#shmoocon — Public Fediverse posts

Shmoo and not a moose in sight. #shmoocon

Nice to see an old school no-photo policy at #bsidessf. Reminds me of #shmoocon. Yes, in our hyper surveillance culture such a policy might be pointless but it’s a nice thought.

Nice to see an old school no-photo policy at #bsidessf. Reminds me of #shmoocon. Yes, in our hyper surveillance culture such a policy might be pointless but it’s a nice thought.

Misc story time:
tldr: I've been collecting security conference stickers for 20+ years and just now got around to using them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not the kind of person to put stickers on my laptop. This means that for 23 years (apparently), when I got stickers from a conference, I kept them, put them in a bag, moved them from house-to-house, but never actually did anything with them. Until now.

I finally found a usage; which is decorating the otherwise-sketchy-looking metal ammo case which @VeronicaKovah & I are now using to carry phones with us to trainings. We watched some videos on youtube that make it seem like those LiPo fire-protection bags would do a whole lot of not-much in the event that a fire broke out on one of the batteries. But a simple metal box seemed to do a lot better in terms of containing the flames.

So we of course expect that airport security will always stop us when traveling with them (though at least this time our TSA pre-check status seemed to give us a pass on the way out). But the expectation is that contrary to what you might thing, adding hacking conference stickers will actually be disarming, rather than alarming, with security personnel - at least when compared to the alternative of seeing a raw ammo canister ;)

The oldest sticker seems to be from DEF CON 10 (X), circa 2002 (my first DEF CON was 8 FWIW). In general I don't seek out stickers, but I do think the BadBIOS and "I want to believe" ones are things I probably got from Joe Fitz as they were of-the-moment and relevant to my interests. (If you're not familiar with the latter, it's from a very FUDish cover article [1]). I could have completely filled them, but I left a little bit of space for the future. Check out the larger pics for a potential stroll down memory lane. (RIP Shmoocon, Hackademic.info, NoSuchCon. Memento mori conference organizers ;))

#DEFCON, #BlackHat, #ShmooCon, #BlueHat, #RingZer0, #HackLU, #HardwearIO, #DistrictCon, #HackFest, #NoSuchCon, #DeepSec, #HITB, #HackersOnTheHill

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

Misc story time:
tldr: I've been collecting security conference stickers for 20+ years and just now got around to using them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not the kind of person to put stickers on my laptop. This means that for 23 years (apparently), when I got stickers from a conference, I kept them, put them in a bag, moved them from house-to-house, but never actually did anything with them. Until now.

I finally found a usage; which is decorating the otherwise-sketchy-looking metal ammo case which @VeronicaKovah & I are now using to carry phones with us to trainings. We watched some videos on youtube that make it seem like those LiPo fire-protection bags would do a whole lot of not-much in the event that a fire broke out on one of the batteries. But a simple metal box seemed to do a lot better in terms of containing the flames.

So we of course expect that airport security will always stop us when traveling with them (though at least this time our TSA pre-check status seemed to give us a pass on the way out). But the expectation is that contrary to what you might thing, adding hacking conference stickers will actually be disarming, rather than alarming, with security personnel - at least when compared to the alternative of seeing a raw ammo canister ;)

The oldest sticker seems to be from DEF CON 10 (X), circa 2002 (my first DEF CON was 8 FWIW). In general I don't seek out stickers, but I do think the BadBIOS and "I want to believe" ones are things I probably got from Joe Fitz as they were of-the-moment and relevant to my interests. (If you're not familiar with the latter, it's from a very FUDish cover article [1]). I could have completely filled them, but I left a little bit of space for the future. Check out the larger pics for a potential stroll down memory lane. (RIP Shmoocon, Hackademic.info, NoSuchCon. Memento mori conference organizers ;))

#DEFCON, #BlackHat, #ShmooCon, #BlueHat, #RingZer0, #HackLU, #HardwearIO, #DistrictCon, #HackFest, #NoSuchCon, #DeepSec, #HITB, #HackersOnTheHill

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

Another highly sought after item! A badge from the last year of #ShmooCon

https://www.ebay.com/itm/357387363700

#charityauction #defcon33 #blackhat #bsideslv

Another highly sought after item! A badge from the last year of #ShmooCon

https://www.ebay.com/itm/357387363700

#charityauction #defcon33 #blackhat #bsideslv

Finally getting around to something I’ve always wanted to do. Fix the @ShmooCon videos for 2008, 2009, and 2010. Each talk is a series of many small video files.

Because I’m in the process of transcoding to AV1 and adding captions to #ShmooCon, I’m finally going to manually join all the individual pieces to create a single video file per talk.

I usually don’t do this kind of work for conferences that can’t do it themselves, but I like ShmooCon and they had their final year last year. I want to pay them homage by creating a complete collection of their talks in time to include it on the #infocon.org data duplication village hard drive at #DEFCON this year.

Finally getting around to something I’ve always wanted to do. Fix the @ShmooCon videos for 2008, 2009, and 2010. Each talk is a series of many small video files.

Because I’m in the process of transcoding to AV1 and adding captions to #ShmooCon, I’m finally going to manually join all the individual pieces to create a single video file per talk.

I usually don’t do this kind of work for conferences that can’t do it themselves, but I like ShmooCon and they had their final year last year. I want to pay them homage by creating a complete collection of their talks in time to include it on the #infocon.org data duplication village hard drive at #DEFCON this year.

Tune in Monday when I'll be reminiscing on #ShmooCon and #hacker culture with the wonderfully entertaining founders Heidi and Bruce Potter! So glad I was able to attend the 20th and final con!

@ShmooCon

Subscribe here:
https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/podcast/

Tune in Monday when I'll be reminiscing on #ShmooCon and #hacker culture with the wonderfully entertaining founders Heidi and Bruce Potter! So glad I was able to attend the 20th and final con!

@ShmooCon

Subscribe here:
https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/podcast/

My gargantuan presentation about Cold War attacks and intrusions into our intelligence apparatus has now been published. If you didn't catch it at #ShmooCon or #CackalackyCon now you can view it here...

https://youtu.be/-Z_Jv7vuiqg

Enjoy! 👍😁👍

My gargantuan presentation about Cold War attacks and intrusions into our intelligence apparatus has now been published. If you didn't catch it at #ShmooCon or #CackalackyCon now you can view it here...

https://youtu.be/-Z_Jv7vuiqg

Enjoy! 👍😁👍

My friend Kali Fencl did a very interesting, 10 minute, talk about what content marketing is, and how working with the marketing team can be kinda awesome. I wish I had known a lot of this stuff when I started marking content. #shmoocon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YHcw-qj094&t=22703s

My friend Kali Fencl did a very interesting, 10 minute, talk about what content marketing is, and how working with the marketing team can be kinda awesome. I wish I had known a lot of this stuff when I started marking content. #shmoocon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YHcw-qj094&t=22703s

Video of my #shmoocon 2025 talk is up!

Building and Hacking USB with FPGAs

https://archive.org/details/shmoocon2025/ShmooCon2025-Michael+Ossmann-Building+and+Hacking+USB+with+FPGAs.mp4

Video of my #shmoocon 2025 talk is up!

Building and Hacking USB with FPGAs

https://archive.org/details/shmoocon2025/ShmooCon2025-Michael+Ossmann-Building+and+Hacking+USB+with+FPGAs.mp4

Excited for a new side quest - invited to join stellar SME advisors working w/ researchers + students at Penn State PILOT Lab. Building better #Privacy + Security begins w/ the research phase.

Learn more #PSUPILOTLab & watch our #ShmooCon presentation - https://www.pilotlab.org/projects

Excited for a new side quest - invited to join stellar SME advisors working w/ researchers + students at Penn State PILOT Lab. Building better #Privacy + Security begins w/ the research phase.

Learn more #PSUPILOTLab & watch our #ShmooCon presentation - https://www.pilotlab.org/projects

Weekly output: Arc Boats, data brokers, Mark Vena podcast, New Glenn, Starship, TikTok

Ideally, the week after CES would be a relaxing time with at least one day spent entirely disconnected from work. Because we don’t live in an ideal world, my week instead featured the Supreme Court blowing up TikTok and SpaceX blowing up the second stage of its giant Starship rocket.

And on top of that, I wrote a post Wednesday for Patreon readers sharing further observations from CES.

1/13/2025: This Speedy Electric Sport Boat Leaves Internal Combustion in Its Wake, PCMag

My CES coverage almost wrapped up with this report of a fun outing on Lake Mead on a battery-electric boat–“almost” as in I have a couple of other stories that began with notes and quotes from that trade show, but which can’t be finished without additional reporting.

1/13/2025: Even the Experts Have Trouble Getting Data Brokers to Stop Tracking Them, PCMag

After covering ShmooCon Saturday, I spent part of Sunday watching that hacker conference’s closing panels remotely and part of it writing a recap of Yael Grauer’s talk about the futility of trying to opt out of data brokers without any help from the federal privacy law that Congress keeps failing to pass.

1/15/2026: Ep 106 SmartTechCheck Podcast — CES recap, TikTok, Zoox, TSMC, Apple, Mark Vena

I joined my industry analyst friend Mark and my fellow tech journalists Stewart Wolpin and John Quain for this CES recap.

1/16/2025: Blue Origin’s Giant New Glenn Rocket Reaches Orbit on Its First Try, PCMag

The 1 to 4 a.m. launch window that Blue Origin apparently picked to minimize interference with air traffic maximized interference with my sleep–especially when the first attempt on Monday morning saw five resets of the countdown clock before finally getting scrubbed a little after 3 a.m. The second one resulted in a successful launch at 2:03 a.m., but then writing the post (and eyeing my bleary-eyed copy carefully before pasting it into the CMS) had me up until after 3 a.m. anyway.

1/16/2025: SpaceX Catches a Booster But Loses an Upper Stage on Starship’s Seventh Flight, PCMag

About 17 hours after watching one rocket launch Thursday, I watched a second one that was not so successful–and not in the way that I’d thought Starship’s seventh test might go awry, a failed booster catch.

1/17/2025: Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban, Finds No First Amendment Violations, PCMag

I wrote more than 500 words of background material in advance, plus ledes and closing sentences that would go with a court opinion against TikTok or for it. That let me get a completed story filed within half an hour of the court’s mercifully brief opinion getting posted at 10 a.m. Friday. That afternoon, I added another section with reactions from various parties, including two of my favorite tech-policy experts who also happen to be among two of the fastest sources I know to answer an e-mail request for comment.

#ArcBoats #BlueOrigin #ces #dataBrokers #electricBoat #FirstAmendment #LasVegas #MarkVena #NewGlenn #Shmoocon #SpaceX #Starship #SupremeCourt #TikTok #YaelGrauer

Weekly output: Arc Boats, data brokers, Mark Vena podcast, New Glenn, Starship, TikTok

Ideally, the week after CES would be a relaxing time with at least one day spent entirely disconnected from work. Because we don’t live in an ideal world, my week instead featured the Supreme Court blowing up TikTok and SpaceX blowing up the second stage of its giant Starship rocket.

And on top of that, I wrote a post Wednesday for Patreon readers sharing further observations from CES.

1/13/2025: This Speedy Electric Sport Boat Leaves Internal Combustion in Its Wake, PCMag

My CES coverage almost wrapped up with this report of a fun outing on Lake Mead on a battery-electric boat–“almost” as in I have a couple of other stories that began with notes and quotes from that trade show, but which can’t be finished without additional reporting.

1/13/2025: Even the Experts Have Trouble Getting Data Brokers to Stop Tracking Them, PCMag

After covering ShmooCon Saturday, I spent part of Sunday watching that hacker conference’s closing panels remotely and part of it writing a recap of Yael Grauer’s talk about the futility of trying to opt out of data brokers without any help from the federal privacy law that Congress keeps failing to pass.

1/15/2026: Ep 106 SmartTechCheck Podcast — CES recap, TikTok, Zoox, TSMC, Apple, Mark Vena

I joined my industry analyst friend Mark and my fellow tech journalists Stewart Wolpin and John Quain for this CES recap.

1/16/2025: Blue Origin’s Giant New Glenn Rocket Reaches Orbit on Its First Try, PCMag

The 1 to 4 a.m. launch window that Blue Origin apparently picked to minimize interference with air traffic maximized interference with my sleep–especially when the first attempt on Monday morning saw five resets of the countdown clock before finally getting scrubbed a little after 3 a.m. The second one resulted in a successful launch at 2:03 a.m., but then writing the post (and eyeing my bleary-eyed copy carefully before pasting it into the CMS) had me up until after 3 a.m. anyway.

1/16/2025: SpaceX Catches a Booster But Loses an Upper Stage on Starship’s Seventh Flight, PCMag

About 17 hours after watching one rocket launch Thursday, I watched a second one that was not so successful–and not in the way that I’d thought Starship’s seventh test might go awry, a failed booster catch.

1/17/2025: Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban, Finds No First Amendment Violations, PCMag

I wrote more than 500 words of background material in advance, plus ledes and closing sentences that would go with a court opinion against TikTok or for it. That let me get a completed story filed within half an hour of the court’s mercifully brief opinion getting posted at 10 a.m. Friday. That afternoon, I added another section with reactions from various parties, including two of my favorite tech-policy experts who also happen to be among two of the fastest sources I know to answer an e-mail request for comment.

#ArcBoats #BlueOrigin #ces #dataBrokers #electricBoat #FirstAmendment #LasVegas #MarkVena #NewGlenn #Shmoocon #SpaceX #Starship #SupremeCourt #TikTok #YaelGrauer

Been pretty hectic since last weekend … the whole last #ShmooCon thing is sinking in. :(

Been pretty hectic since last weekend … the whole last #ShmooCon thing is sinking in. :(

I was looking forward to attending #PyConUS this year after hearing about the success of their masked event last year, but now I see that they have dropped their masking requirement. #ShmooCon was great. What other masked events should I make plans to attend?

I was looking forward to attending #PyConUS this year after hearing about the success of their masked event last year, but now I see that they have dropped their masking requirement. #ShmooCon was great. What other masked events should I make plans to attend?

New video is up and it's all about the small, supplementary hardware item that #ShmooCon hotel installed on all of their doors to prevent room break-ins. Neat! 👍😁👍

(With bonus cameos by @InclusiveLittleUnicorn
@pronto and others in the lobby as well as @Weld in a screenshot!) 😉

https://youtu.be/ONmix_70McA

New video is up and it's all about the small, supplementary hardware item that #ShmooCon hotel installed on all of their doors to prevent room break-ins. Neat! 👍😁👍

(With bonus cameos by @InclusiveLittleUnicorn
@pronto and others in the lobby as well as @Weld in a screenshot!) 😉

https://youtu.be/ONmix_70McA

The final #ShmooCon did not disappoint and neither did the fantastic talk @deviantollam gave Saturday! You'll definitely want to catch the YouTube upload of it if you missed it and consider coming to Cackalackycon for the extended version in the works!

I made logo covers for my and @llorenzin's masks for #ShmooCon this past weekend.

We added SIPmask airtight drinking valves to our masks so we can safely drink with a straw while wearing our masks, and I thought it would be neat to display the ShmooCon logo rather than the SIPmask logo.

I had initially planned to 3D print a replacement valve cover - either with two colors of filament, or just coloring/painting it when it was done - but as I ran out of time, I scaled back my expectations and plan.

I ended up printing out the logo on the laser printer, cutting it out, and gluing it onto the existing valve cover. (And I'm proud of myself for getting something done, rather than giving up when I couldn't do it the way I initially planned!)

As we say around our house: "Anything worth doing is worth doing at the last minute..." 😁

#MakeShitMonday
@cannibal

I made logo covers for my and @llorenzin's masks for #ShmooCon this past weekend.

We added SIPmask airtight drinking valves to our masks so we can safely drink with a straw while wearing our masks, and I thought it would be neat to display the ShmooCon logo rather than the SIPmask logo.

I had initially planned to 3D print a replacement valve cover - either with two colors of filament, or just coloring/painting it when it was done - but as I ran out of time, I scaled back my expectations and plan.

I ended up printing out the logo on the laser printer, cutting it out, and gluing it onto the existing valve cover. (And I'm proud of myself for getting something done, rather than giving up when I couldn't do it the way I initially planned!)

As we say around our house: "Anything worth doing is worth doing at the last minute..." 😁

#MakeShitMonday
@cannibal

Predictably, I wasn't able to talk to (or even wave to) everyone I would have liked to see at the last #shmoocon, but I did talk to some, and it was wonderful to reconnect with folks after five years! It was great to get back on stage after so long, but I needed a lot of recovery time afterward. I look forward to seeing y'all again at the next masked event!

Predictably, I wasn't able to talk to (or even wave to) everyone I would have liked to see at the last #shmoocon, but I did talk to some, and it was wonderful to reconnect with folks after five years! It was great to get back on stage after so long, but I needed a lot of recovery time afterward. I look forward to seeing y'all again at the next masked event!

Thanks to everyone who has ever been a part of #ShmooCon - attendees, speakers, staff, sponsors. I thought I’d share a collage of my set of staff badges, now complete!

Thanks to everyone who has ever been a part of #ShmooCon - attendees, speakers, staff, sponsors. I thought I’d share a collage of my set of staff badges, now complete!

#Glassof0J will have some fun takes and memories from #Shmoocon soon. Lotta editing and its an entirely new format for the channel.

For now im enjoying this "glass of 0j" from the plane home.

Stay tuned to https://glassof0j.com to see when new videos come out.

Im also on tiktok (for as long as i can) glassof0j

#Glassof0J will have some fun takes and memories from #Shmoocon soon. Lotta editing and its an entirely new format for the channel.

For now im enjoying this "glass of 0j" from the plane home.

Stay tuned to https://glassof0j.com to see when new videos come out.

Im also on tiktok (for as long as i can) glassof0j

Thank you #Shmoocon. 😢

So long #ShmooCon. Miss you already!

So long #ShmooCon. Miss you already!

And with that, the final #ShmooCon comes to a close. I've gotten to know a lot of great people here. Definitely going to miss this crazy and wonderful experience!

And with that, the final #ShmooCon comes to a close. I've gotten to know a lot of great people here. Definitely going to miss this crazy and wonderful experience!

Thank you ShmooConners! Someone turned them in at Reg!
#shmoocon

Heidi’s #ShmooCon “stick it in the wicket” video… https://youtu.be/q-Q7RyXfpI4 #ShmooCon @ShmooCon

* To the Judges: I have always appreciated the experiences and new ideas you brought each year. Thanks for your support.
* To the Staff: Everyone ... especially the streaming, recording, & security teams I've worked with over the years.
* And lastly, Heidi and Bruce for having and supporting #Firetalks through the years at #ShmooCon.

* To the Submitters: We only have 6 slots each year and you've always made a hard choice.
* To the Presenters: Watching many of you grow from your first talk over the years to leading community and industry contributors, I kind of feel like a proud Dad sometimes.
#ShmooCon

* To the Infosec Community: You've help me grow so much since I took over in 2010.
* To the Audiences: I hope you learned a lot ... I know I did.
#ShmooCon

I don't know what's next, something we're all facing, but I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone that's ever been involved in Firetalks here at #ShmooCon.

So, this is it - the last #ShmooCon Firetalks. If these closing thoughts were a Firetalk, @spacerog, @k8em0, @kym_possible, and @rayredacted would dock me 50k points for reading the slides. Though, I feel these words of appreciation are important enough to grant an exception to the rubric.