking for ideas, thoughts about how something, what are we forgetting? What are we not thinking, the unthought? And send it to the email address that the guys just set up for me today. DEFCON20Lint, L-I-N-T, it's a four letter dirty word. Just like in your washing machine, Lint. DEFCON20Lint at gmail.com. I'm watching it. And some of them will, if you're up in the Maryland area, we may pull you into Aberdeen for the trip through our campus. But we may do it either there or we may try to do it through VTC. Real quick folks, we've got about five minutes left. We're not gonna get to all the questions. I'm gonna see to it that a discussion group is starting on the DC forums list. And I'll give out my email on that list. You can email me directly. I have contact with everybody here. If you didn't get a chance to ask your question, if you didn't get a chance to ask your question in the Q and A period, I will make sure that the message gets passed and we do our best to get an answer back to you and the entire community. There will be Q and A after this. Sir, go ahead. I have a more practical question just about talent acquisition. And it's not to anybody specifically or any division or it's pretty much federal agencies in general that I see all the time. I work in the financial services sector so we have kind of the similar problem looking for SQL developers looking for data analysts. But my main question is, have you guys actually gone through from a QA process and tried to apply for a federal job? If you know how punishing it is. And so I hear like, you know, I hear panel after panel after panel, we're looking for these people, we're looking for these people. Yeah, but then if you've ever tried to go through that process, it's just unbelievably horrible. First of all, sir, get a haircut. Wow. That's why I get to work where I work because I can look like this. Second of all, I'm probably the most recent person on the panel to have done a federal application or any application of the government. My advice is the following. If the application says we are looking for left-handed glass blowers in Alaska with long blonde hair, put down I have worked for five years in Alaska blowing glass with my left hand and my hair is two feet long. Because what happens is you've got a bunch of very low level people and I think now computers that look at the application and look for keywords. You may have absolutely no experience blowing glass with your left hand, but maybe the best right-handed blower they've ever seen in order to get in front of the person who can make that decision, you've got to lie and say you're a left-handed glassblower. I'm sorry, not lie. That's a bad word. It's called patting, patting.  It is, it is, bam. But I think that's a big thing because we just had the discussion about, okay, if you don't have a degree or you don't have this and people are like, yeah, we want to talk to you, but I don't think any of those things really make it to the people that really can make those decisions to hire those people if they can. Part of the reason they are here is so that they can make that connection, number one.  And usually writing's one of the skills. You're going to have to write a good resume and you're going to have to be perseverance, have perseverance. I hear people, when I went from 14 to 15, I believe I've sent over a hundred resumes out. A hundred applications. If you don't have perseverance to send them out, then you're not really trying. And I really don't believe people are really trying to get into government service if they haven't sent out their first hundred resumes. Okay, thank you. Pearl, can I, can I, I'd like to talk? By the way, I'd like to thank everybody for not asking about the Space Aliens or do we sell crack cocaine in South Central? I really actually appreciate that. Yes, sir. Step on up. In our organization, we grew so fast that we had to grow by hiring contractors not by government workers. So what's happened is, as we get those government positions, we're looking at the contractors who have already proven themselves to us, come on board and the majority of the government folks that work for us, we're working for us for the last three or four years as contractors. So take the job, get your foot in the door, prove yourself to the management, and you'll get hired. They will make a position for you. Let me add one. Coordination is not my best. Let me add one more thing to that. You have to look at the skills that they're asking for. One of the things, particularly on the acquisition side, that we try to do is not be in the position of having to add security on all the time. Patching and patching and patching is real hard with a complex system. We'd like to be able to hire folks that can help us build it in and build in the flexibility that we need upfront. And I'll tell you, having been in the acquisition side, there are times that I put a request for proposal out on the street, open to any company, and got zero responses because it's not fun. It's not cool. It's not penetration testing. You know, it's great to break things. I need people who can help me build things, not just break them. We are actually, we've got about 30 seconds left. Hopefully this was informative. I realize it was short. Hopefully we did answer and dispel some myths and put kind of that happy smiley face on what the government service does. And we'll try one more. Okay. Can we do one more? Can you talk fast? I can talk fast. So you said that we were a nation of laws, but given the Fourth Amendment and that you're building domestic spying facilities. Here's the wing nut. That's fine. I'm just gonna go ahead and ask it then. I'd completely disagree as a civilian. So here's my question. When I see that my own government is building domestic spying facilities. Okay, we're not making political statements. This isn't a political statement. This is about building trust and working with. In the form of a short question, sir. Okay, so given like torture and we're prosecuting whistleblowers, you needed that trust in this community to actually go forward and push forward. So my question is, how would you change how things are currently run to facilitate trust and cooperation? That's actually a good question. Thank you. I'm happy to please, please. We needed some comedy. Looks, Marx looks like the second question. I haven't had my hard time hearing your question. You said, how do we change the culture of trust? No, how do you change how things are currently run to build trust and cooperation? You got an election coming up in November, right? Yes. Oh, seriously, you got accountability that's built into our democracy. And if you think you've got a runaway system in terms of our federal government or any agency or any entity that's not responsive to the requirements either by law or by in terms of some moral standard that you have, you need to go ahead and take an action. One vote is not necessarily gonna tip it, but you can get active and get involved. That's why we have groups of people. That's why we have things like the EFF and the like that stand for a position and use the court system and use our existing infrastructure to make change happen. And you've gotta be willing to lean forward and make change happen, because if you just sit back and complain, nothing's gonna happen. Reagan said best, trust but verify. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be in track to Q&A area. I'm actually hopefully active in changing things so I'm not doing nothing. Let's do the Q&A, we'll keep going. Okay, do you want to clear up for the next question? Yeah, a round of applause would be good for the panel. Thank you for coming. Thank you.


The U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Propulsion made an historic first with its experiment of bombarding fuel ignition with X-rays and gathering unique data that will advance engine efficiency. We are at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source. This is the strongest X-ray source in the world and we're here to do spray imaging, spray break-up imaging inside a gas turbine combustor that is relevant to the Army. Lee and his graduate students along with partners from the ARL Center for UAS Propulsion set up shop in the Department of Energy's Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois resulting in a unique experiment. So we have a combustor which is a gas turbine combustor modeled after the combustor that would be typically used in a helicopter in the Army and then we had actually a combustion going on which is done for the first time ever at APS and we are imaging the spray break-up at the very tip of the injector using an X-ray source. So typically that region where the liquid breaks up is very dense and it's difficult to image anything inside there but using this X-ray source we're able to penetrate into that liquid layer and understand how the ligaments liquid spray breaks up into these small droplets. So that's what we were trying to image with this huge X-ray source. Computers play a crucial role in determining many of the engine's operating characteristics such as fuel efficiency and levels of emission. So we are trying to understand what exactly occurs inside the gas turbine combustor to understand how the gas turbine combustor responds to different operating conditions. The data gathered during this experiment will become the initial conditions for numerical simulations that will further the understanding of gas turbine combustors. The advanced photon source has spent a lot of effort over the last decade or so looking at spray drop the break up and never has it been done in a live combusting environment so we made the hardware to make it happen and so this is the first time it's actually been done live with a combusting flow in a combustor. The experiment was also the first accomplishment at the lab's new center for UAS propulsion which kicked off a massive partnership between academia and industry. ARL held a ribbon cutting for the center April 2nd from Argonne National Laboratory David McNally, ARL TV.


playing and coaching volleyball. And then one day at work, I realized that if I actually treated the workgroup as a volleyball team, then they get kind of fantastic results. It was such a big shift. So I realized I could coach the team coaching at work. So I think that was over like 25 years ago or 20 years ago at least. So I became exploring that potential and coaching teams and then kind of scaling that for organizations as well in the lot.


Now, another distribution is called a beta distribution, this is another expansions we are doing like gamma with gamma distribution we broaden our scope of distributions like like similarly we do beta distributions. Beta distributions we are going to denote beta AB there are two parameters A and B and this pdf is defined like this and notice that for beta distribution it is only defined in the positive interval but restricted to 0 1 ok. Now, if you make this A and B and same as 1 this suppose now put A and B as same what you are going to get f of x equals to gamma 2 gamma 1 gamma 1 x 0 and y 0 0. So, what is the value of gamma 2? 1. So, and what is the value of gamma 1? 1. So, this is like 1 if x is between 0 1 and this is like 0 otherwise what this distribution corresponds to uniform this 0 1. So, by putting A and B equals to same to 1 you have recovered uniform distribution. Like that you can choose any distributions you like in this and again that is what like I have put some special cases here. The first thing I have put is like let us say take this one AB 2 2 and AB 5 5. So, in these two cases I have put both A and B to the same value. If you see that when AB are 2 2 it is like this and if I am increasing the value of AB to 5 this is like a kind of narrowing down. The peak is always at the middle 0.5 and similarly you can imagine that if I increase AB value to 10 it may be like may be looking more and more concentrated around that point. Now, the case where A and B are not different like I have again considered two symmetry two cases when A and is 2 and B equals to 10 you can read the value on the screen ok and let me write here. So, here ok now consider this case this is corresponding to this curve. In this curve A is 2 and B is 10 and this curve here is the here A is 10 and B is 2. So, notice that when they are assume the A and B values are not the same some kind of skewness is happening in the peak of this curve like when B is large the peak is mostly towards your left and when A is large the peak is towards your right and when A and B are same the peak is exactly in the middle ok and as a very special case when A and B are equals to 1 it is like a flat curve no peak is there because we just showed that is a uniform in this right. So, again this is like a generalizing thing like from uniform distributions now we have parameterized and you are able to capture so many different distributions and this is often used in Bayesian statistics like I said earlier like if I do not have any prior information I am going to take uniform like everything is equally likely, but if you have initially some prior information that smaller values are going more likely than the larger values what they are going to do you are going to take B as larger than A or A larger than B, B larger than A right like in this case right like here I told you like the ones which are smaller or more likely that is why here B is going to be larger. On the other hand if you have some prior information that larger values are going to be more likely then you will put take a A to be larger than B ok next even though we talked about so many different distributions and we talked about their various parameters it actually happens that most of the distributions we have talked so far they can put in a very compact way and they all belong to one special class of distributions called as exponential families ok. Now, let us say let us write down generic probability density function let us say I have been given a distribution which is parameters by theta and that I am going to express in this format ok. Now, let us try to decipher what I have written here there are two things H function, C function, W function and T i functions so H is a simply a function here which depends on the point notice that here deliberately I have written given theta. So, this distribution this PDF is a parameterized this depends on a given theta and now we have to define it for all possible values of X. Now, this is this H function is going to be positive for all X and the parameter for that parameter that C of theta function is a positive value and now this W i here this W i is a function of theta and this is real valued and this when I write it like this this W i cannot depend on X i this W i is only function of theta and this last one T i this is again a real value function, but this only depends on theta, but not on X. If a PDF function parameterized by theta I can write like this this is called exponential family we are not hard coding what is should be H, C, W i and T i we are just saying that H of X should be positive for all X, C of theta should be positive and W i should be just depends on theta not on X and T i should depend just on X and not on theta. Now, you will see that all the distributions that we talked in the discrete case and all the continuous one that we have talked so far Gaussian, gamma and beta they actually follow fall into exponential family they can all be expressed in this format for some values of H, C, T i and W i. So, this exponential family that is what pretty handy because it covers large distributions that we have already studied. Now, let us look why is that is the case why is that we are saying that binomial belongs to exponential. Now, let us try to see this binomial distributions I am able to write it in the form distribution associated with the common template of the PDF for exponential distribution. So, binomial is what n comma p. So, the parameters in this case theta are n and p. So, now, assume that among these two components this one component is known. So, my theta parameter is actually only p this is just to simplify things. Now, if you write your PMF we already know what is the PMF of a binomial distribution right this is what is this this is basically like a probability that X equals to X given that your parameter theta is p. So, what we are basically saying that my random variable takes value X under this parameter p that is n choose X p to the power X 1 minus p n minus X right this is the definition of binomial random variable or this is the probability mass function of your binomial distribution. And now let us manipulate this can I write p power X as e to the power X log p nothing changes right this I have also written like this. And now this product of two exponentials I have just written as exponential and taken e to the power sum of the exponents this is also correct right this is just a property of exponents. Now, let us see that I can write it in this form that I wished what was that that is h of X c of theta then e X p my i equals to 1 2 let us how what was the index we use i and then we said w i of it was theta right theta and t i of X. Let us say this can be represented as now we said k let us say this can be represented as in this format ok. Now, let us say my parameter theta is p now first decide so exponential so this exponential we will map it to this exponential terms within but now first let us the this part I have to map it to the factors multiplying the exponential. So, h of h of X c of theta is simply n choose X but here n is known only and only thing X this. So, then in that case I will choose h of X equals to simply this n choose X and this is true for X 0 1 to n this being a binomial I will choose X to 1 0 1 to up to n and 0 otherwise and this requirement that my h of X has to be greater than or equals to 0 now that is full plate this guy is positive. Now, for c of theta this c of theta has to depend only on theta now here there is nothing so I will just take c of theta to 1 ok and this is also positive quantity that requirement c of theta is positive is also 1. Now, let us see that now let us focus on the terms inside exponential I know that w 1 so each of these w i's has to depend only on theta what I will do is for that these things I am going to now define w 1 theta to be log p and w 2 theta to be log 1 minus p and now both w and w 2 depends only on the parameter p they are not dependent on X and now to define t 1 X t 1 X I will take this X and t 2 X I will take it as this n minus X. Now, this only depends on X and not on the parameter. Notice that n is a parameter but we are assumed it to be fixed so the parameter is only p and this does not depend on this p. Now, have I put it in the format that I want and here k is 2 because I am adding only two terms in the exponent. Now, that is why I have now put this probability mass function as h of X c of theta in this form this is the required form for it to be called exponential family. So, that was for the discrete case let us now look into one continuous case. So, for this we will take Gaussian. So, Gaussian is going to be parameterized by two values here mu and sigma square. So, theta here is that is what like this f X given theta and this theta is mu and sigma square here that is what we have written. We know that its PDF is like this. Now, let us see this could be expressed in the exponential family. So, to do that we have first I have simplified this exponent inside I have expanded the square you will get this. Okay.  So, I will take this c of theta. Now, one more thing I have done when I expanded this square mu square 2 sigma square is there. So, I have also pulled out this. So, this entire thing here it depends only on the parameter mu and sigma square and not on X. So, that is what I am going to take c of theta to be this entire quantity this quantity and I will simply define H of X to be 1 for all X. Okay. So, notice that when I pulled out this this did not depend on X, but the other terms this and this this term depends both on X and sigma square and this depends on X and parameters. So, whatever the things both depend on X as well as the parameter I kept it inside my exponential and where it only depends on the parameter I have pulled out out and this helped in the simplification. And now if you now look into this part I can take mu and theta to be this 1 by sigma square here and mu 2 theta to be mu by sigma square part this portion here and take t 1 X to be minus X square and t 2 X to be X this portion X. Now, if you notice that with this definition I am now able to write F of X given theta exactly like this again for k equals to 2 this is what is the definition of exponential family. So, that is what like we have again verified that a Gaussian is also belongs to exponential family. Now, quickly check whether this gamma function we just discussed today is also belongs to exponential family ok. Now, we said gamma is parameterized by alpha and lambda and this is its function when X is greater than or equals to 0 right. And when X is less than 0 we also had to handle the case where it is 0 by appropriately defining. Now, what I have done here this first thing we have kept it same, but now X to the power alpha minus 1 I have rewritten as e to the power alpha minus 1 log X. Can I do this? This is the property of exponents and log that I have used and e to the power lambda X I have written. And now let us see if I can come up with H function, C function, T i function and W i function as required in my exponential family. So, one can define C of theta to be alpha to the power lambda to the power alpha gamma alpha H of X equals to 1. Now, W 1 of theta to be alpha minus 1, W 2 to be minus alpha. So, here W function only depends on your parameters and T 1 X can you take as log X and T 2 X you can take it as simply X. Now, if you could expand that now this is this F of X given theta where theta is alpha lambda you are able to write it like this. So, this is again exponential family. Now, an exercise for you check F beta AB is belongs to exponential family for all AB. And see that in particular F uniform 0 1 belongs to exponential family. So, please check this, don t us skip it.


Welcome back to Capital Beat, a joint production between Orca Media and the Vermont Press Bureau. It's Friday, February 26th, and we have reached the halfway point of the legislative session. Joining me as always is, well, I guess not always, I wasn't here last week, Joshua Gorman, Vermont Press Bureau reporter, thank you. I'll always a pleasure to be here now. All right, as I mentioned, we've reached the halfway point. Quite a few notable things have happened throughout the session, but I think just like most weeks we'll focus on what transpired this week. As we speak, the House is debating a resolution to divest from coal and fossil fuels. Tell us a little bit about how we got to this point today. Sure, so during Governor Shillman's final state of the state address in January, he called for the state pension funds to divest first from all coal and from ExxonMobil in particular and then to explore divestment from all oil companies. This is something that is not exactly a new idea. Senator Anthony Polino from Washington County has introduced legislation in the past calling for fossil fuel divestment. So Shillman's pushing pretty hard for this and he's getting some pushback. Treasurer Beth Pierce, who oversees the pensions, says that this is not a great idea. She says it's gonna cost the funds money. We know that it's not immediately popular with the folks who are actually invested in the pensions because they have an option to go with a fossil fuel free investment portfolio and a tiny handful of folks who have that available to them actually do it. And do we know what the returns are like for the few folks who take that option? Are they getting a smaller return on their investments than others? I honestly don't know, Neil. Probably something maybe we want to look at. Yeah, at some point, sure, sure.  I've heard folks, I heard somebody from Norwich say that after studying the issue, he says that rate of return will be better. Secretary Pierce says it will not be better if you go fossil fuel. Unfortunately, I'm not an economist. I'm just a simple country reporter, so I'm really not sure. But we know that, so over the past month or so, Shulman has reiterated his support for getting rid of fossil fuels and he's been receiving pushback from groups such as the VSEA, the Vermont NEA, the local AFL-CIO. All these labor organizations saying, hey, don't do this. So on Tuesday, Shulman met with the pension board to plead his case, and right now, as we speak on the House floor, lawmakers are debating a resolution, which the language of it calls for the state to divest from fossil fuels. However, it is facing amendments from Republican lawmakers, Patty Comline out of Dorset and Job Tate out of Killington Menden, who, and these folks are saying, hey, let's just not, it's not our place to tell these folks what they should be doing with their investments. And so that's the argument that's happening right now on the floor as we speak. All right. The other real big story of the week was pot in the Senate. The Senate voted this week to advance it to the House. The final vote came on a 17 to 12 roll call. It picked up one vote from the previous day. We know from speaking with House Speaker, Jack Smith, that it faces a very tall task. So how big of an accomplishment was it to clear the Senate and what still lies ahead in terms of challenges? Well, it was certainly something to clear up through the Senate. It went through at least three committees, beginning with Senate Judiciary, which was chaired by Democratic Senator Dick Sears out of Bennington, who came into this very much a skeptic. He agreed to go ahead and let the issue come before his committee. However, he was certainly not in favor of legalization when this began in January. However, after taking a lot of testimony for about a month and then doing a series of forums around the state, he became convinced that it was better than the current system. And so this bill wound its way out of his committee into Senate Finance, which figured out the money that needed to be spent and then into Senate appropriations where actually two members of that committee voted in favor of it just to get it out of committee knowing that they were not gonna vote for it on the floor. And so Senator Sears really said, it really shows the lack of an obstructionist ethos over on the Senate side that these folks would go ahead and not just allow this to die in committee. And so whether that's gonna happen over on the House side is really uncertain. There are folks who, I haven't counted the votes, but they're saying that it's pretty difficult to get it out of the House Judiciary. However, that's gonna come up maybe three weeks from now. So that's certainly a lot of time for people to have their arms twisted. Yeah, the conventional wisdom is that Governor Shumlin, a former Senator, the former pro tem had very strong relationships in the Senate folks like Dick Sears who would help him carry it across the finish line. Those relationships don't really exist in the House for him. And it's not really clear whether anybody has enough sway to move the needle enough to get it through. So we'll follow that up after the town meeting break week next week and chat more about it then. And also this week, the governor pulled together a hastily called press conference on Thursday to announce that five wells, five private wells in North Bennington, Vermont, tested positive for a chemical known as PFOA. It's the same chemical that was found in nearby Hussig Falls, New York that allegedly came from a company called St. Cobain who ran Chemfab factories in the early 2000s in both Hussig Falls and North Bennington. We don't know a whole lot about the extent of the contamination yet. What we do know is that the five private wells tested positive, the public water system, unlike Hussig Falls, did not test positive and the company has agreed to provide bottled water and some filtration systems for folks impacted by this. We expect the governor's office to provide more information as this moves forward and as they find out the extent of the contamination issue. So that's something we'll be following up on next week. Very good and that's actually from your neck of the woods, right Neil? It is from my neck of the woods. The factory was situated along the Walloomsack River, a place where I've spent a lot of time fishing and actually eating some of the fish out of that river. That's lovely. I have unique interest in finding out the extent of contamination in that neck of the woods and one of the homes, I believe one of the homes that tested positive was from one of my best friends growing up where we spent quite a bit of time hanging out drinking the water and playing in the river. So we'll see how that one turns out. For now we know Josh has got to get up to some debate in the Senate, so we'll be right back with Dave Graham from the Associated Press. Thank you. Welcome back to Capital Beat. Joining me now is Dave Graham from the Associated Press, longtime State House reporter and observer. Welcome to the show. Nice to be here Neil. Your first appearance. That is true. On our very fancy show. Uh huh. So we are halfway through this session. You've been doing this for a long time. Anything stick out at you as different or odd or out of place so far this year? Well one thing that's a little unusual is that we have a governor who's in his last term this session and I think we may see some of that play out in terms of you know the question is does he have any degree of reduced cloud as sort of a you know semi lame duck or whatever. And he's pushing hard for passage of a bill calling for legalization of marijuana. He was able to cajole some senators into coming around and voting with him on that. And the question now is whether he's gonna have any kind of similar clout in the house. I think interestingly enough I was speaking with Sarah Copeland-Hanses, the house majority leader, one of the senior Democrats earlier in the week about what might happen in the house. There's a lot of sort of sense that the house is gonna be cooler to this legalization idea than the Senate has been. And she said that she's basically asking her caucus members to go home to their districts over the town meeting break next week and that she put it in gauge with their neighbors and find out what folks are thinking and want to see happen. And you know I imagine that some of the advocates supporting marijuana legalization are probably doing some grassroots work right now to try to get folks to go to their town meetings and talk to their state reps and say, let's go ahead and do this. And because obviously there is some trepidation about this among a lot of house members as well as among some senators as well. But it seems like a higher percentage of house members might be in that camp right now. So we'll see. A lot has been made about, excuse me, the governor's relationships in the Senate. Is there anyone in the house that sort of sticks out to you as a potential ally for the governor in this battle that's about to commence here? Well, I think a key, if not the key person here is gonna end up being the speaker. And the governor and the speaker have worked closely together for years now. And the speaker has a great deal of clout obviously in the house. And I think that it's entirely possible. You know, he talks about how he's a supporter in principle of the legalization idea. He has some questions about it, including things like how do we ensure that there's a way to guard against impaired driving? You know, the police have talked about developing some kind of a new technology, a sort of analog to the breathalyzer that they use with drunken driving. And whether that's gonna be coming along soon enough to make people comfortable that Vermont can sort of guard against stone driving in the same way that it guards against drunken driving is a question. And that's obviously been a question in the speaker's mind. As well as issues like are we really going to be able to legalize this marijuana for adults and not sort of enhance teenagers' access to it? And the, but if he's genuine and ends up being strongly supportive of this, you know, I'm reminded last year there was a measure that came out very late in the session to remove the philosophical exemption for parents who didn't want to get their kids fully vaccinated. And that sort of materialized the first in the Senate about three weeks before the end of the session. And then it got through the house before the session was over. Now that's obviously a big change in Vermont law to remove that philosophical exemption. There was a lot of controversy about it and actually the legislature tried and did not do that a couple of years earlier. So, you know, this is also a pretty controversial measure this idea of legalizing marijuana, obviously. And, but I think the vaccination debate sort of shows us a model of the way that the house can turn pretty quickly if it wants to. And if the speaker wants it to. And so, you know, that's still, I think it's still an open question and a possibility. Okay. 2010 was the last time we had a governor who was on his way out. Jim Douglas, his portrait is actually staring at me in the hole over there. Do you see any similarities between that year and the year we're in now with Governor Shumlin on his way out? Well, there is a fairly significant difference which is that, you know, Governor Douglas was dealing with a strongly democratic legislature, you know, opposite party legislature and Governor Shumlin is dealing with a legislature of his own party, although the legislature frequently wants to sort of flex its muscles and demonstrate its independence from any governor of any party. And they've done that a few times with Shumlin. They have and, you know, and I think that factor may weigh in a little bit, for instance, in the marijuana debate as well. I think, you know, one of the interesting issues you mentioned divestment from fossil fuel companies and the governor has been pushing that hard as if that's sort of a marquee issue for him for this session. And, you know, it appears that he may not, he likely won't get a bill from the legislature moving in that direction, although he may get a resolution which is obviously non-binding. And even the resolution essentially leaves the decision, it kind of sides with the state treasurer, Beth Pierce, who's been pushing to have the decision left up to the board that oversees the state's pension fund investments. So, you know, I think there are similarities in the sense that, you know, between 2010 and 2016, in the sense that the legislature is frequently interested in asserting its independence. There also was, back in 2010 even, I think even more strained relations between the legislature and the governor because just the previous year in 2009, the legislature had overridden the governor's budget and also the governor's veto of a bill which ends up allowing same-sex marriage in Vermont. Now obviously same-sex marriage since last year's Supreme Court decision is allowed nationwide, but at the time it was a very hot issue still around the country and it came down to, you know, the House leadership needed to round up the last one or two votes in order to override the governor's veto, which the House managed to do. The governor didn't really respond with any degree of anger or whatever about that as much as he sort of, I think, pretty much shrugged it off and said, well, that's the way it goes. The budget veto I think really did leave a lot of bitterness or the budget veto override, I should say, left a lot of bitterness and there is still some people on the Republican side today pointing to that moment as turning Vermont. Right, the turning point in our finances. In our troubled finances. And so, you know, I think some of that kind of tension is not in play this year as much as just the general legislative assertiveness. Okay. What should we be looking for in the second half of this 2016 session here? Any surprises? Well, you know, I do think it's probably the most interesting issue right now is will the advocates muster the advocates for marijuana legalization muster the support in the House? Will the governor muster the support in the House?  Otherwise, it's, you know, aside from this divestment thing in marijuana legalization, I think it's really been a kind of a slow session. Yeah. You know, in terms of- It seems slow. In terms of any real hot issues. And so obviously there will be the annual budget dance as things wind down, but other than that, you know, I don't really see any marquee issues coming down the pipe right now. All right. Dave Graham from the Associated Press. Thanks so much for joining me. Glad to be here. Thanks. And that's a wrap for us this week on Capitol Beats. We will be off next week as the legislature is not in session for the town meeting break, but we will be back the following week. So join us then. Thanks again.


So first and foremost, I'm sure everyone in here knows Bernay Brown. And if you don't, you should look up their TED Talk about vulnerability. It changed my life. It's a 10-minute clip on YouTube for free. And I really connected with this. Specifically, connection is why we're here. Because a lot of how I have been essentially living my life is through the internet. So Instagram, Facebook, just that community in itself has been really powerful for me. And thus, bringing me here. And maybe some of you follow me online, too. So quick thing about what I do. I do a lot of textual work. So initially, how I started my work publicly and posting on Instagram is actually through sheer fate, I guess. I started anti-depressants.  And so I just started drawing. I couldn't stop. I regulated my pill cycle with my drawing cycle. So this is kind of how it's progressed. I don't think I need a microphone, so whatever. Oh, I do need a microphone. OK, is this better? All right. So anyways, I've been doing a lot of work. I draw every day. My hand hurts. But it's kind of how I get through life. And I'm sure everyone copes with whatever they need to get through with their life. I just share it online. And so I post it on Instagram, asking for questions. And here I got some. Does something inspire the organic shapes first, or do they come as you go? And for me, when I work, I really think of myself internally. And that's a lot of movement. Even though I don't physically move a lot, I have a lot going on inside. I'm a scorpion moon, if that means anything to anyone. And everyone has feelings. So this is kind of how my work grows, I guess. It's a little chart of why I do the things that I do. And so as you can see, I have things that inspire me. And also, the way that I was brought up as queer and Korean American had really shaped the way that I perceive my work and how other people perceive me. And it's kind of weird because lately people have been meeting me in person. And they think I'm a white cis straight dude, which is really interesting because I don't hide my identity. But I definitely feel like I post photos of myself. And so it's really interesting to think about the way that the public perceives your work based on gender-specific or non-gender-specific. For my case, I like being fluid. And I don't like this idea of binary. Anyways, I hope that explains something. If you're looking at me and you're like, why is that person Asian and not white? So here's the next question from two different other people. Your style is distinctive. Has it always been this way? And if not, how do you think it has evolved? See evolving in the future? Like I said, it started with being really depressed. And so I just kind of drew. Our therapy is really a thing that I believe in. And I also believe in doing projects. And one of the projects I did was Yoko Ono. I illustrated her Twitter tweets for 365 days consecutively.  And yeah. So how it's evolved. It's gotten a lot bigger. I think initially I was really, really timid. I wanted to hide in my sketchbook or I didn't think people would actually want to see my work. And the more I shared with people online, it built a little bit of insurance for me that I'm like, wow, I'm not alone. I'm not this random queer person that's just posting photos. I started getting commission work. So this is actually one of the commission murals that I did in Culver City in California. And so things are getting bigger. I work at a coffee shop. I started doing murals there. And then I started ended up getting gallery shows, things like that. And so this is how it's connected to the Lady Gaga Bowie costume gig. Is I got the opportunity to illustrate on her dancer's costumes for the Grammys. And that's where connection comes in, right? Cause, you know, you gotta stay connected with people to get things like that. So I just had a friend in college and he's been following my work and the way that a lot of people have been following my work is through Instagram. And it's a really, it was a really amazing experience. And I also really took a lesson from it and kind of realized that as long as you stay vulnerable and kind of show up for yourself and you can show up for yourself through like posting maybe even anonymously for a little bit that people will find value. And through, you know, that kind of practice you can find value in yourself and your own work. This is I think the last question. Who are some of your biggest artistic influences? Obviously a lot of women of color, Yoko Ono, Yaya Kusama, Ruth Sala and Agnes Martin who is a white, she was in the class of lesbian. And all these people have one thing in common is that they diligently worked on their craft and you can see through their like work and through their lifestyle and everything that they just obsessed over creating and they weren't afraid to show it. And these people are the pioneers of I think women of color and women artists who were kind of shunned in the past and now there's so many of us and queers and people of color that are actually speaking up about their work. So I feel grateful for that. And okay, nevermind, this is my last question. How do you challenge yourself as an artist to stave off getting stale art block? And I don't have a question, I don't have an answer for that. I just think you just kind of have to do what you gotta do and you take breaks. I take a lot of breaks and I think of art practice making life where you gotta take care of yourself and once in a while you don't have to make work and just go back at it and just obviously just be diligent. So that's the end, yeah. Bye.


In the last video, I told you guys 20,000 likes and I'll do one punch man week And what do you know 25,000 likes in less than three hours? That's for every single one of you.       Oh my son. Why are you looking down like that, bro? Is he like a metal dick?  Yeah, I've done this. Whoo Ranks get on there. No, I mean one night.   Don't trust anybody with a suit on, and a guy that doesn't shave. They're like, you may be a terrorist, but at least you were honest about it, that's it man. Terrorists just admit it. You might be accepted. Oh, daddy's going up to the office to talk to the principal, okay?   Are those titties? Is that the casting couch? You know you know. Oh that's a villain. He's that villain, anime hair. Don't trust anybody with blue hair. Girls, guys, whatever, don't. They're crazy, bro. And if you have blue hair, I apologize, but I bet you are crazy. I can't believe we're looking at Satama and Genos. I am Satama in class, chewing gum, sitting like that with a titty shirt on. Oh, he lost his eyes.   You don't want to upset daddy.      Oh, this is why I love this show. The normal Monday morning. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Is that ball sack kid going up? He's ball sack man now. No way. Bro, ball sack kid comes back. There's no telling what I might do on this camera. I'm going to get banned. The excitement level is going to be too much for YouTube. I don't trust anybody with a green eye. No way. I don't trust anybody with glasses either. You wearing glasses watching my video right now? I don't trust you.  I got to pick my nose right now.  It's been dying the whole video. Sometimes you just need a good nose. What's with the faces in the show? Looking at God in his mind right now. Just overwhelmed and stressed out. It just makes me feel like I'm God at times. If he could have troubling thoughts like this and stress out, I can too. Beautiful. It's too quiet. What's coming up to him right now? Guys, what's coming up to him right now? I hear footsteps. Oh, okay. I thought it was going to be like rat man or something. Like a rat with a gold chain.  It's beautiful. I need a title screen like that. Somebody make a title screen for me. One punch, man. Bro, I'll do anything for you if you do that for me. Hi. Bro, when I go to Japan, I can't wait to do that all the time. Hi. Hi. Yeah, man, we need some names. On cyborg. Cap caked baldy.  We're going to see a 1v1?  Bro, imagine the bugs on the floor right now. They're just living their lives. They're collecting rocks to build their own house.   There goes your life.  There could have been a local bird. Look at this. Yo.  Nani? I'm so exaggerated. Like, I swear to God, this show is literally my reaction channel. If my reaction channel was written into an anime, this would be it. I don't know what to say. You know when you just talk and a different language comes out? I think I just spoke Dothraki. Yo, give it up to this music, dude.   What was that sound? There ain't no rules on the battlefield. I forgot about this. Thank God you brought it back.  It's over. What is DH? He looks like a seven. Dude, that was sick! Oh my God! You don't like Udon? You don't like Udon? See, I told you, bro. Blue hair, don't trust him. I don't trust that either. Bro, where's Bicycle, man? I wanna bully him. Low on funds.  Oh my God, bro, I would watch like a mukbang channel from them. Oh, the man that can eat. That's what we need in this world.     I don't trust anybody with a necklace. Bro, look at his animation.   He's way too pretty. I don't trust him. Nobody that looks that good could be trusted, okay? Metal liars. Done already? Genos?  The way she screamed, she's probably a freak. I'm not gonna lie, so I might go with her. Oh no! Sataba's gonna be jealous!  Horseback riding, shotgun holding music playing right now. If he came to Tatakai, get on with it, he said. Told you I don't trust him. I told you guys, blue hair. Ain't eyes. A car. Oh no. Oh no! I love that we just accept it. Again, goodbye. Oh, I feel bad for him! Oh, look at that symbolism right there. With the two poles, and them walking different directions. I notice this stuff. Damn. My heart broke. Something's just gonna happen, bro. How about you jump?  Yes! I hope so! Dude, pack this house! Yeah, I don't trust anybody. That is it named Satama and Genos. Everybody else I don't trust. Blue hair, don't trust. Glasses, don't trust. Somebody with a car, I don't trust. If you got blue hair, that means you're too creative.  Glasses, that means you want to see things. Meaning you want to see other people. That's also cheating. And a car, do I even have to say it, guys? With a car, somebody could just drive off to somebody else and cheat on you. That's why I don't trust those three things. Anyways, one punch man week continues tomorrow.