Richard Thieme, M.A.

Richard Thieme, M.A. is an author and professional speaker focused on the deeper implications of technology, religion, and science for twenty-first century life. He speaks professionally about the challenges posed by new technologies and the future, how to redesign ourselves to meet these challenges, and creativity in response to radical change.
 
Richard authored Mobius: A Memoir. This book is a stunning exploration of the impact of a life of deception and professional intelligence work which illuminates the world in which we all now live.
 
His creative use of the Internet to reach global markets has earned accolades around the world. He is a member of the “cyber avant-garde,” according to CNN … “a prominent American techno-philosopher” according to LAN Magazine (Australia) … “a father figure for online culture,” according to the (London) Sunday Telegraph … “a keen observer of hacker attitudes and behaviors” according to Le Monde (Paris) … “one of the most creative minds of the digital generation” according to the editors of CTHEORY and Digital Delirium … “an online pundit of hacker culture” according to the LA Times … and “extremely subtle and deep” according to the Linux Journal.
 
Richard has published widely. Translated into German, Chinese, Japanese, Slovene, Dutch, Hebrew, Danish, and Indonesian, his articles are taught at numerous universities in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States. His work has been frequently anthologized. His column Islands in the Clickstream has been published in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Toronto, Djakarta, Dublin, and Capetown and distributed to thousands of subscribers in 60 countries.
 
His passion for integrating technology and spirituality began in the eighties when he wrote “Computer Applications for Spirituality: The Transformation of Religious Experience”, an essay published by the Anglican Theological Review. He joined Bill Moyers and noted religious scholars in New York to explore religion and technology in the twenty-first century; a book based on that conference includes his 10,000 word essay “Entering Sacred Digital Space”. He recently spent a weekend with clergy of the Milwaukee Synod of the ELC discussing spirituality and technology.
 
Richard has spoken for sixteen years for the Black Hat Briefings (intelligence and corporate security) and Def Con, an annual computer hackers’ convention. He has also spoken for security conferences such as ReCon 2010 (Montreal), Troopers (Heidelberg Germany), Toor Con, PumpCon (invitation only), Interz0ne West, SecurityOPUS, Xmas Con (New Orleans 2600), RubiCon, HiverCon (Dublin), ShmooCon, NotaCon and RootFest. He keynoted AUSCERT in Brisbane, Australia in 2005 and 2006 and returned to deliver a closing speech in 2007. He was invited to keynote again in 2011. He keynoted govcert in The Hague in 2006 and in Rotterdam in 2009 and 2010. He keynoted Wireless Australia and the ID Management Summit in Sydney.
 
He keynoted Microsoft Tech Ed in consecutive years in Eilat, Israel, sharing the keynote spot with Steve Ballmer, and shared the keynote platform at MIS InfoSecWorld with Bob Woodward and NBC’s Roger Cressey. In 2007 he keynoted conferences in Auckland and Wellington NZ and was invited to keynote a corporate/government security conference in Wellington in 2009. He keynoted IT Defense in Berlin in 2009 and ReCon, a conference on reverse engineering, in Montreal Quebec in 2010. In 2011 he spoke for the regional Infragard/ISSA Chicago quarterly meeting and keynoted the ITWeb Security Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa and Hack in the Box in Amsterdam. He will keynote Hack in the Box – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in October 2011 and speak at GITEX in Dubai the same month. He provided a closing keynote for eComm in San Francisco (“a TED talks for comms”) in June 2011.
 
At DefCon VIII, he moderated a panel that included the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dir. of Information and Infrastructure Assurance for DOD, and the Dir. of the Federal Computer Incident Response Team who came to “dialogue” with more than 5,000 computer hackers. He was invited to moderate because, according to a National Security Agency veteran, “You’re the only one in the room with the acceptance and respect of both the hacking community and the Feds.”
 
About a decade ago, a friend at the National Security Agency suggested that he could address the issues they discussed in a context of “ethical considerations for intelligence and security professionals” only if he wrote fiction. “It’s the only way you can tell the truth”, he was told. Three dozen published short stories and one novel-in-progress later, the result is Mind Games, published in 2010.
 
Clients include: GE Medical Systems; Medtronic; Microsoft; Johnson Controls; the Pentagon; the FBI; the US Secret Service; Los Alamos National Laboratory; US Department of the Treasury; Thunderbird School of Global Management; IT Defense (Berlin); Ajilon; OmniTech; Strong Capital Management; Neohapsis; Network Flight Recorder; Merge eFilm; System Planning Corporation (SPC); International Intelligence Ethics Association; Cypress Systems; Ross Systems; Institute for Applied Network Security (IANS); Information Systems Security Assn. (ISSA); Assn. for Investment Management and Research (AIMR); Alliant Energy; Wisconsin Electric; UOP; Firstar Bank; Financial Services – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC); Psynapse/Center for the Advancement of Intelligent Systems; MAPICS; MIS Training Institute WebSec, HealthSec, and InfoSec Conferences; Influent Technology Group; Case Management Society of America); The CMA Group; Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.; Advanced Health Care; Navy Federal Credit Union; Arthur Andersen; Credit Union Executives Society; Graduate School of Banking; Allstate Insurance; American Council of Life Insurance; Conference of State Legislatures; Society for Technical Communication; the Attorney General of the State of Wisconsin; the Governor’s Conference on Economic Development; Alverno College; Purdue University – CERIAS; and the Technology, Literacy and Culture Distinguished Speakers Series of the University of Texas.
 
Watch Hacking Biohacking and the Future of Humanity. DEFCON 15: Hacking UFOlogy: Thirty Years in the Wilderness of Mirrors, and Relativity Week 08 – Richard Thieme – Relativity and the Art of War. Read his LinkedIn profile and his Wikipedia profile. Follow his Twitter feed.