In the last 12 months, Ed Skoudis has been on a tear adding new automation features to his office. Some are practical, others are whimsical and weird. All of them provided valuable learning opportunities that Ed would love to share. This talk will describe some of the new technologies he’s been experimenting with and the lessons he’s learned, including: - Alexa versus Siri: Development tips for each environment and how to make them work together - Amazon Voice Services: High-quality, real-time, cloud-based voice synthesis for free - The Raspberry Pi Zero as a development platform - The Intel NUC as a development platform - Integrating animatronic toys into your ecosystem: How creepy is too creepy? - Do’s and don’ts of home Tesla coils, Geissler tubes, and other high-voltage apparatus - Tips for keeping your mind fresh with new dev projects - Security implications of all of this stuff - Where is this all headed? When does Skynet reveal its big plan? This lively talk will cover a lot of ground, but also include specific, practical advice for keeping your technical skills sharp while having fun. Bio: Ed Skoudis is the founder of Counter Hack, an innovative organization that designs, builds, and operates popular infosec challenges and simulations including CyberCity, NetWars, Cyber Quests, and Cyber Foundations. As director of the CyberCity project, Ed oversees the development of missions which help train cyber warriors in how to defend the kinetic assets of a physical, miniaturized city. Ed's expertise includes hacker attacks and defenses, incident response, and malware analysis, with over fifteen years of experience in information security. Ed authored and regularly teaches the SANS courses on network penetration testing (Security 560) and incident response (Security 504), helping over three thousand information security professionals each year improve their skills and abilities to defend their networks. He has performed numerous security assessments; conducted exhaustive anti-virus, anti-spyware, Virtual Machine, and IPS research; and responded to computer attacks for clients in government, military, financial, high technology, healthcare, and other industries. Previously, Ed served as a security consultant with InGuardians, International Network Services (INS), Global Integrity, Predictive Systems, SAIC, and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore). Ed also blogs about command line tips and penetration testing.