Anova Hou, University of British Columbia | OSS North America 2023

This is techstrong tv. Welcome back to the Open Source Summit. We're here in Vancouver and we're checking out this new cyber scape zine, which has been created by our lovely guest here who is a student from the University of British Columbia.

She's created this in collaboration with the Lennox Foundation, and I'm hoping you'll give us the backstory. But as you can see, it has some lovely text in here that's all about cybersecurity and it kind of tells a narrative in its own right. Inova, walk us through this a little bit.

Yeah, For sure. So my initial idea for the zine was inspired by zine culture in Vancouver and also the data from, uh, the impact of media on cybersecurity. Um, so I can walk through a little bit of, um, just the visuals and also the information that's displayed in the zine.

Um, so zine culture is very, um, community driven and grassroots and I wanted to come and display information that is impactful and relating to how to get involved in the open s ssf community and cybersecurity in a way that was accessible and also beautiful. Um, so yeah, these are just a few of the quotes from people in the community and also data visualizations on some key vulnerabilities and, um, media responses to these vulnerabilities. So I grew up reading factual physical newspapers and magazines back in the day, like Newsweek and Time, and then everything went digital, so this is printed.

I was like, wow, I haven't held something actually like this till I read in quite some time. Is this making a comeback as a format or what's going on here? I'd love for it to make a comeback as a format.

I also love having something to hold and give to people. Um, I feel like so much of information is online and shared through the internet. It's really hard to come by something like physical and flippable.

Um, and I thought that was something different and interesting to bring to a conference, uh, about technology and the internet. Of course, What's old is amazingly new again. Yeah.

Um, you're gonna do these at different conferences as they go along. Are they all gonna be on security, you're gonna have different topics or how's this gonna play out? Yeah, I'd love for this to evolve with the industry and I think having the community inform what topics are going to be discussed is something I'd love to explore.

So evolving with the trends of the community and touching on different topics, whether it be art and ai, um, security or even like memory safety and languages, those are all topics I want the community to inform. Um, so yeah, very community driven and always open sort of to feedback from everyone. Yeah.

How did you get involved in this project and what's your background and the university has something to do with this, kind of walk us through that. Yeah, For sure. Um, so I can maybe flip to Sure.

Some, some pages that I worked on. So here's a, a good, a good spread of the art that I made. Um, my background is in computer science and business and I've also been an artist for um, eight years.

So it's definitely informed my work and also how I interact with cybersecurity and this space. My inspiration was taking a data set and visualizing it in a new way using an open JS framework. Um, and it was actually my first sort of exposure to open source.

So I am a new member to this community and it's been a very incredible and educational experience so far. Um, yeah, but my interaction with the zine is the art and the idea of it. So I created all the visualizations, the code and also invited community members, um, to join and collaborate with me and I'm very thankful for all of that.

What was your impressions of the event so far over the last couple of days? Is there anything that kinda leapt out at you and you went, wow, that was fun, or I didn't expect that, or conversely things that maybe we should be thinking about that we're not? Yeah, for sure.

Um, it's definitely my first open source summit and conference of this nature. I think what has struck me as most interesting is how diverse and widespread the topics are and the people here are. And I think that's a very impactful and beautiful thing that I want to highlight in my further work, whether it through, uh, be through zines or education work, um, and just working with all the people of all different trades and interests.

Um, something I do want people to think about more or maybe what I've noticed is the lack of, um, certain kinds of thinking or visualizations in different spaces. Um, so thinking about maybe older ideas or past data in a way that is novel and thinking about, for example, media and large vulnerabilities and how they relate in something in a way that is more, um, aesthetic or creatively focused could lead us to even technical and business conclusions that we haven't really thought of before. If I stick a couple of subjects together, tangentially, maybe some greater truth will emerge.

Exactly. You have a background in computer science and I don't think it would be shock anybody if I told them that the number of people here who are under 30 is probably relatively small. Um, what is it gonna take to get more of the cool kids involved in this kind of program and hang, you know, in in open source in Lennox?

Cuz you know, if we don't get the kids involved, the whole thing will start to just fade away. Yeah, I've definitely noticed that, but I would like to say that the coolest kids are here. Um, Yeah.

But I think getting kind of intergenerational or cross-disciplinary collaboration discussion, conversations going is really important. Also, an inspiration of creating this scene and getting people talking in a medium that is, you know, print and not necessarily the newest communication technologies or, uh, siloed spaces on different platforms, um, or websites that are hard to break out of or share in a way that includes everyone. Um, so getting people involved, doing something that is cool and just maybe is different and looks beautiful or looks interesting in a new way.

Um, I think that could bring more people in. And also getting them involved in something that is tangible and they can see their contributions, their work recognized, um, in a new platform, a new format, um, zine and yeah, getting people just interested and excited. I think.

Do we need to reach out more at the university level or is it more grassroots than that, do you think over time in terms of how we build those engagements? Cause I think sometimes we talk, uh, organization to organization, but maybe it's just about the people. Yeah, I think the people, uh, for sure.

And when we talk about grassroots, I'd love to see, um, education resources and kind of involvement like this project in places that aren't traditionally technical. Um, so I'd love to see it in like museums, art galleries, cafe across street from the convention center, um, universities and also corporate entities, open source, um, all working together in a way that isn't owned by a specific entity, but rather by the people. Um, I think there's a lot of work to be done and a lot of different avenues and collaboration kind of techniques that could be further explored.

Um, Yeah. And, and is that an event or does it really need to be a lifestyle? Because, you know, the places that you're describing are things we go to all the time, so do we need to maybe embed that a little bit more in the fabric of what we do every day versus make it a thing that we're gonna have an event this time next year on this day?

Everybody be here? Yeah, for sure. I think there's definitely some challenges with having a huge event be kind of the only time we're all together and talking about, uh, situations.

Whereas, um, maybe in a normal day we're all sort of working in separate spaces and not really talking and interacting together to create something new, um, and collaborative. But I think yes, a lifestyle shift or even just a mindset, mindset shift of how can I look at this in a new way? How can I work with someone who has a completely different background that I would not maybe normally interact with in a day-to-day, but together having different, uh, perspectives and different ways of looking at a problem, um, how can we implement that in our everyday lives?

All right, folks. The kids wanna play, but we gotta make it fun and maybe we gotta think about how we're gonna go doing that. Nova, thanks for being on the show.

All right, thank you so much. All right. And we'll be back in a minute.