Robot Shark Laser What Hackerspaces Do

Architecture and Background

Robot Shark Laser! What Hackerspaces Do Beth FreeSide, dc404 and KaosTheory Security Research Noid BlackLodge Nick Farr HacDC Leigh Honeywell HackLab Steve Clement Syn2cat Ever wonder what they mean by 'Fight Club for Nerds'? Do you daydream about what you could do if you had an underground lab and minions or a workshop and helpers? Have you considered all the ways to incorporate lasers into your life? Are you sure about that? Come see what the evil geniuses at HackerSpaces far and wide have built and how. This panel of diverse hackerspace members, will show you step by step how they built their favorite projects, including video and live demos, and Q&A.

Vulnerability Analysis

Beth Beth is a Co-Conspirator at KnowThreat, and is a founding member of dc404, kaosTheory security research, and FreeSide, Atlanta's HackerSpace. Beth has been doing security research, abuse and fraud prevention and analysis for years. She is very interested in privacy and security education and technology legislation. Beth has pieces of paper saying she is certifiable regarding certain bodies of knowledge, but swears she has no knowledge of where the bodies are. Noid has been involved with computers for over 20 years. Noid began playing with computers at the age of 10, operating a BBS out of his parents house. Ever since then noid has taken an interest in how technology works and the security aspects relating to its use.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

noid is one of the organizers of DEFCON, LayerOne, and is a founding member of the Black Lodge, a hackerspace operating in Washington state. noid has spoken on security topics and privacy issues for the Association of Internet Professionals, Microsoft, the University of California at Irvine, and at Cisco. noid is fascinated by fire, dangerous with tools, and curious about this emotion you humans call love. Nick Farr is a Financial Accountant based in Washington, DC. Over the past two years, he has worked for the US Treasury Department and the global consultancy McKinsey&Co. Currently, he's helping NGOs and local businesses apply open source and collaborative methods to their work in the hopes of building a more distributed, sustainable economy. He co-founded his local hackerspace, HacDC and plays an active role in the global hackerspace movement.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

He holds a degree in Social Science from the University of Michigan and a Master's Degree in Business Administration from Grand Valley State University. Leigh Honeywell is a jane of many trades. By day she works at a major security vendor while finishing up a degree at the University of Toronto. By night (and sometimes over lunch) she is a co-founder and director of HackLab.TO, Toronto's hacker space. She also serves on the board of advisors of the SECtor security conference, is a Google Summer of Code mentor, as well as an avid cyclist, book nerd, and traveller. Steve Clement started Hacking on a super fast C64 cassette deck computer at the age of 10, swiftly fell into the BBS hole, just to discover that Hacking is a Way of Life and a philosophy you ought to bring to others. In his spare time he experiments with all kinds of electronics, builds up HackerSpaces and tries to bring artists and hackers together to collaborate in a Graffiti Research Lab. Currently, Steve is working as a Security Consultant for the Luxembourgish government on an IT Security Awareness Program for kids and implements his technical knowledge with social trends to provide the best possible way to positively influence their cyber habits. For copies of the slides and additional materials please see the DEF CON 17 Archive here: