Meet the Arachne Digital Team: Vic Pe
October and Hacktoberfest may have ended, but we’re still sharing our contributors and insight into our work as the Arachne Digital team. In our Meet the Arachne Digital Team series, Learn more about our cyber threat intel open-source work and the folks who make it run.
This week, we’re highlighting Vic, who supports our work via community management.
Hello! What are your name and pronouns?
I’m Vic, and I use they/them pronouns.
What’s your role with Arachne Digital?
I support Arachne Digital through community management. For me, this means examining our open-source and community virtual spaces and working to make them more inviting and engaging for potential collaborators while also figuring out how we fit and add value to the larger open-source ecosystems.
What inspired you to work with open-source technology?
The transparency, collaborative nature, and ability to learn and grow in a local, regional, or global community.
I was first inspired to work with open-source in 2015 by exploring Meetup groups when I was new to Austin. There, I stumbled upon Open Austin, a local volunteer-run civic tech organization. The group’s focus on transparency in government, civic engagement, and an open, friendly environment focused on tech and design intrigued me as a communicator and designer. I kept showing up, new to things like GitHub, data-oriented work, and coding, and eventually found friends and support to explore the space further.
Overall, I was happy to find people interested in probing questions about local issues that mirrored global ones and working collaboratively to build solutions. These spaces connected me to work opportunities and people worldwide. Nine years later, I’m happy to have still found community in spaces like Open Austin and now Arachne Digital.
What about in threat intelligence and cyber security?
I’m much newer to cyber security and threat intelligence.
During the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, though, I was intrigued to see Russian messages about a Trump presidency somehow showing up on my website’s backend analytics. As an online person, I have had more concerns about cyber safety at the forefront of my mind.
More recently, I’ve been hearing concerns and raised bans around the popular app TikoTok and the rise of things like deepfakes, misinformation, fake news, and more, which has piqued my interest.
Starting work with the Arachne team has helped me better understand and have a more formal introduction to the space and its growing importance as we continue to rely upon and build more tech using data from almost everywhere and everyone.
In addition to your contributions with Arachne, what else are you passionate about?
I’m an artist and enjoy creating poetry and making digital art in any form it takes. When I’m not online, you might find me doing tarot readings or interpreting dreams at a local fantasy tavern or queer community space. On Wednesday night I join the local social bike riding group, Bat City Biking. I enjoy going into various spaces to connect with a diverse range of people virtually and online to discuss converging topics of interest and build community locally and globally to support collective dreams.
What’s the best way for people to connect with you?
You can find me on Linkedin or contact me vic[at]arachne[dot]digital
Meet and work on open-source projects with the Arachne Digital Team
We recently hosted our first virtual event, which you can find a recording of on YouTube! Hear Vic, Kade, and our special guest, Stephen from DISARM, speak about open source and cybersecurity. Watch it here.
An excellent start to contributing is browsing the Arachne Digital GitHub repository.
There you can:
- Read our documentation to get oriented to our projects
- Respond to our open issues, ready for your thoughts and contribution
- Find out how to join our Slack community
Together, we can contribute to a more secure and collaborative future.
