Very funny and I'm impressed at the number of in-jokes, he must have really taken some time to get acquainted with security culture. His joke about "exchanging private keys" was hilarious.

Also here is an abbreviated video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsaXEKtLehs

Protip: have a writing staff.

Having a writing staff may get you part way there. Colbert is really smart and equally thoughtful and passionate, and I think these are the qualities that lead to his work never appearing "phoned in."

[disclosure, I guess: I once interned at The Daily Show and absolutely loved my experience, so I'm probably biased toward Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert]

Now that we've got you here, prepare for my one question AYA (ask you anything).

So Colbert has tried several times in the past to run as a presidential candidate, etc. What is your take on this, knowing him? How serious are these attempts, if he was to gain traction? In the alternate universe where all voters were college kids that actually voted, and he won, what do you think would actually happen?

He wasn't really trying before. It was a joke. To me activities like the RSA speaking are political activities. And they do not simply represent Colbert's personal views. This is probably the extreme edge of the leftish faction that still has influence and is connected to power. It is extremely critical of existing power and yet stays within "mainstream" parameters. If that group can see a realistic path towards political office that would provide more influence than the TV show and is likely to succeed in Colbert's person then he will be encouraged and quite possibly actually pursue a political office. That's my outsiders guesstimate of this.

They did win 11 Emmies. If your going to biased to a staff a highly decorated one is generally a good choice.

What's the joke? I don't really feel like hunting for it in the audio.

A euphemism for casual sex.

It was funny, but inaccurate. Don't you usually exchange public keys? Of course if he said public, then the joke wouldn't have made sense, which is probably why he said it that way.

>Don't you usually exchange public keys?

thatsthejoke.jpg

Despite the "rivalry" between me and Colbert for the title "Greatest Living American". I have a lot of respect for Colbert. He is an entertainer but he is a political activist. John Stewart who is more famous and better paid is a Comedian Journalist, but Colbert is a Activist Comedian.

Colbert is the kind of critical thinker we need more of in politics.

-Brandon Wirtz (Former Greatest Living American)

http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2007/05/11/the-greatest-goo...

"We have solid proof that this program has saved zero lives, that's more then I can say for our drone program" lmao

I was disappointed to see so little support for Edward Snowden by the crowd.

Colbert's view is that Snowden is a criminal.

Stephen Colbert plays a character that satirizes conservative jingoistic "patriotic" mouthpieces of the Republican party, the kind typically found on Fox News and some talk radio stations.

With that said, the fact that he rips NSA doesn't mean he (or his alter ego) supports Snowden: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57619771-83/colbert-turns-h...

Ah, yes. Satire may survive dictators in totalitarian regimes intact, but it perishes in the webpages of CNET News.

I assume that means you didn't actually read to the end where the Q&A was discussed...

He was still in character as any Colbert viewer could tell by his responses.

so I suppose it's his character being paid by the criminals at RSA, rather than him himself?

That's reassuring.

Look at this way - everyone who still went to the RSAC were okay with RSA putting a backdoor in for the NSA. So you can probably imagine they're not exactly fervent supporters of Snowden.

I'm unsure if this is Colbert's character speaking, but during the Q&A he figured the logical end for Snowden would be his return home & pardon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ZGlKw6-hk#t=45

He did the entire Q&A out of character as Colbert -- with the T. Was a nice juxtaposition to his prepared remarks which were obviously in character.

It's not shocking that a crowd of government contractors wouldn't support Snowden.

At least not when being filmed.

The link to the HD version should be: http://www.austinheap.com/assets/rsaconf2014/Stephen%20Colbe...

Well, yeah... but the difference between 320kbps and 96kbps is fairly negligible with all of that background noise.

Video (phonecam, no Q&A):

P1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gGtVScrQo

P2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3QH4d4qNOQ

You've got to credit these guys for going the extra mile to keep you from finding out what their conference is about. Between this site and the conference website it links to, they use the acronym "RSA" twenty six times without ever once defining it.

Note that googling "RSA" gives a dozen contradictory definitions, from various things that call themselves the RSA. The conference here makes the list about halfway down, but again, without any explanation what the acronym stands for or what it is.

And of course, wikipedia just gives a two page list of RSAs for one to choose from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA

RSA is named after its founders: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Len Adleman.

Probably more accurate to say the company was named after the RSA algorithm that was named after its inventors.

It was founded by the inventors.

Do you have the same complaint when HP makes the news?

From hp.com:

  © 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

So no. They do in fact define their own name on their website.