I just managed to pull the HackintheBox torrents for their [2008 talks]. (SensePosters can grab a local copy [here]). 

I watched Marcus Ranums “Cyberwar is Bullshit” talk. A talk that was truly wince-worthy! While the talk will make you scream at the screen a few times, it is worth watching just to see the Q&A section after the talk.. It’s quite clear that Ranum gets owned more thoroughly than his online gallery did.

VS.

Roberto Preatoni of WabiSabiLabi fame confronts Ranums simplistic views of cyber warfare with some pretty straight forward questions, to which Ranum is forced to concede “You got me there”.

Another question from the audience included more lashings – with an added underhanded “USA lost in Vietnam without nuclear weapons” comment thrown in for good measure.

Overall, i think Ranum enjoys being contrarian.. I think over the last few years he has become famous for it.. But i think to completely bull@#$@# cyberwar, while setting such narrow definitions for what constitutes a war skates dangerously close to the thing that Ranum often complains about – Sensationalist topics shrouded in geek mystique that get eaten up by the popular press.. The talk was disappointing.. Ranum is indeed much better than this..