Secure AF - A Cybersecurity Podcast
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Secure AF - A Cybersecurity Podcast
Defcon 2026
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A recap of DEFCON 2026 featuring the Latest in cybersecurity, hacking, AI, and digital defense. Don't miss the highlights from one of the world's most influential security conferences.
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SPEAKER_03Hello everybody and welcome to the Secure AF Podcast. I'll be your host for the day with my co-host here. I'm Tanner Shin. This is Andrew Hickman. Howdy. You've uh if you a regular watcher, you've probably met us before. Uh we just got back from DEF CON and we thought we'd kind of recap and go over things. And and yeah, so uh what is this your uh third DEF CON? Third DEF CON. Yeah. Yeah. How'd you feel about this year?
SPEAKER_04I think I think this year was probably out of the the three years, the best one all around. I think the uh Las Vegas Convention Center has definitely grown on me. Um just because you know everything's all in one location now. Uh there's a lot of space. Um and then staying close to it to where you know you can walk walk to it and not have to, you know, ride a bus or a tram or an Uber there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we got we got the the good hotel this time, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So it's like a what five-minute walk at most from from door to door? Uh from hotel door to hotel door.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or from hotel to convention, yeah. Yeah, you still gotta walk 15 minutes through the 1500s. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um but yeah, it's much better than being outside. Uh yeah, you yeah, that's that's one of the the the nice things. Um I mean, beforehand, you know you could just stay in the hotel. But for sure. Um it is nice that you can uh you can grab I mean Fountain Blue is um godly expensive. Yeah, but it's uh it's very nice and it's right there. But then you also have like you know the Marriott right across the street. And like there's look at their next year too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it's uh it's worth considering, I think. It was it was pretty nice. I found myself sneaking in there for a for a quick meal.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, they're and you know, there's not bad hotels, you know, in the area. It really varies. They fill up quick though. Um I feel like people probably know they're going to DEF CON and book well in advance, and I think this has kind of been like a continual thing for DEF CON. Like, you know when it's gonna be. You gotta book your hotels in February, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm still I'm still iffy on the convention center, I think. Um I think overall it's better for the convention. But uh there was kind of this thing beforehand where it was like you had uh the convention was spread across you know these three enormous casinos, and you if you wanted to go to a talk in one in you know in Flamingo and you're all the way down like you know by ballet's and you want to go to that one, you're not making it. Yeah, yeah. It's like like 35, 40 minutes of walking, like you're not making it to that talk. Yeah, and that's why the rooms were smaller, typically, most of them, and they uh you know they fit less people and it's harder. So all that's much, much better. The biggest problem is a weird problem that I you can I don't I don't know how you solve. All along the way, there's all these little bars and restaurants and things, and they're just kind of full of DEF CON people, and you can just kind of come up and sit with anybody and just like hang out and meet people and stuff like that. And now that's pretty much just like I guess the boot court, it's just a very different vibe. It's uh for sure. It's not circle bar. Yeah, yeah, circle bar's gone. Circle Bar's gone for sure. But I guess some people were there this year, but uh yeah, it's I know there were people trying to bring it back, but it's so far.
SPEAKER_04It's such a distance now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's so far.
SPEAKER_04And that's like the you know, like you said, that's kind of one of the issues. It seems like the the conference itself is all in one place now, which is cool, but it seems like everyone else just scatters and goes to different locations to meet up afterwards or whatever they're doing, which Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You gotta know like where you're going or know people or something like that. So I always wonder about like the new people there, like how are they just gonna like stumble upon yeah? What do they do? These these enclaves of people and stuff. Well, I mean, I know it's always people are friendly, you know. People you say, Oh, it's my first DEF CON, and it's like, oh, you know, I got some some swag to give you, I got some come come check this thing out, or hey, let me introduce you to this guy. And you know, community is always great for that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's a cool thing about it too, is just you know, meeting new people. I always, you know, I say I'm gonna tag along because I'm just kind of there, you know, I'll talk to people.
SPEAKER_03Um you you were working a village.
SPEAKER_04I yeah, I did work. I did work at Policy Village. I did volunteer time there, which was uh I was in uh Policy Village Attache, which was actually pretty fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the fancy colored badge.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I got a I got uh the village badge, which was really cool. Um I gotta meet some really cool people in the policy village, uh, you know, kind of get my name out there. And uh I don't know, might maybe do it next year. We'll see if I I go next year. Um Las Vegas is such a silly place. But um but that was really cool, like uh getting to just kind of help out volunteer time there and just uh give back to you know the the group that kind of helped be my motivation to get to DEF CON in first place. Um that's kind of I don't know, that sounds kind of silly. Like I I enjoy policy, like it has such a close relationship with what I do on the blue team side of things and uh all that red team stuff is just like I I get it, like I try to be familiar with it and I want to be familiar with it because it's also a big part of what I do, but um like my interest, I had to do I don't want to go stand in line at Red Team Village for anything.
SPEAKER_03I didn't go to a single talk at Red Team Village. Um well, I think I went to one and it was like not what we thought it was.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, I'm just I'm not into you know the big lines, especially. That's one of the only places that still is gonna have you know a big line.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, was that Thin Client guy we talked to? Was that not Red Team Village?
SPEAKER_03No, it was a main stage talk. Oh, okay. Yeah, fantastic talk, very good talk. Um I figured that would have been Red Team.
SPEAKER_04Because I know some some of the like the policy or the the villages had their own like rooms for talks, but then they had different people from their village talking on main stage and stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there was some of that. I don't think he was associated with the village. He said it was his first DEF CON uh talking. Um talk. Yeah, very cool talk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Guy found uh he tore apart a whole bunch of thin clients, and uh he ended up finding that basically all of them were able to bypass secure boot with uh a USB driver.
SPEAKER_04Even TPMS.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, he was uh yeah, he was bypassing TPM. Yeah, he was bypassing um God, there's there's a bunch of different ones, and they're all different too. He just like every single time he would he'd grab one, he'd be like, Oh, yep, here's a problem, here's a problem, and uh you hearing all the major ones, yeah. Ranking all the vendors on you know responses and things like that. Very good talk. Very good talk. Yeah, I always appreciate it whenever people are dropping some O days and talks.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, dude, it was it was it was really interesting. I'm glad I I sat in on that one because thinking about it, it's like oh I've got TPM on this, we're we're good. And then really all you need is uh Ubuntu bootable USB, and you can hey, give me the key, and here you go. Yeah, that was pretty wild, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there were some of the exploits were like silly, and just like, are you for real? This is this is how this works.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. But you know, again, the the the vendor's response or the manufacturer's response to that is is critical, right? Because you go from like, oh, thank you so much for you know pointing this out, we're gonna work on fixing this, we can work with you, or you know, a cease and desist.
SPEAKER_03You know, there's yeah, I don't think you got any cease and desist, so that's good. That's better than a lot of the like you know, OT manufacturers and hardware manufacturers and IoT stuff. Yeah. A lot of the times those like, yeah, they do not um they do not foster a good environment for responsible disclosure.
SPEAKER_04No, and we see that um even in like the bug bounty stuff, right? Like uh you would think that we would you would have the the reverse response that we typically see where like, hey, uh we found this critical bug in your infrastructure, like um, and instead of being like, oh, thank you so much, let's fix that. How did you find that? It turns into a don't ever do that again, don't ever talk to the to us, don't talk about that. Yep. Um and I I find that especially strange because you know, motivations of people wild, you know, range wildly. So would you rather have like a white hat, maybe white hat, even maybe even a gray hat person who maybe they're doing this because they are motivated by money, but you know, they're not gonna ransom you or attack you, um, versus just having you know a threat actor finding it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, it's like um one of our friends who was working on traffic controllers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, one of the biggest, biggest vendors that there is for the traffic controllers. I mean, he bought one off eBay, found some some pretty major exploits, did responsible disclosure, got cease and desist, and they wanted to drag it out into a court case and say, well, you were hacking traffic lights. And he's like, actually, here's my eBay receipt and photos of it on my desk. I bought one. Like, yeah, it's they they just want to be combative about it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I that's that's the response I don't understand, especially in this day and age. Like when you have people who are just out there doing the security research and giving you this information for free.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, here I just gave you an eighty thousand dollar pen test for free.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then and then to treat, you know, arguably like you're you know, you're doing a society a good thing, you know. Uh like, hey, this is critical infrastructure, I identified these vulnerabilities or weaknesses. Here's a report for free.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like you would figure like the response would be the exact opposite of what happens in most cases.
SPEAKER_03So um I that on the same note though, I was happy to see uh biohacking village was just full of vendors.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it was vendors who brought their equipment and they would just sit down and hack it. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And we found uh our guy Sean, Device Recon Labs. He he found some some stuff. Um I go into too much details just for you know respect of the vendor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um but he found some stuff the first day. They fixed it overnight.
SPEAKER_04That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03So they fixed it overnight. We came back the next day, we plugged in, started going deeper, found a few more things, and you know, it was like all things that they're like, heck yeah, let's get this fixed. You know, they're this. Those are the people you want to work with. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, they want to keep in touch and they want to know about you know how they can prevent this in the future and things like that. And it's like, yeah, that's what you want to see out of your vendors.
SPEAKER_04And so it's good to see, at least in the um, you know, the the biohacking kind of the uh the medical space, yeah, that that's the and as a consumer, those are the companies that I that I'll give money to that I because I know if they're taking that security seriously, especially with medical devices, like like you know, there's something to be said about someone who will take, I mean, it's for for lack of a better term, constructive criticism almost, right? Like, hey, you know, you do have this piece of hardware, it could be better, and then going, hey, thanks, we'll do something about that, and then doing something about it. Yep. Yeah, that's that's the company that I want to do business with. So what other cool things do we see? Uh oh, the uh uh the the the bomb squad robot. Yeah, that's cool. That was pretty fun. It was more of a reverse engineer, I feel like, not as much as a hack.
SPEAKER_03It was not what I expected as far as how they went about finding the exploits and everything. Um, but they did find some some valid stuff. Um, you know, it was it was definitely still cool to see. It's anytime you're hacking something that's cool, it's gonna be cool, right? Yeah, they're like, yeah, this is an EOD robot. Like, yeah, I'm interested immediately. Like, I don't even care what you do for sure. And then, you know, they had a bunch of them out there on the floor. That was cool. They were part of a car hacking village. Yeah. So yeah. I didn't hear too much about uh people that got cool hacks on the Volkswagen this year that had an electric Volkswagen out there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I saw that one. Yeah. I don't I didn't spend a whole lot of time in car hacking village. Yeah. The lines were long everywhere.
SPEAKER_03Uh I mean, Line Con for badges is still that's fixed. That's that's true. Yeah. Yeah. So if you want to, I guess they opened it beforehand. It's like they opened they opened Line Con to have Line Con this year. They did. Like the day before the night before.
SPEAKER_04And I think that's what they that they had done last year as well, was they if if you wanted to sit in line all night, here you go. Have fun.
SPEAKER_03People like it. People they're you know, they're they always they always talk about oh, you meet people and like, yeah, you do. Whenever you're standing next to somebody for four hours, you end up meeting them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Especially if you're staying there overnight. Because I think that's what they were doing. They were lining up overnight. And then people would do line con. But it's weird, like that first day, like that Thursday when merch is opening, like the line to merch is astronomical. Oh, yeah. People get their badge that night or that morning and they go straight to the merch line. And it's it's to a point where like I'm not, I don't even, I don't even buy DEF CON. No.
SPEAKER_03No, I'll go to the vendor area and maybe find something that, you know, shout out Snake Reaper homies. You know yeah, for sure. They had a had a good shirt this year. Yeah, you know, shout out. Shout out, shout out to it.
SPEAKER_04It's probably available on their website still.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, that was uh Solaris that he he came up with that one, and I was like, hell yeah, dude. It's uh it's got their uh they're kind of they got like a skeleton mascot guy. And uh he's holding a sawzall and it says go flock yourself. It's yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. I like that. Yeah, it's a solid shirt. Almost wore it today. A lot of flock talk. A lot of uh, you know. Saw some uh guys running around with flock cameras chained up to a necklace. That was pretty funny.
SPEAKER_04There may have been more of them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I got a uh I got a selfie with that with the flock camera.
SPEAKER_04That's funny, yeah. A lot of debate about that right now. Uh always uh a point of interest. I don't know. Was there any talks regarding like going around flock cameras? I didn't see any.
SPEAKER_03Probably. I don't know. There's so many talks. That's always the hard part, right? Is you you scroll through. They've got an app for those who haven't been the hacker tracker and it's got the schedule on it. You can go bookmark the things, and it'll be like, this talk is starting in 30 minutes or whatever. And uh yeah, it's impossible to see all the things you you want to see.
SPEAKER_04Um yeah, I think I bookmarked like five or six different talks each day that I wanted to go to, and I think I only made it to like maybe three each day. At most, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Normally I just like, hey, this one has some space. Let me jump in here. Oh, they started doing headphones. I don't really care for that personally.
SPEAKER_04I get why they did it. It seems very dystopian to me for some reason. Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a very it's very weird. I mean, again, from from past DEF CON experience where like, yeah, they had, you know, a whole bunch of t different talks going on in the the main big room and there's stages everywhere, and people, you know, I it can be loud. But there was something very strange about going into an environment where there was, you know, there's like six or seven people talking all having different talks at the same time and hearing nothing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then people are just sitting there with headphones in and then randomly clapping because you know, they're hearing something to clap for, and it's like, oh, that's kind of weird.
SPEAKER_03It was a little strange. Yeah. Um, I I personally always like I'll show up to a talk after it starts because you know, I don't like lines. Yeah. And I'll just kind of slink in, and you know, within five minutes, if it's something I feel like I'm interested in, I'll I'll, you know, maybe maybe find a seat if I can, or or just hang out and listen. Um, can't really do that. You kind of have to like prepare and get a seat and all that, and it's you know, limited headsets. And yeah, it's just kind of a different thing. I wasn't a huge fan of it, but I get it. Like they're trying to do how can we do all these talks in this big shared room and everything.
SPEAKER_04So that and having the I mean, they had like sanitation stuff for the headphones.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But me, like, I don't I don't want to like I was sitting there with like, you know, two alcohol pads, like just scrubbing, like uh just you know, I don't know who wore those for me.
SPEAKER_03You know, I didn't get headlights, but I also don't have hair, so that's fair. I didn't get headlines. Um the villages were still normal. Yeah. I think most of them were.
SPEAKER_02Not all of them. Some of the main stage villages still had the headsets. Actually, a lot of them did. But all the upstairs villages were still normal.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, all of the it seemed like the headphones was just for like the main stage stuff. Yeah. Um, because you know, I went to several policy talks and a blue team talk, and um there were, you know, it was just a a room of people that weren't headphones or anything, so that's probably accurate.
SPEAKER_03I don't remember seeing headphones anywhere else. Yep, yep. Ham Radio Village, I feel like they did a lot this year. It was very cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. Uh Peters and I went went in there several times because there was um there was a Mastastic talk that we were trying to catch. Um and it's weird because they have, you know, the room was a their room was a lot smaller than all the other villages. It was pretty small. And so it was constantly packed, and they do their talks in that same small room. And there were like maybe 20 chairs at most. Yeah, everybody's standing there. People were just staying, you know, standing listening to the talks, so it got to a point where I was like, they just need a bigger room at this point.
SPEAKER_03Like, yeah, a lot of people ham radio village, do you? Ham radio's grown huge. Um and I mean it's not even just ham, though, it's also all kinds of RF stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the mesh task stuff.
SPEAKER_03There's a lot of mesh task people in there. They had um like an old localized TV broadcast. Yeah, that was really cool. They had all kinds of cool stuff. They had uh slow scan TV running, they had um uh a couple of different mesh tastics where they had mesh core and mesh tastic, and you know I guess um on like mesh task long fast, there was like a CTF running or something. Was there? Yeah, and so that was such a different thing. That was why that was why it was so jank and messed up. Well, I'm not even talking about the DEF CON firmware, just in general. Yeah. And so like it was it wasn't working super well, and it was because there were people hacking on it all week.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and they always do the fox hunt every year too. Yeah, the fox hunt's cool. Me and Peters have always talked about doing the fox hunt, but I figured that like takes an entire day at the at the least for the I don't know, just how does it work? So there's like a you basically I I see guys carry around directional antennas that are doing the fox hunt. But basically there's just different devices that are you know broadcasting, you just gotta go find them, and it's kind of like a scavenger hunt just from the ham radio village. So they just give you like some clues or uh I I imagine so. I haven't gotten that in depth with it. Peters might know more about it. Gotcha. But it's kind of just like an it's like another CTF. It's just they call it the fox hunt. You gotta go hunt down the signals, and you know, you might get a clue once you get to another signal and blah blah blah blah blah. But I think I'm I'm pretty sure it works like that, but I might be wrong, so don't hold me to it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I didn't do any CTFs, but I typically don't. Um I heard Spy vs Spy was really cool. Yeah, I would love to do you know a CTF sometime, but it's kind of like do I want to spend my DEF CON doing this CTF, or do I want to go meet people and see all these different things and catch talks? Yeah, you kind of have to choose.
SPEAKER_04It definitely uh takes it that is the challenge of DEF CON. There is so much happening all at the same time. So, like if you want to do a CTF, you're dedicating a portion of that day, maybe all day, to do that CTF. Yep. And so um that's like um I got a sneak reaper badge that came with a CTF. Yep. I didn't even start on it until I got home from DEF CON because I knew that if I got involved in that CTF, I was just gonna sit in my hotel room doing this CTF. Yep. Um and so that's what I've been doing at home since I've got you know back from DEF CON is doing this Sneak Creeper badge CTF and driving myself crazy, but it's been really fun. So, but if you enjoy those kind of things, like that you know, you're not gonna you know be disappointed that you did it, right? Like it's it's a puzzle or you know, a scavenger hunt. Um, so and then again, that's the the thing about DEF CON is like there's something there for everyone. Yeah, like if you have an interest in the cybersecurity space, um whether that's red team, blue team, you know uh IoT hacking, car hacking, whatever the policy, like there'll be stuff for you to do there.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_04Uh and if you're like, well, I don't have like a great interest in just any one topic, but I really enjoy doing CTFs, there's plenty of CTFs from every single village.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04And if you're like, well, I just kind of enjoy the hardware part of it. Well, there's hardware specific stuff, there's hardware hacking village, there's the badge life stuff. Like if you like, you know, sovereign get hands-on stuff. I mean, it's there's no shortage of things to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's just one of the good things about the community, right? Is everybody's got these these niches and and things like that. I mean, we uh met a guy at our uh our tech on tap event yesterday who was installing uh Cali Nethunter on a uh car head unit. It was kind of like like us. This is one of the main things he was doing. And um I was immediately like, oh yeah, but like are you getting like steering controls to work? He's like, actually, I had a lot of problems. I was like, oh yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to like can bus, and like Sean comes over and we're talking about like he's in like canalyzer and like how you could possibly what chips are aboard on this on this head unit, and could we get it to recognize the CAN bus system directly from it, or does it need a secondary module to read CAN bus and like you know, like we're diving straight in? That's like just like one of the the cool things about the uh the the people in the space is somebody's like, Hey, I'm doing this really weird thing, and we're like, oh yeah. We love it, let's do it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Give me your thoughts. How do you feel about this? Yeah, what can I do different? Yeah, and for the most part, like a lot of those people are just super receptive to oh yeah, they want that. You know, it's you know, none of that's like unwelcome or it's not like a challenge. People want that. Like that's one of the reasons why they bring that stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. The there was some cool Bluetooth stuff that released. Um, there's one, I think it's BLE Exploit. It's a mobile app for Android and iPhone, and it is by far the best Bluetooth recon and exploitation tool that I've seen for a mobile app. It's so good. Yeah, it's it was sitting there, I was able to connect to random stuff and pull data and be able to interrogate it and everything. Really? Just like sitting in the Marriott lobby having a drink. Yeah. Just like just getting all kinds of wild stuff. Just like, what is this? What is this? Yeah. Pretty sure I connected to a vibrator. Oh. Let me let me let me make the mistake of Googling this. Yeah. Whoops.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But uh, you know, that goes in. We did it, I did a podcast one time on um uh hacking sex toys. That's uh that's uh space that has a lot of security problems. It's a weird space, but yeah. We have a lot of security problems. Yeah, yeah. I don't think there's any uh any adult toy villages.
SPEAKER_04It kind of surprises me though, to be honest. I mean, knowing knowing the the people in the location, I mean, it would it would fit right in. It wouldn't be out of place at all.
SPEAKER_03Uh it wouldn't it wouldn't come off that weird. Yeah, it would it would make sense. It would make sense.
SPEAKER_04I guess just you know, what's really the threat there, you know?
SPEAKER_03So what would you say the best talk you saw was?
SPEAKER_04I'm kind of biased. Um we had an Oklahoma um representative uh who did a talk at um in Policy Village about like um just kind of how the Oklahoma government is working to strengthen our cybersecurity program here and had call-outs specifically towards like how we help strengthen like rural you know infrastructure in areas, like specifically like hospitals, um, and how they're pushing like grants and things to try to help these organizations that are absolutely critical uh for these you know rural regions uh who one don't have a lot of resources, two, don't have a a great talent pool. Um and I'm missing where I was going with three, but I'll leave it at that. Um so but it was really interesting just to like it seems like that cybersecurity mindset is more on the for you know forethought. Like people are thinking about it more.
SPEAKER_03They're being forced to.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. They're being forced to. Um, but it and that just seems like it's been within the last, I don't know, maybe three years, two or three years, where um, you know, security used to be kind of an afterthought where it's like, hey, we have these things, it's up, it's working. Um, and then you know, you start having these municipalities and these, you know, rural hospitals who get taken offline because of ransomware. And what do people in those you know, regions who, you know, you have this is your hospital. Like it's ours to get to somewhere else. And if you're someone who's like had a stroke or you know, a heart attack, like those hours are absolutely critical. Yeah. And so kind of like seeing like how the state is changing their policies and procedures and and uh how they're trying to push that to m municipalities and help them, especially like these rural areas, which we got a lot of them in Oklahoma, um, it was was really interesting.
SPEAKER_03Uh was that uh Mr. Hendricks? It was Craig. Craig. Oh, okay, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_04No, I did catch Shout out Craig. Yeah, yeah. I did um I did catch one at Anthony's I did catch Anthony's talk. Okay. Which is always funny.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um he was on one of the creator stages just talking about um um, you know, legal things. He's a lawyer, cybersecurity lawyer, but um that was that was a good talk too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, anytime you're a lawyer and a bunch of hackers like you, you're doing something well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he is legit. I mean, we've talked to a lot of lawyers. Like he's one like I don't mind getting on the phone with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We're we're typically natural enemies. Yeah, typically unfortunately.
SPEAKER_04And not like because we want to be. It's just we, you know, we find stuff that they don't they don't like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They gotta they've got we we we try to help and they start asking us uncomfortable questions.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they've got they've got legal things that they have to do now. I know there was one there was one talk I wanted to go to um talking about threat actors specifically and like just how they've changed. That was in the blue team village. It was the first talk that I wanted to go to. I got in line, I sat in line for 30 minutes, and then I realized I was in the wrong line because the blue team village was right next door to like the fishing village, or I don't know, some some other village. And then they were like, oh, that line's over here, and it was already wrapped around because I had been sending the wrong line for 30 minutes, so I said, Guess I'm not going to that talk. Uh but you know, it's fine, it's DEF CON.
SPEAKER_03I think Blue Team Talks are recorded.
SPEAKER_04I could probably go find them. I think so. I thought only like the the like the main stage in Crater Village talks.
SPEAKER_03Those are guaranteed to be recorded. Okay. The rest of it is just like on the villages. It's like Recon Village, like we we know they're do they all have their own YouTube channels?
SPEAKER_04A lot of them. Okay. I might have to search for that because I there was a couple talks that I went to go try to find on like the DEF CON, you know, DEF CON YouTube channel. Yeah, those won't be up yet.
SPEAKER_03No, those won't be up yet. They usually put them up a few months later, okay, and then they'll kind of trickle them out and and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04Or have to go there because there were several Blue Team talks that I didn't get to uh I didn't get to make. So I'll have to go try to find those because I definitely want to see them still.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I imagine with the headphone situation, the talks will probably be well recorded as well.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_03Because they all had them hooked up on mics. Yeah, so it'd be like direct audio instead of just like a microphone. Oh, that's a that's an added benefit. I imagine. I guess we'll find out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_03But I would guess so. Never know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04What did you think of the DEF CON badge this year?
SPEAKER_03Um it was cool. I felt like um it was very cool as a as a concept. They had some like new hardware that has uh like specially made for the badge or maybe used in other things and things like that. I mean it was essentially a FIDO token.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um so I mean it was a make a QR code and you could have somebody else had a little camera on it that could scan your QR code.
SPEAKER_04Umes kind of thing, because you had different you had a different pattern of lights, and so you could you could exchange light patterns and get new light patterns and stuff with the code.
SPEAKER_03Mutations and things, and yeah. And somebody did hack it by the end of con. Yeah. Good. Um and they didn't release the exploit until like the very last day or something like that. It was like Sunday when they released it. Um but it was it was still cool. Uh they pulled a key out. I don't remember the exact hack. It was it was reasonably involved.
SPEAKER_04I know there were guys trying to install Doom on it. Yeah. That would have been cool. I'm curious if that ever happened.
SPEAKER_03That would have been very cool. I heard some like controversy about people were upset that I had a camera. You know, DEF CON people are thinking about cameras, even though there's like somebody taking a picture with a cell phone every five seconds. Yeah. Um they were like, yeah, we need to talk about the the camera code and the fact that this had a camera on it, and they were like, you know, if you hack the badge, you can actually make the camera be viable and things like that. And just like I don't know about them, apples. I just, I don't know. I've I I know people still care about the the camera thing, and I'm just like, man, there's a billion cameras in this casino. Every everybody's walking up. Holding a cell phone. They banned they banned metaglasses.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um which like I get it. Like they don't, you know, walk up to somebody who's just recording your face, like it's that's very uncomfortable. Um, I don't I don't hate that, but at the same time, it does feel like a fruitless effort to me where it's like, you know, there's a million other ways they could record.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there was different media teams running around just recording the space and taking pictures and like like again to to be upset about the camera on the badge, which was you know, 99% of people are just gonna utilize for scanning the other badge's QR code. Right. You know, like who's really gonna go that in-depth, that def column? Like, I don't know. I don't I don't know. I would have figured that the uh the SAO uh connections being upside down would have been the biggest uh I can we can we tinfoil hat time? Alright. Alright. I almost feel like they do it at purp on purpose at this point.
SPEAKER_03They mess something up on purpose?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like the last three years that I've gone, there has been something wrong with the badge.
SPEAKER_03There's pretty much always something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I feel like it's almost intentional at this point. Like whether it's to like drive I don't know, you know, like uh uh online engagement. I don't know if it's online engagement or like uh what's the saying like uh uh like um no no no publicity is bad publicity kind of thing. Yeah. Because like it's just kind of silly, like, oh the SAOs are upside down, but it's cool because we already have these adapters to fix it. So they knew it was a problem and you know, probably paid more to have these little fixes for a bunch of people.
SPEAKER_03It is kind of wild that that didn't get tested and they made you know 30, 40,000 badges and yeah, I mean it had to be on the on the diagram, like you know, the blueprint that they knew. Or just a test unit, you know, you would think.
SPEAKER_04I guess. I don't know. Um, yeah, yeah. I don't know, but that's the kind of stuff that makes me feel like because the year before the badges, it was the non-electronic badge. They're just falling. They were exploding. They were just yeah, they had those little pins. I had a fun scavenger hunt and utilized that to my advantage, though. So you did. Um and then the not I didn't go the previous year, but that was the the Game Boy year, right?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04And there was a controversy around that too.
SPEAKER_03Yes, a big one. Yeah, there was a uh the person who I'm gonna script all the details, originally wrote it like they felt like they were slided or something, and they hid some stuff into where like it would bring up a hidden menu that DEF CON people didn't know was there, and it would be like, I'm the actual creator of the badge, feel free to send me money. Yeah. And uh, you know, they they were very upset by that. And I guess he stood up on a at a at a main talk or something and gave like a monologue on how messed up things were, and they like re escorted him from the convention.
SPEAKER_04See, that all I look, it could have been organic. It just seems awfully scripted.
SPEAKER_03It's your DEF CON conspiracy.
SPEAKER_04That's my DEF CON conspiracy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So next year we'll see what the how the badge is messed up. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_04We'll see. Yeah, because next year's the non-electronic we're supposed to be. So unless they do something. What is next year is next year thir 35? Yeah. So I don't know if they do anything special for 35 or I doubt it. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's kind of silly, and it I mean, it didn't ruin anything. It's you know, it's just kind of funny at this point to me that Yeah, it's always something small. That you know, we have this massive conference and there's you know, what, 30,000 people plus there. And like anyways, it's just kind of funny to me.
SPEAKER_03That's how it goes. That's how it goes. Um, so what would you tell people who are wanting to go to DEF CON for the first time?
SPEAKER_04Oh man. Uh you know, I should they go? On yeah, I think so. If you're interested in the cybersecurity space, hack like if you just have a if you're passionate about it, if you have an interest in it, like that's that's your thing, is like if if your favorite movie is hackers or you know, Johnny Mnemonic, or you know, Swordfish or whatever, whatever, enter Hacking Movie, and like you like the hacker culture, and um, you know, it's a it's a fun conference. Um I you know, I I wasn't I wasn't in this workspace when you know DEF CON started. And so I only hear like how much it's changed from like what it was originally, like this grassroots where like there seems to be less hacking stuff and more like not maybe not corporate but more business-oriented stuff happening. Um and so I can't like speak to that. Uh, but as a whole, like, is there a lot of interesting and cool things to see? Absolutely. Are there cool people to meet and good connections to make? Absolutely. Um, I kind of think it's silly that it's in Las Vegas in the hottest part of the summer. Um, that's my biggest critique. Yeah. Um that's one of the we were I was when we were flying in, uh, there was a guy from um, I won't say the company name, but there was a guy flying in who was on a cybersecurity team for XYZ Company, and this was his first DEF CON ever. He was super excited about it. And um my main pointer, my main tip to him um was um if it looks like you can walk there, don't. That was my main point. Just Las Vegas advice. Yeah, yeah, just Las Vegas advice. I mean, because really DEF CON, like it's really not hard to go, even if you're by yourself, it's not hard to go to DEF CON and find people. Like you can find your people at DEF CON. Yeah. Um I mean, we you know, DEF CON's a huge place, and how many times did we run into like, you know, friends or people we work with from Oklahoma uh that we never planned uh planned on meeting? Yep. We just hey there's our people, you know, like um, and even if you don't know people, you know, it's pretty easy like uh meeting Luigi in line for pizza that one day. Yeah. Uh because those guys were like, are you hackers?
SPEAKER_03I ran into him at Tellefreak. Yeah, yeah, you were saying that. Yeah, yeah. I can't believe he made it, yeah. Shout out Luigi. I can't believe they uh made it to Telefreak their first year at DEF CON.
SPEAKER_04That's actually crazy. It's it's hilarious. Um, but yeah, but that's what I'm saying. That was his first year at DEF CON, and he made it to a party that it's like very hush-hush, like hard to get into. Yeah, like you, it's who you know. Exactly. So you can, you know, you can figure it out. There, there are there are things to do. So um I think like again, I think most of my advice I give to people about it is just regarding Vegas in general. Uh DEF CON is just kind of you you'll figure it out. It's not it's not that complex. Yep. Um, the other piece of advice was like, hey, find talks you want to go to, um, but don't plan on making all of them.
SPEAKER_03Like don't marry yourself to any cloud.
SPEAKER_04If you have like, I would, I would pick maybe one a day that you're saying I'm going to make it to this talk. And then everything else is just up in the air. Because as you're walking around, you're gonna be like, oh, I want to go check this out, and then all of a sudden you've missed two other talks, you know. Um, so that'd be my advice. How about you?
SPEAKER_03Um, I always have the same advice. Uh wear comfortable shoes. Yeah. Uh you're gonna be doing a ton of walking, uh, stay hydrated. Yeah. Bring some electrolytes, you know, bring some snacks. For sure. These are these are my practical advice for for people. Um, it always helps to have an icebreaker. So if you're uh, you know, you like making stickers or you got some, you know, you're hardware hacking like SAOs, something like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Anytime you can have an icebreaker to hand somebody me, I like to carry around beers, you know, just give somebody a beer. People appreciate that. Uh anything like that always helps if you're uh you're not super type A, you don't want to just go extrovert talk to everybody.
SPEAKER_04Like, yeah, it definitely helps helps that definitely it definitely drains the social battery being out there because everyone wants to talk.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Uh and then when people find out what you do, they want to talk to you more. Yes. And that's if you're not like a like an extrovert, if you're not like it can be absolutely draining.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, you'll be talking to a lot of people, and you know, you'd be talking about hacking stuff, and they'll be like, what do you what do you do for a living? Like, this. This is what I do. And then all of a sudden it like changes, you know. It's like, can we go back to the conversation about hacking stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me more about that. Yeah. It but I mean, yeah, I just want to hear about the cool things people are doing. Right. Like, oh, you spent like four months fuzzing registers on some obscure device. Like, tell me about that. Like, I want to hear about this, you know, the the weird projects you have going on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I get that way. Like it's kind of funny. Like, I I work a lot of incident response, and um people have a big interest in that. Like, oh, tell me, you know, blah, blah, blah. But then on the opposite side, like when I if I know someone else does incident response, I'm just like, I know how that goes. Like, I don't have to cool. I get it.
SPEAKER_03I don't have any questions. Uh well, whenever you talk to other red teamers, it's kind of funny. I feel like they always try to kind of like vet you.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Like as soon as you know you manage it. I totally, yeah, I see that. I s and that I'm on the blue team side of things, so like I find it funny, but you're absolutely right. Like running into other red teamers, it's it's like a what kind of red teamer are you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, what C2 do you use? What's your what's your favorite method for initial access? Like, yeah, it's always it's always something.
SPEAKER_04Are you really a red teamer? Yeah. But I think that's fair. It is fair. That's like at at again, every year that I've gone, Red Team Village has been crammed packed. It's like the cool, like, it's where like when people think of hackers, they think red team. Like that, that is it. So people want to be in red team. Like that is the space that people want to get into. They want to be the hacker. Yeah. Um, and so like there's just so many, I don't. Not not that they're just like tag-alongs, but it's like, oh, we hang out at Red Team Village because Red Team is cool. You know, well, you know, they want to learn it, and that's a good way to do it. But I think it I think there's people there that don't want to learn it and they just think red team's cool.
SPEAKER_03You know, probably, yeah. There's probably some of that. There's probably some of that.
SPEAKER_04You don't see that at Policy Village, is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03Everybody in Policy Village loves policy. That is for sure. That is for sure. Um I didn't make it to any Policy Village talks this year.
SPEAKER_04There was yeah, there were there were good ones. It was it was a much nicer space this year, too. Really? Like last year we kind of got relegated into this corner and it was just this kind of one small room. And you might be surprised, but there's a lot of people interested in policy.
SPEAKER_03There were people Well, you run into a lot of people there that are like, I'm in GRC, I'm a CISO, I'm not sure. I'm in legal. You you run into a lot of people like that at DEF CON.
SPEAKER_04Well, and when I was working the door uh for one of the talks, um I so I unintentionally signed up to be the door guy for a closed door talk. And so on that Thursday, I had a bunch of people coming up, like, oh, what's going on, you know, in this talk today. And I'd be like, nothing for you, come back to tomorrow, you know. Uh that's when we officially opened. These are, you know, invite-only closed door talks because they talked about legitimately serious things that, you know, they're playing. Um, but I had so many guys that walk up and be like, oh, is Policy Village is are there gonna be GRC talks? And I'd be like, download hacker tracker, let's go through this, let me show you. Like, let's go, you know, Policy Village, let's find some GRC talks if you want to go to. But I had more questions about GRC than anything else at Policy Village.
SPEAKER_03Well, a lot of people do it. Yeah. And it's not uh it's not the sexy stuff.
SPEAKER_04No, but that's what that's what's kind of it's kind of strange to me. It seems to like it's blown up just in this last year.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Uh because I don't remember, you know, there there may have been like a GRC talk or two. Maybe there were more last year, and I just wasn't in them. But like it seemed like a lot of people were super interested in the GRC stuff. And um uh again, like I didn't have people coming up and asking me about like, oh, what kind of hippie policy talks are going on? It was all like, hey, where's the GRC talks? And guys were like, Oh, I work in GRC, so I want to come to policy talks. And it's like, well, you know, go pull them up, look for them, see, see what's there, see what's interesting, bookmark it, make sure you're there. Yeah. Uh so that was kind of yeah, something for everybody.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. I think for me, it'll always be the people I meet in the conversations that I have at two in the morning at a bar. That is that is kind of always my my main reason at DEF CON. Like I ran to a guy, very interesting character named uh Johnny Christmas, and he runs a convention that goes from I don't remember where he said it starts, I think he said it ends in Chicago. It's like an 11-hour train ride, and they call it Hobocon, and they do the convention on a train and they rent out like a full train, uh like a train car, and I guess they're trying to rent out like a secondary car this year, and like we talked for like two hours about the logistics of doing a convention on a train. And like, like how do you need internet connection? Like, how do you guarantee that you have internet connection whenever you're in the middle of nowhere on a train? Like, you can't you can't just set up an antenna and pass through the the metal barrier of the train very well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you've got to have a Starlink mounted on the Yeah, like and then is the conductor gonna be cool with that? Yeah, like and we And then we're gonna go through a tunnel.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and how much equipment are you? Is it gonna clear the tunnel to wheel in? And then whenever you get off the train, you're gonna have to be able to to dolly that stuff. Stuff off and figure out what to do with all your equipment when you land in Chicago downtown. Just all kinds of interesting things.
SPEAKER_04That's actually awesome, and I want to do that.
SPEAKER_03I am going to try to go. So I hit him up. He actually is down to come on the podcast. Oh, so that'd be right. Stay tuned for a Johnny Christmas episode. Really interesting character. Yeah, I like I like him. He's fun to talk to. He'll be a cool podcast.
SPEAKER_04That'd be really interesting. Yeah, I would love that. Yeah, that sounds I mean, that's the cool stuff. Like yeah, DEF CON's cool. It's massive. There's a lot of stuff. Everyone's there. It's international. But there's a lot of really cool, just like grassroots small conferences all over the place that are really fun too. So don't sleep on like small, like local conferences either. SECON? Yeah. Come to SetCon. SECCON, yeah, we do them in Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_03Coming up. Yeah. Coming up. Yep. Yeah. No, there's some good conferences in Oklahoma. I mean, we've got, you know, we've got, of course, SECCON. We're biased because, you know, we we help, we help, we help put it on and we we volunteer a lot for it and stuff like that. Um, but we do uh in Oklahoma, you have Oklahoma B sides, pretty much everywhere has a B sides. Yeah. Um there's Information Warfare Summit, another really good one. Uh and then there's all the small stuff too. There's always the small groups, right? We've got 2600, we've got we've got the DEF CON group, the DC 405. Um so there's always there's always something in in any space that you're in, pretty much. There's always gonna be your local groups, and a lot of them end up meeting up at DEF CON.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's that's another thing that you could, you know, if you've never been to DEF CON before, if you have an interest in this, go find local groups. Because almost guaranteed there's a local DEF CON group or there's some kind of local cybersecurity group, and almost certainly people there go to DEF CON.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_04And so you could definitely like find your people there and then go to DEF CON. So that's an option too.
SPEAKER_03Yep. If you're one of our uh Oklahomies listening and you want to come, uh there is an Oklahoma meetup every year with the Oklahoma Cyber Discord. So uh just reach out to one of us if you want to join that Discord or Jonathan Kemet if you know him. Yeah. Um, and we'll we'll get you uh into that into that meetup next year. It's growing every year. We have uh we're gonna we're gonna run out of tables in the food court.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think last year we had a pool two date tables together, and I think this year we had like four or five tables.
SPEAKER_03We had like like five or six tables together, and then like people around and standing around.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, people had a move to actually talk to each other.
SPEAKER_03We probably had what, like 40 plus people. Like 45. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I think we we doubled in size from last year easily. Yeah. Just that just that Oklahoma meetup. And we had SAOs that were we were you know handing out or selling. And uh I know Kimmet had a bunch of stickers that we were giving out. So we you know, we like to have fun too, you know. Uh especially making connections with local people. That's really important to us.
SPEAKER_03Uh we travel halfway across the country, that way we can meet up with the people who live here. Yeah, yeah. Not the whole conference, but sometimes it's the only time I see some of them, you know. That's true. Yeah. So you you're gonna go back, you're gonna do it again?
SPEAKER_04Uh DEF CON? Yeah. Uh probably. I don't know about next year. I think I'm okay with doing like every other year. Take a year off because Vegas it is a silly place.
SPEAKER_03It is a silly place.
SPEAKER_04That city uh should not exist. I don't know how it does. Um, but you know, just have a conference there.
SPEAKER_03I got a drink and a sandwich and spent $30. I dude.
SPEAKER_04I know, man. I know. Like you can't like even try even like going to the 7-Eleven, you know, down the street, like everything was expensive there. Like a bottle of water was still five dollars, you know, at the 7-Eleven. So it's like Yeah. It's uh it's an expensive place. So be ready. If you're going, budget for it.
SPEAKER_03And feel free to bring stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, bring bring your own food. Yeah, you having that uh protein bar saved my butt that one day.
SPEAKER_03So a whole bag. Yeah. That's a that's a a third of my bag is just like food. Like I'm not I'm not paying $25 a meal. Like, I mean, just bring bring protein bars in the back. I should definitely do better about that.
SPEAKER_04That's one thing me and Kimmet did was we Kimmet when got, you know, lunch meat, cheese, and bread. Yeah. So that uh, you know, we didn't have to go spend thirty dollars, forty dollars.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like even if you make really good money and you it's not a problem to you, it just almost feels insulting paying $20 for a sandwich. It does.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's not it's not okay.
SPEAKER_04I mean, two there were two cans of, you know, the nicotine pouches were $25 out there. That's absurd. That's a $7-11.
SPEAKER_03And they had the Zen vendor there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the Zen vendor was there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It was $3 a can.
SPEAKER_04So you've talked about vendors. Three feet. We never talked about vendors. Vendors is cool this year. Yeah, there's always some good vendors. The Zen vendor was there. That was funny. I thought I thought that's pretty good marketing. Yeah, I mean, going to a cybersecurity conference selling, you know. Um, anyways.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. They I'm pretty sure they cleaned up. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they cleaned up.
SPEAKER_04I bet they did.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Yeah, there was um you got a cool mesh tastic device.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I did. Uh this was their DEF CON exclusive one. Um, and I think it's just DEF CON exclusive because the color, I don't, it might glow in the dark. It's uh injected molded, injection molded instead of uh 3D printed, so it's got uh some uh waterproofing. Yeah, okay. And so for my for my usage when you know going camping and stuff, um it's nice that it's gonna be a little more rugged than just your your traditional old uh version. Sneak Reaper had cool stuff as always. Always yeah, shout out to Sneak Reaper, the best vendor Solaris. Um the Yeah, the shirts are they have the best shirts, Dean.
SPEAKER_03They do, they do, yeah. Yeah, good quality too. Yeah. You know, it's not just junk, it's always good quality. Um the Calix or Calyx, I don't know how to say it, Institute.
SPEAKER_04That one's really interesting to me.
SPEAKER_03So they sell um prepaid SIM cards and hotspots and things like that. And so you can go buy a prepaid SIM card with full data plan for $500 for a year, and there's no questions asked. Do you pay it in cash? Yeah. That is probably the best way to get an actual burner device in current day and age. Yeah. As long as you don't come on a podcast and talk about it, talk about it, yeah.
SPEAKER_04The uh the prepaid hotspots are really cool too. I I have an interest in that.
SPEAKER_03Well, you can also just get the sim card. So that was pretty much what they told me is they were like, you know, I was like, well, I'm trying to decide if I really want to get, you know, the 5G or if I just want to get the cheaper one. Because like a $250 difference between like having LTE and 5G. Um and they were like, I mean, do you have a hotspot? And I was like, Yeah, we got a hotspot around. And they were like, you just get a SIM card, ask 5G. I was like, oh, cool. Like save yourself 250 bucks and just get a SIM card. Right. Yeah, that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Did Hack5 have anything cool this year?
SPEAKER_03Um, I mean, they always have cool stuff. I'm just, I don't know, I didn't even really go by because I already know everything that they have because you know they they post it all online. But no, they always make lots of cool stuff. I mean, you know, last year they dropped the the pineapple pager. Pineapple pager, yeah. I don't know if they dropped anything new this year. Um some morons were using said pager on an airplane. Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah. Delta, was it Delta? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so on a Delta flight back from from DEF CON. If you guys didn't hear, some people knocked out the Wi-Fi and they set up a Rogue S a rogue SSID to get people to connect to. Yeah. And uh they were like, I guess, allegedly harvesting credentials or something from that. Um, so that's stupid. Don't do that. Yeah, they thought they were being cool, and they're they're really not. Like, you're not you're not doing anything impressive. You're just you're just doing script case shit. Yeah. Like I just nobody you're just hurting. You're embarrassing us. Please stop. That's all I have to say.
SPEAKER_04True. That falls in line with the did you see the sign that uh I can't remember if it's the FBI or DA split up on the horseshoe about stopping hackers. Yeah. It's like come on, guys.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that would they probably probably uh were not aware of exactly what this conference was.
SPEAKER_04Oh, they absolutely were aware of the conference. I absolutely they yeah, they have people at the conference.
SPEAKER_03That's true.
SPEAKER_04Like there's a lot of different things. Yeah, but do they talk to all over the conference?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's a lot of feds. There's a lot of feds.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, we ought to have uh have Sean come on someday and talk about the old the old DEF CON days of uh spot the fed and the Alexis Park days.
SPEAKER_04See, that's what that's I wish I had got to experience that because that sounds super fun to me.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah. I think I am also um you know, just seeing the culture shift over the last like you know six years or whatever, like seeing that shift is is kind of like yeah, I really wish I would have been there to be a good thing. Yeah, it's becoming much more mainstream.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, which is under I mean, I understand why. Disappointing maybe, but uh you know, cybersecurity, it's a big umbrella now, you know. Um people are talking about it on the news more, it's not just a movie from you know the 90s, so um I get it, but uh again, that's kind of one of my points with like if you're gonna go to DEF CON, go to some local, you know, grassroots conferences first, meet some people, kind of get an idea of like what would this be like if it was a thousand times bigger, you know, and kind of give you an idea of what to expect from DEF CON.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I can almost guarantee you wherever you're at, you have a local group, even if you don't know what you do.
SPEAKER_04For sure. I mean, there's conferences in South Dakota, dude. Yeah, like you can find a conference, you can find a group, you know. If you've never been, you want to go, go do that stuff first.
SPEAKER_03There's a North Dakota DEF CON group. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, yeah, that's I mean, out in the middle of nowhere, yeah, there you're gonna have a group. So don't be like, ah, surely there's you know, no one in my area, because most certainly there is.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Search around for it. Yep. Well, yeah, have you been able to do that? If you do go, if you do go, come find us.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Come find us.
SPEAKER_04You'll be there in some some form. Maybe not me, but you'll be there. I'll certainly be there.
SPEAKER_03I'm always there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. All right. Well, thank you guys for uh hanging out on another episode of the Secure AF Podcast. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to comment them below. Hit us up on LinkedIn, hit us up on Discord, whatever. We're always happy to chat, and we will catch you in the next time.
SPEAKER_00Bye. The Secure AF Podcast is a production of Alias Cybersecurity. Visit us online at aliascybersecurity.com. All rights reserved.
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