The Last Hope: July 18th, 19th and 20th, 2008 - New York City

Autonomously Bypassing VoIP Filters with Asterisk: Let Freedom Ring

Blake Cornell, Jeremy McNamara

Foreign governments and ISPs within Panama, Belize, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, the UAE, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and others have implemented VoIP filters of some type. The effect is obvious - phone calls are effectively blocked. How can Asterisk developers and providers develop mechanisms to help maintain communication through the wake of government supported access control mechanisms?

Botnet Research, Mitigation and the Law

Alex Muentz

This talk will discuss current U.S. federal laws that affect botnet researchers and IT professionals defending against botnets. Existing methods of capture, analysis, and mitigation will be analyzed from a legal perspective. Likely scenarios and outcomes will be discussed in an accessible manner.

Ghetto IDS and Honeypots for the Home User

Black Ratchet

Have you ever wondered what the heck was pounding on your Internet connection? Or what exactly was making your cable or DSL connection's activity light blink wildly when you knew there was no traffic from you? If so, this presentation will shine a light into the dark corners of your personal tube, showing you the unending stream of junk that comes across your Internet connection as well as how to pick out the good, the bad, and the ugly. This presentation will cover the steps involved in setting up a poor man's IDS and honeypot. Using open and freely available tools, strategies of IDS deployment on your home LAN and the setup of both low interaction and high interaction honeypots will be covered. Learn what you can expect to see, how to pluck out the signal from the noise, and generally be aware of what is flowing in - and out - of your LAN.

Hacking Cool Things with Microcontrollers

Mitch Altman

Microcontrollers can do your bidding. This presentation will show a few fun, simple projects that Mitch has hacked together as examples to show how fun and easy it is to create your own microcontroller projects - even for people who have never built anything in their lives. Sample projects include: The Brain Machine, TV-B-Gone, Trippy RGB Light, LED Cube, Solar BugBot, and Mignonette (a very simple handheld game platform). Basic hardware design, simple firmware design, and how to use the free, open source software available for programming the chips used will be discussed at this talk.
This presentation will provide an introduction for people wanting to participate in the ongoing workshop downstairs where Mitch will have a bunch of soldering stations with enough parts so that people can build their own Brain Machines, TV-B-Gones, Trippy RGB Lights, and Mignonettes which they can then bring home with them.

Hacking International Networks and System(s) using VoIP

Da Beave, Jfalcon

There is an entire world of PSTNs out there that most people never bother to look into. People have a tendency to call within their area (country) and never stray or "wander" outside. This talk hopes to change that perception.
With VoIP, we have the ability to call worldwide for fractions of a penny. Why not call that X.25 network in Russia? Or India? Why not explore foreign data networks and find new and old things still out there? Think war dialing in the U.S. is washed up? Why not try a country where computers and technology are built on the hardware we've thrown out?
In many parts of the world, phone networks and data networks are built using the existing PSTN infrastructure. They simply can't afford to purchase modern SONET/DS hardware. Nor can they afford to run fiber optics or coax to every neighborhood. The legal ramifications in hacking such systems are significantly less than hacking U.S. computer networks. The media is filled with reports of Chinese hackers infiltrating U.S. networks. That being said, doesn't it make sense to return the favor?

"Off the Grid" Voice/Data Communications

Skip Arey, bernieS

It's Orwellian. We're so conditioned to believe we've little choice but to rely on government-regulated, corporate-owned voice/data networks designed to log our communications traffic and content. People can be held incommunicado by routine network failures, natural disasters, and by political actions- often when communications is needed most. But modern two-way radio can provide effective and reliable short-range and global voice/data communications at relatively little cost, and it can't be logged by conventional (CALEA) methods. This discussion will tune into the latest surprising developments in amateur (ham) radio, unlicensed spread-spectrum, and other two-way radio technologies and applications.

XSS Vectored MITM Attacks: Vulnerability Assessment

Blake Cornell, Grandma Death, Tom Brennan

XSS attacks are becoming increasingly common. Largely, their threats are unknown and commonly obfuscated. This talk will describe how XSS attacks are not just for kiddies and cookie thieves anymore; all forms of data can be vulnerable. A Proof of Concept Man-in-the-Middle XSS attack will be demonstrated and described.

The Zen of the Hacker

Joshua Ginsberg

An inquiry into the conditions under which hacker culture thrives, the curiously American quality of hacker culture, and the evolving challenges for preservation of the hacker ecosystem.

Kevin Mitnick

The "world's most dangerous hacker" and subject of our documentary Freedom Downtime (along with many other more sensationalist pieces over the decades) gives us an update on what's been going on in his life since the last time he was here in 2004. (A severe case of food poisoning in Colombia forced him to cancel his HOPE Number Six appearance - which may be one of the stories he tells this time.)

Steven Rambam

Hopefully there will be no surprises this year. In 2006, privacy expert Steven Rambam's two hour panel was disrupted by federal authorities who arrested him at the conference just prior to its commencement. In the end, he was completely vindicated and went on to finally give his talk several months later to a packed house at a local university. This year, Steven will be on for three hours, in part to make up for what you may have missed last time, but mostly because what he says about the state of privacy in our society will captivate you.

Adam Savage

The esteemed co-host of the popular TV show Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel and "a maker of things" will give a captivating talk on the nature of his particular obsessions.

Capture The Flag

Round the clock "competitive network combat" will be hosted by Packetwars. Bring your own laptop.

Radio Statler!

A 24 hour live streaming audio station with all-original content. Currently seeking volunteers, show proposals, cool clips, and major sponsors.
radio.hope.net

Digital Music Night

Live music and visuals at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference on Friday night from 11:00pm to 2:00am.

Presented by createdigitalmusic.com, createdigitalmotion.com, and Radio Statler.

From robotic drummers to balance boards, sci-fi noir to spam folder, from circuit-bent to 8-bit to lots of bits and 3D data packets, it's an unusual night of hacked digital performance at one of the world's most notorious hacker gatherings.

Live Music:

• Ezekiel Honig (Anticipate/Microcosm founder) explores warmth in electro-acoustic music "into a comfortable space between techno, house and ambient"


• Ben Neill, "mad scientist of dancefloor jazz" (CMJ Magazine) continues to evolve live music with his newly-redesigned, original mutantrumpet


• Michael Una plays custom digital, acoustic, and circuit-bent instruments, with a robot drummer, for rhythmic, textured, and melodic musical experiences


• Todd Thille makes sounds from the electromagnetic signals of potted plants


• Guitarist Animalstyle plays through home-built 8-bit fuzz pedals and Game Boy foot controllers


• Roger Tsai DJs with hand gestures using his original digital gloves "Groovy Hand"


• Peter Kirn balances musical styles and Wii balance boards with a live music and keys set and vocal strains pulled from his Gmail spam folder

Plus Live Visuals:

• Joshue Ott creates live visuals with his homemade superDraw generative illustration tool


• Paris and Don Miller (No Carrier) create glitchy, lo-fi visuals from custom-created 8-bit visual software on Nintendo and Commodore systems


• vade spins out live hacker imagery and sniffs data packets in 3D


• Bill Jones creates live cinematic worlds inspired by sci-fi noir

The Great Lego Table

Bring your old Lego blocks and combine them with others to make a giant Lego sculpture garden.

RFID

"Hackers to Track Visitors at The Last HOPE" reads the headline on blogs and news sites across the Internet.

This summer, hackers from around the world will track the movements of thousands of visitors to New York City.

As part of a social experiment, attendees at a hacker conference in July will be issued badges with electronic tracking devices. Large displays will show in real-time where people go, with whom they associate, for how long and how often.

The tracking technology, known as RFID, is fast becoming an unseen part of everyday life. This July, for the very first time, the general public will be able to participate in the transparent operation of a major RFID tracking program.

Conference attendees will participate in games built around the tracking system. Players will seek ways to protect their privacy, find vulnerabilities in the tracking system, employ data mining techniques to learn more about other participants, and choose how much personal information they will disclose in order to play.

This demonstration will be open to the public at The Last HOPE conference from July 18-20 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. The first 1500 preregistrants will be guaranteed an RFID badge enabling them to participate in the game.

And many more...