Veteran podcasters discuss podcasting's impact on cybersecurity. They share insights on audio quality, unique voices, and podcasting as a communication and educational tool.
Guest:
Tom Eston, Host, The Shared Security Show Podcast [@SharedSec]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomeston/
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/agent0x0
The Shared Security Show | https://sharedsecurity.net/your-hosts/
Hosts:
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast [@RedefiningCyber]
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/sean-martin
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Episode Introduction
Welcome back to Conversations about Podcasting, the show where we dive into the world of podcasting, sharing tips, experiences, and stories from fellow podcasters. In today's episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Tom Eston, the founder and host of the Shared Security Show, who's been in the podcasting game for 14 years. Alongside him, we have our very own Marco Ciappelli and Sean Martin, who share their insights from their years of experience as well.
Throughout this episode, we discuss the evolution of podcasting, its impact on careers and personal growth, and the importance of audio quality and technology. Tom shares his journey from starting a podcast focused on social media security to covering a wide range of cybersecurity and privacy topics. Despite the changing landscape, the core concerns around people's data and security remain the same.
We also delve into the pros and cons of content creation, discussing how the democratization of podcasting has given more people a voice but can sometimes lead to controversies. Tom emphasizes the importance of featuring lesser-known voices with interesting perspectives in the industry.
Regarding audio quality, Tom, an audio nerd himself, stresses its importance in retaining listeners. He shares tips on how to improve audio quality, from choosing the right gear to setting up the recording environment. Preparing interviewees and co-hosts with reminders about quiet spaces and wearing headphones can go a long way in ensuring a smooth listening experience for the audience.
As podcasting continues to evolve, the importance of connecting with and educating listeners remains at its core. We hope this episode encourages aspiring podcasters to join the conversation and share their unique perspectives with the world.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with your friends, subscribing to our podcast, and heading over to our YouTube channel to check out more content. Let's continue the conversation and grow together in the world of podcasting. Happy listening!
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Resources
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For more podcast stories from Audio Signals:
https://www.itspmagazine.com/audio-signals
Watch the video version on-demand on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYu0psdcllS0aVY7qlwHxX3uiN7tqqsy
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording as errors may exist. At this time we provide it “as it is” and we hope it can be useful for our audience.
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SPEAKERS
Marco Ciappelli, Sean Martin , Tom Eston
Marco Ciappelli 00:01
And here we go. Sean, you join me today. That's great. Yeah,
Sean Martin 00:05
I ditched my parka and joined you on audio signal or WhatsApp a long time.
Marco Ciappelli 00:11
Very very good. And for people wondering what
Sean Martin 00:15
the parka is that I had my parka hat on I don't have the jacket is just…
Marco Ciappelli 00:19
…you just walking around the house with a parka? Yeah, if you keep your head warm, I think you're fine. Now for those listening to the podcast we're also on video you can join us on our YouTube channel and Sean is was it should look like a bear. So we were wondering if it was in the tundra somewhere in Patagonia and and the other person you see if you're watching the video is Tom Eston. Tom, how are you?
Tom Eston 00:53
Okay, I'm great. Great to be on the show with you guys. So excited.
Marco Ciappelli 00:57
We are excited. And this is number three, episode number three of these kind of like passion. I don't know, work of passion that I had an idea of talking with other podcasters. You know, what's the experience, why we do what we do. We can dig into some of the tech some tips and advice from people that have been doing it for for a while. And even for people that just get started and they can tell me why they're doing it or so. So Shawn and I we've been doing this for a while. But, Tom, you've been doing it for longer than the actual podcasting because we started as a written publication. And we're like, Yeah, let's do podcast. So 14 years of
Tom Eston 01:42
podcast 18 years. Yeah, it's been a long labor of love. As I, as I mentioned to you earlier, it's been great, honestly, like I've, I look back and think about, like what the podcasting experience has given to me. And I think it's just so much right, just from meeting new people and friends and people in the industry. But, you know, it's also benefited my career as well, because I don't think I would be where I'm at in my career if it wasn't for the podcasts that I have.
Marco Ciappelli 02:13
And that's absolutely true. And this is exactly why we're talking about this. So Sean, how long have you been podcasting?
Sean Martin 02:19
Was it four or five years now? recording ouraudio stuff? I've been writing writing stuff for years, probably half, as long as Tom has been doing podcasts, I think I've been writing maybe even longer than that. But building products before that in cybersecurity. And it's to your point, Tom, I think I'm not out to grow my personal brand, necessarily, but understanding the tech space is important to me. And one, I get to kind of poke at people and get them to share some of the things that they know that I don't. Or maybe I know enough to be dangerous. But then I also learned probably five times as much as I'm having these conversations. And so it's definitely helped in my career, whatever my career is, I have no idea. Now that I'm growing up, I have no idea. Yeah, but I I've packed my brain full of interesting things that come come to be fruitful every now and then. So.
Marco Ciappelli 03:26
So Tom, let me let me start with this little bit about yourself, not just the podcast, you know, who is Tom? And? And also, I'm curious, do you just do podcasts in about cybersecurity, or sometimes you just go on: I want to talk about something else…because I do that. That's why we have so many differentiate. I just can't talk about the same thing all the time.
Tom Eston 03:49
Yeah, these are great questions. Great question. So So my name is Tom Astin, I'm the founder and host of the shared security show. been doing this for 14 years. A little bit of a backstory of the podcast, it used to be called the Social Media Security Podcast back in 2009. When we started this from a DEF CON talk that I gave with my now co host, Kevin Johnson on the security of social networks. And I mean, if you guys remember back then in like, 2008 2009, like social media was like the new thing. I mean, all there was was what MySpace, right? And Facebook was new Twitter was new. And so I did a lot of research at the time on security and privacy around social networks. And that's kind of how the podcast started where we were specifically talking about and interviewing people that were in the social media space that were doing interesting research, about vulnerabilities and exploits and all kinds of things. And then over the years, we just started to your point we started talking about other things outside of social media, privacy issues, security vulnerabilities, things in the news that were happening. And so it became more of a general podcast where, you know, today we're talking about really anything related to cybersecurity and privacy. And we're interviewing people that are in the industry, and sometimes people outside of the industry to kind of get their perspective on, you know, how do you view security? And how do you view privacy. And it's been an interesting journey. So. And then besides that, my day job is I'm currently at Bishop Fox, where I'm the EVP of consulting so I run our consulting practices for the company. And I've been there for about three years. But before that, I was at Veracode. I was leading one of their pen test teams, and I've had various management positions. But as well, as a hacker, I've been a hacker my whole life, I was a pen tester, I did all the fun stuff. And now I get to manage people, which is also fun. It's just a little bit different.
Marco Ciappelli 05:53
So different kind of hacking.
Tom Eston 05:57
Hacking people, yeah. Which I think is a lot more challenging than the technical side. For sure.
Sean Martin 06:06
So Tom, I'm interested. I mean, social media hacking and talking about that. You talked about bringing security people on, you talked about bringing industry people on? How have the obviously you branched out beyond just social media security, but yeah, how have the conversations changed? And more specifically, I think, what I'm trying to understand, is your view on how aware are people generally with the concept of security and privacy? And that, and how is that awareness? Or maybe still lack of, if that's the case, change the conversation or views?
Tom Eston 06:49
That's a really interesting question. And I, my gut reaction to that is that it hasn't changed much from when I talked to people in 2009, compared to today, we're still talking about the same issues. And they have the same concerns. They're just maybe a little bit more or a different kinds of contexts to what we're talking about. Like more recently, everyone's blowing up over AI and chat GPT. And like, oh, with all the privacy security current soon, so with that, and AI and things like that. But ultimately, that's still the same conversation at the end of the day that we're having back in 2009, with whatever was new that was coming out, like social media, people were freaking out over that. And as we've seen, that evolve and change. With the technology, the core concerns of it habits, right, they're still people's data we're talking about, there's still the, the human side of the equation that we're still talking about, and the attackers haven't changed at all. They're still trying to steal data, they're still trying to make money. And we haven't really solved that problem. And I don't know if we'll ever solve that problem in security. You know, we can have all these new gadgets and new tech and you know, Blinky boxes, right? Like, we've always talked about that do these amazing things. But at the end of the day, security is a people problem. And that has always been kind of a focus of my conversations with people is how do we address the people problem? And how do we all get better at security and communicating with each other and those types of things?
Marco Ciappelli 08:26
So let's talk about that. And let's go back into the podcast enroll in all of this, right? I mean, I've studied social media, but I studied media before social media and, and what podcasts in the digital era has been given to people including YouTube content creation, everybody become a content creator. And that's a good thing. And it's also a really bad thing. And I've seen that right. So let's talk about the good thing. And the good thing is that everybody that wants to make a point wants to participate into the conversation can do that, of course you can do have been a guest or which is a lot easier on my opinion. And you can do it in been in been and host and can be a lot of fun. And you can change people mind you can educate you can, you know, share the knowledge. So I love your feedback from someone's been for 14 years doing this, how they how you have seen the the, you know, this scenario, changing the view around your way outside of your window of all these people coming and going starting a podcast dropping the podcast. Is that been a good thing for the industry and also for the podcasting business in general or, or not?
Tom Eston 09:51
Yeah, I think it's been a real positive thing. I mean, like other podcasters I mean, I listened to podcasts, I listened to quite a few podcasts that have really impacted my life in my career. And I know many of them, or I've been able to interview them and have them on my podcast. And we've shared kind of our own experiences. And I think the content creation, like you mentioned, I mean, the more voices that we have, getting out there and talking about the issues that we're dealing with in the industry is a positive thing. On the flip side, I think I've also seen kind of some of the damage that maybe some people in the industry have had a podcast or a YouTube channel as an example, maybe a little more on YouTube, where maybe they're trying to, you know, tear people down, right, or they come out against a certain vendor, or they're spewing complete BS, right, that we all know in the industry. That's not true. That's, you know, it provides them a lot of discredit, but and they stir up controversy that way. So I'm always trying to stay aware of like, okay, who are the controversial people that maybe I don't want to necessarily interview or, you know, not be part of. And so for me, it's about like, who are the important voices, maybe who are the voices that don't get much attention. And I've always kind of gravitated more towards those people that, you know, we don't really know who these people are in the industry, they're not big names. But maybe they should be because of the interesting things that they're talking about that is different. So a lot of the people I've interviewed, I've tried to bring more of those people out of the woodwork, so to speak, and give them kind of more of a platform.
Sean Martin 11:40
No, nice and not want to go. So I like what you said about bringing people in that may not have had a voice elsewhere. And now they have a voice. And I've seen something change over time where well, certainly pre pandemic, not everybody was using some web browser to, to communicate with a team somewhere, right. So now it's almost common that somebody knows how to connect, we still get the odd, I have no idea how to connect to your platform, and then record every podcast. But most of the time people can and so I'm I want to get your perspective on how things have changed in terms of connectivity and equipment and the ability to record high quality because having somebody say something is one thing but to be able to hear them clearly. And use that in a way that's that people want to hear it's not overblown, or I'm saying they are turning up the mic, too. So what are your thoughts? I see. I'm not personally on it right at this moment. But I see we share the same same gear in terms of my kind of oppressor as well. Oh, yes. Yeah. Thoughts on kind of some of the changes there to help make the make the voice? listenable?
Tom Eston 12:56
Yeah, I've got a lot of opinions on that. So I am I am first and foremost, kind of an audio nerd. Like I spend I early on in the podcast, I would spend a lot of time tweaking my audio setup and getting it just right because I I listened to other podcasts about creating podcasts. And they always said, audio quality is number one, like what is the number one thing that people the first 1015 seconds into a podcast, if you've got bad auto audio quality, they're going to unsubscribe, they're not going to finish listening to the podcast. Like it's just a natural thing with people. And I noticed that myself like I pick up a new podcast, the first thing I noticed is the audio, like before I even get into the content. So if I can hook them with like, oh, wow, this sounds really good. They're hopefully going to continue to listen. And I think over the years the the quality question plus the gear and the technology, it's just gotten so much better. I'm a big fan of yours. Dave Jackson, who's he's a big podcaster guy that does a lot of promotion for new people that are getting into the business and you know, I listened to him a lot and like what his advice are, you know, it's more than just a microphone having the best quality microphone. It was you can start with like a cheap Audio Technica, you know, $60 microphones still get really good audio quality, but then do some other things like you know, what kind of room are you in? Like, are you can you you know, narrow down the echoes can you just make little tweaks to improve you know, the quality you know, being in a quiet space is huge right? Turn off the fan. I interview people that where they've got a large humming noise in the back it's like an air conditioner or you know, there's always some kind of noise or even sometimes my co hosts have, you know, other stuff that is in the background that I gotta edit it out and think Have
Marco Ciappelli 14:50
you ever got this 3d printer? Yes,
Tom Eston 14:53
yes, I've had the 3d printer situation. And it's like you As an editor, you're like, audio editor, you're like, oh my gosh, like, I'm gonna spend hours like pulling this stuff out. So, and what I've learned over the years is like, I prep the people that come on the show, right? Like I give them like, here's some reminders, please, you know, quiet space wear headphones. Just simple things, right? Because I think we've all been there, right as podcasters we've interviewed somebody and just had horrible audio quality. And we're trying to do all these things post right to clean it up and make it sound like, somebody doesn't freak out when they're listening. And this is like, wow, that guy's audio is just so bad. Tom's audio is great, but what happened with the guests, and that's all they can think about is the quality of the audio and not the actual good content that this person was talking about. So
Marco Ciappelli 15:51
yeah, you know, you can make a parallel here with what it used to be before we were able to do podcasting remotely. And there are a great platform there you know, I'm not gonna name it but the people that are in the industry they know they can do video and audio. Yeah, high quality nowadays. And before you couldn't, but before this, usually when you hear an interview unless it was a you know, a live connection and it wasn't in a studio. So right go to a talk show. Well, you got people setting miking you up and audio engineer, so sometimes I feel like I don't know, Sean, you probably we've talked about this, people come on, and they think like, oh, I'm on ITSPmagazine I'm gonna sound amazing. Now you're connecting from your computer. I can't. And you would think by now, yeah, you've been on several podcasts to actually understand a list amino, you can't ask people to spend 1000s of dollars. Absolutely. On that, but at least that the minimum. Yeah, the minimum denominator of $60. Mic could
Tom Eston 17:06
could Whoa, yeah.
Marco Ciappelli 17:09
Yeah, yeah. It's only been a $15. Headset.
Tom Eston 17:13
Yes. That's all it really it's all you need. I've had great audio from you know, even iPhone headphones. Right. But you know, better than, you know, the microphone on your computer is not good enough. Like that is just you, if that's the one thing I can tell people, if you're coming on a podcast, just get a basic mic or put, you know, iPhone headphones in or something, it's going to be better quality than your laptop speaker or your, you know, microphone.
Sean Martin 17:40
So, let me let me ask you this. Is it possible to overdo my no Marcos answer on this because early on, we would do a lot of on location podcasts. Namely at RSA and black hat and DEF CON. Yep, we'd bring people together and I have I have an Audio Units that takes eight mic inputs and hook up eight wireless lapel mics and yeah, we'd had off on the show floor and the hallways and and multiple I had giant cameras early on as well, where we recording videos using giant giant cameras with big lenses and everything. Marco was always like it's too much I enjoyed it. There was the there was the you have to lug all this stuff around to capture it all and then to your point on even just the auto audio quality, putting all that together and producing it all
Marco Ciappelli 18:41
that stuff went in Singapore to I remember very well we dragged your backpack. I'm like I'm not carrying that. I'm not carrying that thing.
Sean Martin 18:52
We did some really cool stuff with multiple angle shots and, and and high quality audio because people had mics connected to him but your thoughts on overdoing it? Is it possible to overdo?
Tom Eston 19:05
Absolutely, totally. I can tell you that I've gotten less detailed in my post editing I've kind of after 14 years you kind of learn like what's the fastest way that I can do this to get my podcast out because I have to both edit the audio and the video. I mean I've done things like where you know I was recording my my audio through a mixer to a zoom zoom h4 N basically hand recorder and then I would audit edit the audio off of that. But over time now that I use like we use something like stream yard we use Zen caster very similar. that records the audio of myself and all the guests I literally don't even hardly do any editing anymore. I will actually take the mix and the technology has allowed me to do all the leveling, the noise gating all of that within To the Zen caster app, so that's less post I have to do. And if I have to do any editing, like somebody coughs or something like that, yeah, sure, I'll go in there and edit that out. But um, I cut my post editing time, pretty much in half by accepting maybe a little, you know, noise or, you know, little things that before I was just very anal about, like, I was like, I gotta have perfect audio. And over time, I realized, you can get it good enough, it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. People will still listen, as long as you have good content, but, you know, good audio quality, it varies. According to whoever you ask, right? They're gonna have all a different opinion. And for my audience, at least, you know, they're not all audio files, listening and scrutinizing the, I'm gonna get feedback and like, wow, that audio is kind of off Tom, like, What do you mean, it was off? It's the same, it's always been like, you know, I get more of like, I actually get better feedback of like, hey, it was really interesting guests that you had on? And, you know, to me, that's the feedback I'd rather get.
Marco Ciappelli 21:04
But, you know, I think it's such a, we've gone through the same thing, right? I mean, if your leads come in with a decent setting this, and then all the post production, even when you just upload it to your hosting it already get some kind of, you know, of a leveling, and then you can use, you know, really good, you know, audition or Zen caster, or, I mean, even GarageBand if you can, if you can handle that exactly. Not easy, by the way. Yeah. But I agree, I mean, better to create better content and have a decent amount is what is okay for you? It's gonna be amazing for most people, when you're too much into something. It's kind of like the same thing, Shawn, I know why I asked that, because it wants to hear, you know, that you can't overdo it. But I think you can, I mean, sure, if I'm BBC, and I have, you know, a team of editors and producer and sound engineers, and they're going to put special effects and everything well, great. I'll make a dramatization of every podcast, but
Sean Martin 22:09
our time is. Sorry, I remember back to it may have been one of the first if not the first that that I ever did. And I was really excited. It was a great conversation is about security and privacy in the healthcare space, 10 years ago, whatever, eight years ago when we started. And it was amazing. I mean, it was exactly what I hoped to get in terms of content from a conversation. I got in there and started editing. And like, I don't know, I cut maybe 35 minute, Episode down to 25 minutes, cutting spaces and pauses and things like that. I send it to the guests. They're like,
Tom Eston 22:50
What the hell did you do? This is the same interview. What happened?
Sean Martin 22:54
The same interview? Yeah, sounds really rushed and weird. Yeah. I don't want it to go out. So I turned it into a written piece, capturing the story, which were we started as a written publication. But that's that was the case for me where it was way over done. It didn't sound natural. The guest didn't recognize him. So a huge learning lesson for me. I don't know if you have any, any experiences
Tom Eston 23:20
I do. I do I actually get a few stories. So I mean, I'd like like any podcast has been around for a while we get positive feedback. And sometimes we do get negative feedback. And you know, the negative feedback that I've gotten. I've had one where early on the podcast, somebody commented on Twitter that, you know, your podcast is great, but there's a lot of dead air between you and the CO hosts. And this was before I was really getting into audio editing and things like that. And I it made me realize, like, I listened back to the episode, I'm like, holy crap, there is a lot of dead air. Like, why am I not cutting this out? And I just, it was something I just said, overlooked at the time. And you know, that, for me was good feedback. And like, he was right, I had that dead air, I'm gonna change my editing around that. The other feedback I've gotten is around ad placements. And that's a very controversial one, right? Because we know ads and the sponsors, at least that I have for my show, you know, I support those sponsors. I actually believe in what they do and their products. And so I'm not going to put an ad on my podcast that I don't necessarily believe in like what they do. And so I'm I'm very careful of where I place that ad. And but some people just like, I gotten feedback, like I hate it when you put ads at the beginning of the podcast, I just fast forward through them like Okay, great. I'm glad you do that because at least you're getting to the content and you're still listening to the episode. But I have other people that says Oh, you got to add on your podcasts I'm not gonna listen to you guys. Like why would you put ads it means the sponsored and you know, you're you're being biased right towards your sponsors. And I'm like, No, guys, like I'm just, you know, it's helping pay the bills. Right. And I do believe that content creators should be paid paid for the work that they're doing. Right? It takes a lot of time and effort. And it's not something that's easy to produce. So if you want, you know, I try to support people that I follow on Patreon and others, and I think that's important. So the ad question, I had just gotten some feet, you know, negative feedback about that. So I'm just careful where I placed the ads, but the end of the day, you're not going to make everybody happy, right? It's like, Hey, if you don't like the ads, and don't listen to the podcast, that's fine. But, you know, find me a podcast that that is really good. And you really like it doesn't have ads. There's podcasts,
Marco Ciappelli 25:34
or you're not gonna watch the Superbowl because there are, you're not going to buy the New York Times or any, you know, anything else? Are you going to? Or are you going to pay for the highest pro subscription on Netflix, so you don't get the damn ads? So, I mean, people need to understand that this is, this is a job for a lot of people. And even if it's not a job, as you said, you know, I know how much it costs, you're sitting there, at least what I can see. So just to run that, you know, yeah, somebody's gotta say, Hey, you're doing a good job. You I'm either paying for your product, or I'm gonna have to listen to the so some of
Tom Eston 26:13
the things I've done is like, I've put in side some feedback of like, Could you put in some kind of noise or something. So I know when, like, I have these flames, flames sound that comes in that, you know, in the mid roll, right? To notify somebody, Hey, an ADS coming. And hey, if you're gonna fast forward, it great. Just hit the 30 seconds or 20 seconds skip button, and that's fine. You're back to the show. But I always try to, you know, at least let my listeners know that, hey, we've got an ad, you know, or I actually personally like say, hey, you know, we'll be right back, we have a, you know, our advertiser has sponsored this episode. Thank you very much, you know, but I've learned to kind of build that in but also be very tactful about it at the same time. Because I want to be respectful of my listeners time. Like, I don't want to have a whole I mean, I get annoyed too. And I have like, a podcast I like listening to in the first five minutes. It's nothing but ads. And so I'm like, Oh, my gosh, like, here's a balance. What's the balance? Right?
Marco Ciappelli 27:11
Yeah, my agree. You know, what I would like to if somebody's thinking to start podcasting, tomorrow, and I know, there is a lot of people because, you know, we we have now I don't even know, 2025 contributors, or people that have their own show. And it takes a little bit of thinking, and sometimes, again, is a balance, right? So here's the barrier to high for me, even if you commit for the talk about frequency, for example, you know, twice a month, once every week, you know, maybe once a month, maybe a little too little on my opinion, I'd love to hear yours. But also the cost of entry, the entry level of do I need to spend $1,500 on a setting for a mic? Do I need to do all of these? Or, you know, what are your tips to someone that wants to start?
Tom Eston 28:09
Yeah, great question, guys. So my advice is to. So the biggest thing is consistency, I think with podcasting is if you're going to commit to a monthly podcast, commit to a monthly podcast, if you skip a month, or two or three months or whatever, that's where listeners are just not there, they're going to stop listening, because you're not consistent, right? Same thing on the day that you released the podcast, we always release ours at midnight on Mondays. So our listeners come to expect that Monday morning, I'm going to have a new podcast from the shared security show. And I know I can expect that that's going to happen. And if it doesn't, for some reason, let's say you've got an emergency or you know, your house like flooded or you know, some crisis, right and you can't get the episode out, communicate to your to your listeners, just send out you know, a tweet or whatever it is that your your show follows you on and say, Hey, I missed this week, we're gonna be back next week. So you're kind of communicating to your audience like that expectation, right? That I'm being consistent with my content. And I'm going to be whatever that frequency is, they get used to that. And that's kind of how you gain those followers. And then in terms of equipment, I would say, like we talked about already, right? You don't have to spend a whole ton of money. I mean, you could literally start with your laptop and your iPhone headset if you want. It's not going to be the total best quality but at least it'll be something but that's where you need to focus on your content. And I would say focus more on your content than the actual equipment and all the technology right that that's the kind of thing that comes later. And honestly, I would I spend probably, you know, sometimes a couple hours depending on like who I'm bringing on the show, researching them, you know, really detailing out kind of those questions that I want to ask and really prepping for the episode. So it's like the stories we talk about every week I'm gonna show like I'll spend time research those stories, take notes, summarize them, that kind of thing. Maybe it's a little bit easier now with like something called Chet GPT. Maybe we could talk about that another time. But
Marco Ciappelli 30:14
let's talk about Yeah, I mean, um, yeah, well, I think
Tom Eston 30:17
we're all using it in some way to help make our jobs a little more easier, a little more efficient. And so doing things like that can have huge benefits. And the other thing I would say, too, is when you're interviewing somebody, or you're thinking about interviewing somebody, there is a tendency in the industry, I think of like some impostor syndrome of like, you know, like, take filled Wiley as an example, like, like, Oh, crap that's filled Wiley, I can't interview him. I can't talk to him. He's like this big name out there. Right. It's like, everybody's approachable, right? If you just send an email or a nice guy, he's a nice guy, right? But like, but a lot of people get intimidated by people in the industry of like, oh, they would never talk to me. I'm nobody. And like, you'd be surprised. Like, I've reached out to people that even I was, like, starstruck with and had great conversations with they're like, Yeah, I'd love to come on your podcast, that'd be great. Like, so don't be intimidated by people in the industry. Like, if there's someone you really want to talk to just reach out to him and just ask him, Hey, you want to come on my, my new podcast about whatever? Yeah.
Sean Martin 31:19
And in terms of what you talk about, how much of that is driven by the community driven by guests driven by your entry? Intriguing, something. Something you're working on something you read? Yeah. How's that mix of that come together? For you?
Tom Eston 31:41
Yeah, kind of little bit of everything. Really. It's usually like what's what's kind of the hot topic kind of being talked about in the industry at that time is usually some of it, a lot of it is also the news. And the what's happening in the news with attacks and kind of things that I see on Mastodon or Twitter and people talking about is something that I might, you know, gravitate towards. But I also look for, like I mentioned earlier, I look for the people that are talking about really interesting things that maybe aren't being talked about by the big people that that we always gravitate towards, of the people that get the most followers on Twitter, and InfoSec, and things like that. And so I kind of look for these voices that are doing something a bit different, and maybe makes it a little bit more unique on the show to talk about. And honestly, they may not get like the, you know, some of those episodes haven't been like my biggest downloads either. But I still feel like those, those kind of unique and maybe niche topics in cyber are unique enough that they should still warrant an episode, in my opinion. And maybe one day, right, maybe somebody and I've had this with a couple episodes that somebody at two years later came out, sends me an email and says, Wow, that was a really great interview did have so and so like, you know, I didn't know this person was doing this stuff. And then I followed up and I saw the I think they're doing more things. And so that is like really rewarding when I get an email like that. That's something I did years ago that I just didn't think would have an impact. It made an impact to somebody, even if it's just one person. That email alone just meant like the world to me when I got that, so
Sean Martin 33:24
that reminds me. I'm gonna go off topic for still topical but off topic for a second before asking another question, because we used to host on SoundCloud, and we had an episode that was either identical or very similar to a song name on SoundCloud. And it just so happened that you could
Marco Ciappelli 33:44
say that it's not copyright. It was somebody's watching me. I always feel like somebody was about privacy.
Sean Martin 33:51
Yeah, yeah. And, of course, SoundCloud. Everybody's searching for that. And that was one of our top was on. That's a good day.
Marco Ciappelli 34:03
Power of the title.
Tom Eston 34:05
Oh, that's a big one. Yeah. How you name your podcast. Yeah. I've learned that lesson two.
Sean Martin 34:15
I want to go to next maybe as we begin, begin to wrap some Marco's had the luxury of me being absent from the last two episodes. So he was fortunate enough to interrupt him here. I want to get your thoughts on coast because you have a coast.
Tom Eston 34:33
I have two co hosts. Yeah.
Sean Martin 34:35
There you go. So how I was at, I mean, I have to deal with Marco. What's it like?
Tom Eston 34:44
Oh, yeah, my co hosts are great. We have a really unique kind of chemistry between the three of us so So Scott, right. And I we actually started the podcast together. I've always had a co host. So Scott is my co host. He's up in Canada. So We instantly have a lot of us versus Canadian type of jokes and camaraderie together, which, you know, you have to write, like, you know, Canadians are so nice. And that's Americans. Well, you know, we're, we're Americans. But yeah, so we have that kind of thing going and, and he's been great. And he brings another perspective of his background is around security awareness and the non technical side of security, I've been more on the technical side, so we kind of balanced each other out pretty well. So we've always had a good chemistry and good balance. And then the other co host is Kevin Johnson, who is the complete opposite of both of us personality wise, he's very outgoing, like more outgoing than us. But he's kind of the, the jokester, we just made a comment on the last show. He's like the comic relief of the podcast. So you know, I have to often you know, to keep the explicit rating off of the show, I will have to edit, you know, certain things that he says out of the podcast, but, but it's kind of fun, and we have fun with it. And people notice that he's probably the co host, I get the most comments from about on YouTube and other areas, and Reddit. Not always positive either. But again, that's just his personality. So I'm very grateful to have two co hosts that I think, add different things the show, and I think that's important, if you're gonna have co hosts, I think they should be a bit different than you and have different opinions. And I think that's really important when you're having dialogues about different topics.
Marco Ciappelli 36:32
I agree. And I'm gonna add my own thing that you just said, it's gonna like, even when you cover an important topic, a very serious topic. Unless it's super, super serious, a little bit of humor, it's, it helps. I mean, there are people listening to you for half an hour, 40 minutes, and we didn't go into the length of the podcast, we'll maybe we'll have another episode on our time. But, you know, it's kinda like, you need that dynamic. And I have to say that we do record a lot of things separately, lately, because, you know, we have different background, different interests, we're running different shows, but I remember the beginning was kind of weird. Or like, I was always saying, well, Shawn is not with me today. Like, okay, nobody's gonna get used to it. And especially if you have a good curse, you know, it's all good. But that dynamic is really good. And it brings me I think, to my, my advice to somebody want to hear it to someone to start, don't try to be someone else, right? I mean, here we're having a lot of fun time. I think I'm honestly having a good time. Yeah, I can see this is you, Sean and Sean, we make a joke, we tell our opinion. And other people when they start a podcast, they come to me and they're like, well, which Who should I look? Who should I sound like, who should I be inspired by? I'm like, yourself, you're threatening someone else? Right? That's important, because you can't play the role. Unless you're really good actor, but I don't think you're gonna have fun.
Tom Eston 38:07
No, no, no. Yeah. Be yourself. Absolutely. That's probably the number one advice, right? I mean, the people will listen if you're yourself, right. And they want to see that genuine personality, right? They, if they want to listen to Joe Rogan, or somebody else that listen to Joe Rogan, right? Like, you know, go for it. Yeah, exactly. That's your cup of tea. Sure.
Marco Ciappelli 38:27
Yep. Exactly. Well, Sean, unless you have another one more question, talking about internal jokes here.
Sean Martin 38:37
I'm gonna I'll refrain from that. I'll just, I'll make a comment instead. Because I mean, all this time in the same industry, Tom and I have not met and no, um, it was an absolute pleasure meeting you today. And so maybe, maybe we should do another episode you and I and, and just get into some nitty gritty of love to bits because I like to tech bits of Yeah, diverse so maybe, maybe I do one of those. But this was cool to get your your perspective on. Yeah. 18 plus years of doing this,
Marco Ciappelli 39:07
you have my blessing go deep in cybersecurity. Not being like, go nuts. Sounds
Tom Eston 39:15
great. Yeah. Well,
Marco Ciappelli 39:18
so that's that's to come coming soon. conversation with you guys. Maybe with someone else on the show. Today, we're gonna be on probably redefining cyber security. With Sean and I am very grateful for this conversation. I'm honestly starting to think that this podcasting conversation is a really good idea because I'm having a good time. And so I'm looking for other podcasts to come on. And in the meantime, Tom, thank you so much. Congratulations on 14 years of doing this and you know, many 10,000 more podcasts. Oh, yeah. And yeah, share security. Ethernet, right? That's right, right. Yeah. Awesome. And, yeah, again, I feel like everybody's bringing something to the community, either this community or another community. So I want to always be very supportive about other podcasts. And we're all in this together. So thank you so much, Tom.
Tom Eston 40:20
Thank you, Marco. Thank you, Shawn. Really nice meeting you guys.
Marco Ciappelli 40:23
Great. And for everybody else. This is audio signals, podcast and ITSPmagazine There'll be notes if you're watching the video tell people they can listen to just the audio, your cup of tea or if you're listening the audio good. Check the video cuz you know, we're not much to look at, but we were having. We were having fun. We were having fun. You get
Sean Martin 40:44
to see the parka hat.
Marco Ciappelli 40:45
Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true.
Sean Martin 40:49
I'm not bringing that again. That's one shot.
Marco Ciappelli 40:53
One shot, one chance. All right. Goodbye, everybody. Thanks.