When you're in the vendor space, something you tend to see, as your average run of the mill employee, is rivalry between your competitors. I think this is normal... you have to compete. After all, you come head to head in evals and you are vying for business. That doesn't mean that you have to hate each other; it's like in hockey... you hit the other team hard over three periods, but at the end of it all you go out for a beer. This is something that I haven't really seen in the vendor space... I've seen companies in adjacent spaces get along well, but generally competitors, in my experience, don't seem to.

Blackhat changed all that for me... I was acutally quite impressed, so much so that I spent some time discussing the outcome with TK (our CTO), regarding how it was nice to finally see that "hockey attitude" (although, at the time we didn't call it the "hockey attitude") in our space. In fact the nCircle VERT members that were down there spent a good deal of their time with a few guys from a competing company, including a private party on them. I was actually surprised at first, at the bonds that were formed but in a way this related back to my previous post (Being a Research Engineer at a Blackhat Booth). With groups like Sales or Marketing, they can afford to, and in some cases need to, see the competitor as the enemy but with security researchers, consultants and pen testers... we're like the guys on the ice. We're doing what we do for the love of the game and while we can't share our play book, we can share a beer and discuss the basics... that knowledge that is familiar to everyone.

Beyond spending some time together, and sharing a few drinks, there were a few things that really impressed me. An nCircle intern decided to pay his own way down to Vegas for DEFCON but ended up showing up a day early. He didn't have a place to stay, so he was offered a couch in Chad's suite... that's right, a competitor offered up a room. On top of that he provided his free DEFCON ticket (which is included in some, but not all, BH registrations) since he knew he wouldn't be around to attend. Our intern was travelling on his own dime. A hotel room in Vegas for the night, and a ticket to DEFCON... that was a huge savings to him.

The next time I was really impressed involved another person without a free DEFCON ticket and, at the time, I happened to be talking to Alan Shimel. I mentioned this, and he apologized for not having one to share (since he wouldn't be around for DEFCON) but he also went and checked with the other people at his booth to see if anyone had an extra that they wouldn't be using.

The last occurance involved people who aren't competitors, but researchers in a seperate vendor space. We left for the flight back to Toronto Sunday afternoon, but our intern, who was taking advantage of a seat sale, wasn't flying back until Monday. I sent a text to Mike and asked if he could put up the intern for the night, and he was able to do so, saving our intern the cost of a hotel room.

To me, all of these are examples of going above and beyond what one would expect from a competitor but chalk this up to one more thing that I learned at Blackhat. We're all in this to learn. In the end it doesn't matter if you're learning from your colleagues within your company, or from others in the industry... we're all just in it to learn. I understand that there are some companies that don't feel this way... that take more of an isolationist approach. As far as I know SecTOR will be the next big con I attend... so to all the companies in our space, and all people in the research community, come and track me down. We're at a Con... it's time to put the gloves away and grab a beer together until the next time our two teams step out on the ice.