Oct04 Meeting Report.
Brum2600 Oct 2004

Brumcon IV

A very big thanks to all the speakers, helpers, organisers and of course you the delegates. The TShirts have now been collected and can now be will posted. If you wanted a Brumcon IV TShirt they can still be ordered for £10 Inc UK/Ireland posting, click for order info.
We have received good feed back and the reports are now included below. Once again thanks to all who were involved. If you would like to get involved with Brumcon and maybe take part in Brumcon V then drop us a mail to brumcon@brum2600.net
See you next year ??
Re-LoaD

Report by L-s-L

Righto a report on the fourth almost annual brumcon.

The first thing most of the visitors to brumcon 4 will have seen as the entered the conference room is my smiling face looking to relieve them of £5 English pounds and considering the range of talks on offer that was a bargain.

Big thanks to Reload for doing such a great job of organising the conference and the Brittania hotel for been our hosts.

Present at the start of the day - was a chappy from the Beeb who i believed wanted to do a little segment on us for a local events/news programme. If this was aired (im currently on a train as its meant to be showing) We'll see if we can get a downloadable version **Update - got home to find beed had shown. He was very good about our right to privacy.

The day kicked off with Zipsers talk entitled Hi tech hide and seek. Serving as an introduction to the fact and fiction behind bugs, bug seeking and triangulationD F Antenna. It acted as a guide to what the 'Man' can do and how its done but more importantly what can be done to stop it. A range of kit was on display which worked to varying degrees but still provided a good incite to the type of hardware around.

A beer break took longer than expected as we had to get the manager of the hotel to open the bar. Suitable refreshed the day progressed onto my talk entitled "Ooops I thought id deleted that". Id written this despite it not really been my area, as a guide to recovering data using basic Linux tools. The hopefully the two examples on recovering ASCII text and a jpeg image reminded or enlightened the audience to just how easy it can be to recover long deleted info. I finished up with how to prevent recovery and a quick look at the really advanced stuff that could happen to your media if you've pissed the gov off.

Moving swiftly on and sticking with the hide and seeking theme, Phased stepped up with his talk on hiding data in EXT2 file systems. This stenographic technique and some of his development for it seem to be an interesting way of 'layering' data on a hard rive. With some work and encryption you could have a plausible deny ability file system with a unknown number of layers. All in all a good intro to a interesting topic. See Deepmagic for more info.

A break for lunch and the exit of the beeb meant the next talk up was a little more light hearted. Entitled More porn and how to get it. by Genepool Basically a lightening fast run through porn harvesting techniques a number of the audience taking very detailed notes.

Break for beer followed by Frinks talk on 3G. An in-depth look at the 3G infrastructure especially relating to data rather than voice. Clearly - (well clearish) the future of wireless data communications (in places that don't have open access points) Frink covered pretty much what everyone needed to know on kit right from the user to the ISP.

DNSCon resident John W was next with his talk "Breaking one time pad encryption" I along with most of the audience had gone

"Huh one time pad encryption you cant break that"

But it turns out if you throw in crap programming and stupid users and a few other cock ups its actually quite easy to gather information about the cipher text even if the message itself cant be recovered. A demo followed with Johns old lappy proving win98 has its usage by recovering a unknown message.

Finally Aut8ton gave a talk on lock picking. Covering both historical developments in the field and the basic tools and techniques still in use today between his talk and The Reverend Rat whispering in my ear I certainly learnt a lot. I departed at this point but im sure the discussions and drinking continued long into the night.

C you all next year

L-s-L

Back Up

Report by AV of Kings Norton Fame
BrumCon IV: No Hope
Saturday 2nd October 2004 - Britannia Hotel, Birmingham.
Report by Av

I hadn’t been to previous BrumCon events due to work commitments but this year decided to pay a visit. The conference was held at The Britannia Hotel on New Street in Birmingham city centre. Entrance fee was very reasonable (a meagre £5) and the BrumCon staff were on hand for any questions people may have had regarding the event as a whole. The conference room was on the 9th floor of the hotel and this provided a great panoramic view over the rooftops of the city.The View My reason for being there was simply I work in the IT industry – having covered basic sys admin jobs and server room support jobs I have always had a general interest in things you can do with technology but aren’t supposed to. Also I have an interest in free speech which kind of gets intertwined with the subjects on offer at this conference.
The days events started at 12pm and the turn out was excellent. Most of the provided seating was taken. It didn’t really matter where you decided to sit because the speakers could be seen and heard from any position. In all there were 7 official talks and these ranged from Doppler radar to 3G networks to lock picking. Re-load was our host and introduced the speakers through out the day.
First up was Zipser who explained Doppler technology to us and then went into a discussion on how it could be used to pinpoint the location of vehicles. He went through the advantages and also the disadvantages of the technology and how it could be applied in real life scenarios.Doppler Kit As someone who knew nothing much about Doppler radar beforehand I found it to be very interesting and informative. I don’t claim to be an expert now because of course there is a lot more to it but it introduced me to a subject I knew nothing of before.
This was followed by a talk called ‘Oops, I thought I’d deleted that’ something I’m sure we’ve all thought at some point. Whether it be as severe as company information or as simple as some incriminating emails the girlfriend might have found. The subject was handled professionally and instead of declining into the usual chat of how to get rid of dodgy pr0n, methods of ensuring private information isn’t left on old hard drives were discussed. It was very interesting to hear the reasons why just formatting a drive and writing blank data to it were not enough if the information on them was of high value. This talk led onto the next which was titled ‘Information hiding in EXT2. I can’t go into any depth on this one as it’s not something I am very aware of to begin with. However I gained enough knowledge from the speaker to at least understand the concept that was discussed. At this point everyone broke for lunch and I was happy as I’d already got my five pounds worth. During lunch everyone gathered at the hotel bar and discussed various topics of interest and this provided a great atmosphere for contacts to be made.
After lunch, came the comedy moment of the day. A talk titled ‘Pr0n hacks – More porn – faster!’ I thought this was timed very well. After a few pints and food it was enough to liven people back up for the rest of the afternoons talks. For any women who may be interested in attending in future I can vouch that this talk although not meant to be taken seriously at all, was geared to both sexes and wasn’t offensive in the slightest. It was a well put together humorous half hour that got the speaker and the audience enjoying a few exchanged innuendos at each other.
We were then ready to get back into the swing of things and Frink gave a talk on 3G networks. I have a decent understanding of networks and a basic knowledge of 3G so I was looking forward to this one. Frink gave a fantastic talk, which went into detail on the 3G network and he was able to answer the questions that were put to him with confidence. It was a very well planned and organised talk that would have been understood by novices but still hold a decent amount of information for those more adept with 3G networks.
Third in line this afternoon was Jonathan Wignall of the Data and Network Security Council with a live demonstration of breaking the one time pad encryption. Before attempting the demo he explained for the uninitiated (myself included here) how the one time pad encryption works. After this I was ready to see his live demo in action. The demo was entertaining and true to his word Jonathan was successful in breaking the encryption. More work is needed to his application as he himself explained but work is ongoing and this should prove to be even more interesting in the future. It’s a great feeling when a live demo goes to plan and everyone was excited to see this happen.
The day was then rounded off with a talk by a locksmith (was he ?? Re-LoaD) whose name I forget but who informed us of the latest advances in lock picking and getting into secured areas. This wasn’t an instruction into breaking the law however and was purely about the art of lock picking and methods used to open locking devices. This included describing how most lock pickers enjoy a challenge and learn the art in order to open locks as a hobby. There was a lot more to this subject than would at first appear to the outsider and it is far from the shady world it is seen as by the general public. Lock pickers have gained a bad reputation over the years and it would be good to see people educated about this. The speaker had brought a large collection of padlocks with him and after the talk allowed people to come to the front and ask questions or try their hand at his collection. By then end of the talk everyone wanted to go to the nearest lock shop and get themselves a lock to take home and pick. Its very addictive once you understand the fun that’s behind it. I would probably compare it to the same kind of challenge people take on when they try Rubiks cube or similar mental challenges.
The time was 6pm and that was it, end of the day. Re-load gave his final thoughts and wrapped the show up. The organisers stayed behind to speak to anyone who had questions or just wanted to chat for a bit. It was a good way to finish things and nobody was rushed away. T-shirts were on sale for only £10 – good to see merchandise going for a reasonable sum. They eventually ran out by the time I tried to get one but they’re going to send me one out – with free P&P – bargain! I would definitely attend again next year so hopefully the organisers will arrange BrumCon V: The Empire likes Phrack or whatever it will be – odds on for a Star Wars related title. Well done guys – thanks for a great day.

Av
www.adamransom.com
Back Up

2nd October 2004
Britannia Hotel
Birmingham.
Entry from 11am Talks Start 12 noon.

BrumCon is a semi regular event organised by Brum2600 regulars, featuring a wide variety of talks, discussion and most importantly, alcohol. (incorrectly but neatly) dubbed a 'blackhat thinktank' by NTK (www.ntk.net), The Register - 'We have your water supply, and printers' - Brumcon report. we welcome all kinds of phreaks, geeks and other technologically interested people from all sides of the fence (as long as hats, badges and warrants are left at the door). The entrance fee this year stays at 5 UK Pounds despite the increased costs to the brumcon staff (thanks guys for your donations).

Call For Speakers

If you're interested in speaking at BrumCon IV then please contact us at brumcon@brum2600.net
with details of your proposed talk. The length of the talk will depend on the number of speakers, but generally should be between 30-60 minutes. If you feel that you need more than an hour, talk to us and we'll arrange something for you :)

Topics of particular interest:
Hacking/Security related talks
Phreaking/Telephony related talks
Wireless (Bluetooth, GSM, 802.11, Radio, Satellite) communications
Cool stuff

Updates will be posted on this page. 21:25 hrs 2 Oct 04 -- Update

Late breaking news -: Talk confirmed

PRON Hacks - More Porn, faster!

17:10 hrs 30 Sept 04 -- Update

Good news Brumcon IV T-shirts should be ready in time.

Priced at £12 but you get them for £10 because Re-LoaD is a good Blag artist, social engineer what you what to call it. Size - XL, XXL, XXXL

14:00 Hrs 10 Sept 04 -- Update

Talks in no particular order 12 - 6pm.

"Hi-Tech Hide and Seek"

"Oops I thought I'd deleted that"
A guide to forensic analysis of a PC
- including demonstrations on recovering ASCII text and a JPEG image. Going into more advanced forensic techniques and how it may be prevented.

"Information Hiding in ext2"

"Idiot-proof (so I can understand it!) Lock picking."
or
"Amateur Locksmith"

"3G Frink"

"Breaking onetime pad encryption"

Workshops after 7pm

# Playing with oscillations of electromagnetic radiation. LF (Low Frequency) 0.03 - 0.3 MHz
# MF (Medium Frequency) 0.3-3 MHz
# HF (High Frequency) 3-30 MHz
# VHF (Very High Frequency) 30 - 300 MHz
# UHF (Ultra High Frequency) 300 - 1000 MHz

Locks, picks and random other related material.

Social Engineering in the kitchen - Impress the girl/boy of your dreams without burning down your parents' house.

07:46 Hrs 04 Sept 04 -- Update
Talk Confirmed
"Hi-Tech Hide and Seek" - Zipser

Getting There:

Birmingham, UK is serviced by Birmingham International Airport, is accessible by a number of road routes and the conference venue is within easy reach of Birmingham New Street train station - easily accessible from anywhere on the Virgin trains rail network within the UK.

Need a map click here

NO PICTURES ARE TO BE TAKEN IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM AND NO TALKS ARE TO BE RECORDED. People who break this rule will be asked to leave.

PLEASE NOTE - BRUMCON DOES NOT CONDONE ILLEGAL ACTIVITY OF ANY KIND. ANYONE CAUGHT COMMITTING ILLEGAL ACTS (Including speakers) WILL BE REMOVED.

Images.