Category: Hackers

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Crazy Hacker Weekend!

The weekend of Aug 19th and Aug 20th is a crazy busy weekend for Hive76. Between stuff going on at Hive76, and things going on around Philly, there is a lot to do.

MakerBot 3d Printing Intro
Saturday, 1PM to 5 at Hive76 just $25
MakerBot founder Zach is in town, to teach a MakerBot 3d Printing class at Hive76. 3D printers allow people convert their digital designs into real world objects, and MakerBot is one of the most popular 3D printers. Bring your own 3d object designs, or lean how to design things on the spot. Once you’ve taken the class, you’re certified to use the Hive76 MakerBot, and can print things out at Hive at your own schedule. Get a ticket now, we’re almost sold out… More Info

Hackers Dinner
Saturday, 6:30ish to 8sih at Dahlak
Want to hang out with the infamous Nick Farr or the ineffable Zach Smith? Got questions about technology, the future, or making things that you need answered? Then come have dinner with us, and get to know a couple of the folks behind Philly, D.C. and N.Y.C.’s hacker scene. This is also a kind-of celebration of 3 months of Hive76, so come celebrate. RSVP to Hive76@gmail.com by Friday, because this is a dinner, and we need a headcount. More Info

8static (non-Hive76)
Saturday 8PM till ?? at Studio34
8static is a chiptunes show in West Philly, and it’s just blocks from Dahlak. So wander on over after eating and check out what happens when musicians start to reverses engineer their gear. More Info

Nick Farr talks about ’42 Points on the Future of Everything’
(Sunday 12:30 to 2PM) At Hive76. Free coffee and (pay) order-in-brunch
Nick Farr is known world-around for his advocacy for hackerspaces, and for pushing the edge of what spaces do. Because of his travels and experience, he has a unique and deep understanding of spaces, geeks, hackers, and where this whole thing is going. His talk is a recap of a SIGINT talk covering the future of everything. More Info

Guitar Effects Study Group
Monday the 21st, 7:30PM to 10PM at Hive76
The third Monday of every month is Guitar Effects Workshop at Hive76. We will build a simple musical gizmo and discuss how it works. Even if you have never touched a soldering iron (or a guitar), stop by and learn how to build simple musical electronics. More advanced mad scientists are encouraged to come show off their own guitar effect creations. More Info

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Swiss ‘white’ Trojan programs

To make a short story shorter, Ruben Unteregger is a swiss programmer has spent the last 7 years working for a branch of the Swiss government (Swiss Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (UVEK) ) to create a so-called ‘white’ trogan program to sniff and scan VOIP calls. Since much of VOIP (such as Skype) are encrypted, this means he was was writing a client-side Trojan, which would record calls to mp3 files without the computer owners consent or knowledge.

As usual, if there is a way to break encryption, it will be skipped in favor of grabbing the data before/after encryption happens. Being an awesome human being(tm), Ruben Unteregger released MegaPanzer to the public, and has done a good interview explaining in simple I-have-to-explain-it-to-my-mom language what the whole thing is about. It’s an interesting interview, and worth the read. Other coverage is also here.

Or you can watch the nifty ‘How to take over an e-banking session in 7 easy steps” video if you are lazy.


How to Plunder a Bank Account with Megapanzer 0.1 – I’m not such a fan of this web player……

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An interview with ITL

Invisible Things Lab is a sweet little security company. Tom’s Hardware has a great interview with Founder and CEO Joanna Rutkowska, once you get past the first page of obligatory ‘what was your first PC’ questions. Kernel Level rootkits are getting a lot of attention these days, and it’s awesome to read about the hackers that make (or defend against) them.

Having the two opponents (a rootkit and an A/V) operating at the same privilege level (ring 0) doesn’t mean that either of the two is a clear winner in the long term. In fact, in the long term there is always a draw. It’s that malware usually wins in the short-term, and this is pretty bad because, for malware, it is just enough to survive a few weeks (or days maybe even) to do its job.

If anyone is going to Black Hat ’09, you should check ITL’s talk on ‘Attacking Intel BIOS, and Introducing Ring -3 Rootkits’, it should be awesome.