April 2025 TEC News & Events
TEC Gives AZ State CISO a Tour of the ACSL | Our Iron Mountain Data Center Tour Was Awesome as Expected | Privacy PIE: Keeping YOUR Personal Comms Secure As Possible | Ham Radio Meetup & Study Group Schedule | Bring That Busted Tech to R2R Workshop | New TEC Reads Article
We took a tour of Iron Mountain Data Centers and enjoyed getting to see just about everything. Then we hosted State CISO Ryan Murray for a tour of ACSL where he generously sat down with us for not one but two TEC Talks podcast episodes (coming soon - stay tuned!). We held our first Ham Radio Study Group & Meetup during which Wyatt gave a presentation of some of the basics, and we generally just got all the ducks in a row for all the great April events you'll read about below. We'll also be recording a TEC Talks episode with one of our favorite engineers and Civil Air Patrol coaches, Laura Ellington. And, stay tuned for information on a three-session Linux workshop for non-techies who want to stop using Windows coming in May.
Latest News from TEC
State CISO Ryan Murray Tours the ACSL
TEC had a great time showing state CISO Ryan Murray around the Advanced Cyber Systems Lab at GateWay Community College in early April.
We had a fantastic conversation about creating state-level cyber resilience by leveraging industry, government and educational partnerships, explored innovative approaches to help aspiring technologists and future cyber security practitioners gain relevant experience for workforce entry, and balancing privacy and security with open access to information.
Don't worry - Ryan generously sat down with us for not one but *two* episodes of TEC Talks and we'll have those episodes out soon.
TEC TOURED THE IRON MOUNTAIN DATA CENTER!
And we can't really share a whole lot about it because, you know, security is kinda their thing.
In all seriousness, though we weren't able to take pictures we can testify that it was a great tour led by Brian Brown. Brian did an absolutely stellar job answering our group's very specific questions and even let us look at the generators. We were scheduled for an hour; the tour was way longer and every second of it was an absolute blast.
We're so grateful to Brian and Iron Mountain to have had this opportunity.
TEC APRIL 2025 EVENTS
April 2025 Privacy PIE: Learn to Secure Your Comms
Wyatt Johnson will go over ways to help secure your communications and maintain some level of personal privacy.
Join us at the Advanced Cyber Systems Lab on Tuesday, April 8 at 6 p.m. The ACSL is at Gateway Community College's Washington Street campus. Directions and parking can be found here.
As a bonus, we'll be serving real apple slab pie! Because personal privacy is delicious.
TEC HAM Radio Meetup & Study Group (Sessions 2 & 3)
Our second and third dedicated study sessions will be held at the Advanced Cyber Systems Lab, located at Gateway Community College on:
Thursday, April 10 at 6 p.m.
Thursday, April 24 at 6 p.m.
Missed the first session? No worries - just email Contact@techedcollab.org for the study materials in advance of the class you'll be attending.
We'll be using HamStudy as our general guide.
Amateur radio licensing is managed by the Federal Communications Commision (FCC). Being licensed means that your name is listed in the FCC Universal Licensing System with an associated ham radio callsign.
TEC April 2025 Right to Repair Workshop
Our April Right to Repair Workshop will be on Tuesday, April 15 at 7 p.m. at the Advanced Cyber Systems Lab (ACSL).
This is a FREE hour-and-a-half in person workshop during which you can bring your busted phone, laptop, tablet or other device and learn to fix your own tech. OR just practice and poke around one of our devices worry-free!
NEW TEC TALKS EPISODES
What Does a State CISO Do?
Ryan Murray is both the Arizona CISO as well as the Deputy Director for the Arizona Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Statewide Information and Privacy Office, which is an unassailably cool job title.
He sat down with TEC for our "What Does a [Technologist] Do?" segment of the TEC Talks podcast. As impressed as TEC was with both Ryan himself - he's a really intelligent and engaging guy - and his job titles, rules are rules and he got the same five questions as everyone else. His answers were amongst the coolest we've ever had, though, so give this episode a listen.
He told us all about what that looks like on a practical, daily level and gave some advice for anyone else who wants to be a state CISO when they grow up.
‼️ BUT WAIT - THERE'S more! We couldn't leave it at just five questions, so we peppered with a few more. Check that out in this bonus episode.
Be on the show!
If you're an experienced technologist (or a tech-adjacent SME) and would like to be on the show, contact us or email contact@techedcollab.org. Interviews for day-in-the-life segments can be done remotely and generally take about 30 minutes. Longform interviews and discussion topics are also welcome.
What Feral Children Can Teach Us About AI
A thought-provoking - and mildly disturbing - piece from Noema. Author John Last dives deeply into LLMs and how learning language - or not - impacts the neural networks of both man and machine.
This piece is from January of 2024 but don't let that stop you – if anything, the observations and questions of this piece are now more relevant than ever.
There is an audio version of this article available as well.
Author: John Last
Date Published: January 17, 2024
Publication: NOEMA
NOEMA is published by The Berggruen Institute, an institute exploring the ideas we need for our changing world.
Long and Ugly Link:
https://www.noemamag.com/feral-intelligence/
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