Tony Brown and Lee Ayers on the 2600 Cybersecurity Meetup in Charleston

In this episode of the Kanawha Valley Hustlers podcast I’m at the 2600 meetup at KDE Technology in Charleston. Tony Brown lays out the format: a cybersecurity and tech meetup on the first Friday of each month from 5 to 7 or 8. He links 2600 to a world network that started in 1984 around a quarterly publication, with groups meeting the same night in many places. In West Virginia, this is the only one.

Lee Ayers treats it as a community table. People in security show up, and people who are curious can sit in, ask questions, and learn. The room jumps from lock picking to setting up Active Directory. We also trace hacking back before home computers, when phone phreaking used tones like 2600 Hz to probe the phone system.

Tony hits what people miss about cybersecurity. Defense starts with long passwords, password management, no sharing, and second factor authentication. A lot of trouble begins with reuse, like the same password for Netflix and a bank login. When I ask Lee for a principle, he goes to zero trust: give only the access needed, no more, in networks and in life.

If you want to visit, Tony points to 111 Hale Street and the KDE Technology Facebook page for the monthly event post. Lee’s skill for the future is staying current with technology, because it won’t stop.

What I like about this meetup is it lowers the barrier to entry. You don’t need a title or a resume to walk in and learn something useful. If you run a business, this is a place to hear real security talk without the fear pitch, then leave with one or two basic moves you can apply right away.