Author: Baab

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Couple of reminders…

  1. Monday’s meeting is NOT in Fredericksburg. It is in Stone Ridge (close to the Dulles Airport). If you plan to attend you must RSVP for the address.
  2. This group embraces diversity. If you don’t, don’t come.
  3. Watch your six, keep your rage in check, and don’t shit where you eat.
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Revised theme?

For the April meeting, we still want to do a group build, but choose between either #0037 WaveRunner, the latest #0041, or ANY Hackerbox of your choosing. Or don’t bring a hackerbox at all. Just show up for the fun. Just show up. 🙂

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March meeting wrap-up, April meeting LOCATION CHANGE!

We had a fun March meeting in the Burg. Pre-game at Red Dragon again, it was open mic night, had to get out of the way of the drunk dart players, and the UFO food truck was in attendance. Then we headed over the library where we had another new member attend. We did the usual spiel, break out the locksets, let him play and learn a bit, talk about Defcon, show off all the badges, blah blah blah, and soon enough it was over.

For the April meeting, we’re going to do something different. We’re going to hold the meeting up in Stone Ridge, VA (near the Dulles Airport, off of Rt 50 between South Riding and Aldie). RSVPd members on the Meetup page will get the specific location.

We’re going to have a group workshop on Hackerboxes. Specifically, a couple of us are going to work on Hackerbox #0037 WaveRunner. If you don’t have it, you can order it now to be sure to have it in time for the meeting. Also a good time to check your soldering kit and supplies for completeness. Alternatively, you can bring another hackerbox. Even more alternatively, you can just play pool or Galaga and drink beer with us. Just show up and be part of this thing.

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BSidesNova, here I come!

At BSidesDC, I registered for “CTF for Noobs.”  I had done a couple of CTF exercises on my own and with my employer, but never in a competitive environment, so I thought that’d be a good test. And it was. I did very well, scored a lot of points for my group/table, but managed to find some weak spots.  

One of my weaknesses is in quickly pulling information out of Wireshark. So I left there with the intent on improving my Wireshark fu.  

Lo and behold, I look at the BSidesNova course listing, and there’s a session on Wireshark.  So bitches, I’m in.  Who’s in with me?

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And on to the next meetup!

Tonight was another fun evening for DC540.  Three of us pregamed at Red Dragon Brewery, then headed over to the library, where our three became five.  We played show and tell with the CrowPi and the TS80 solder iron, and shared our experiences with the Pontifex crypto scheme, designed by Bruce Schneier for Neal Stephenson’s excellent book Cryptonomicon.

We decided that even though there’s no meeting on the 4th Monday of December because the library is unavailable for Xmas eve, that we’re going to go ahead with a social meeting at the brewery on Tuesday, December 18.  

Interesting upcoming events: Shmoocon tickets – next round Friday.  BSides Philly February 1.  If anyone has extra Shmoocon barcodes and is looking for worthy buyers, look no further.

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Meeting #2 was a success!

Last night, Meeting of DC540 was held at the downtown library meeting room.  Four attendees (plus the host) had an interesting time talking about lots of hacker culture topics.

Emery handed out decks of cards and encouraged people to learn and apply the Solitaire cipher (Pontiflex) described in Neal Stephenson’s novel “Cryptonomicon.”  

Here’s a link that describes the usage of the cipher: https://www.schneier.com/academic/solitaire/

Sounds like there’s a consensus for pregaming at a local drinking establishment prior to next month’s meeting.  That will be announced prior to the meeting.

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Working with SMD parts? TWEEZERS are everything.

When I first started taking solder seriously, I used household tweezers when I needed.  That took about ten minutes before I realized they sucked.  So I bought a manicure set, hoping those tweezers would be better.  After one session, the two arms broke apart.

So I bought a generic set of “technical tweezers” from Amazon.  Then I was told by a good friend that you really need to look at “precision tip” tweezers, and he sent me a link to McMaster-Carr’s stainless steel tweezers page.  I ordered a set of Aven Technik tweezers ($33) for comparison.

On the left is the bite of the generic Amazon tweezers, which are clearly simply far lower quality tweezers designed and marketed to look like precision-tip tweezers.  Look how misaligned the bite is, and how little surface area is actually making contact at the bite, compared to the Aven Technik on the right.  When dealing with near-microscopic parts, the Aven will grip the part solidly, while the tweezer on the left is likely to twist it around and send it flying across the room like a clipped fingernail.