Remember the message.
The future is not set.
It's time for Cutting Age.
How are you doing?
Welcome to all of these.
This is not the conference.
We are so happy to be here.
We are still in the same venue with more rooms, more things for you to see, just like this big wonderful room.
How do you like it?
Does this fit?
We are just down the road from Milwaukee's 3rd Ward, but here at CypherCon, we have 35 wards.
Wards are now the new name for villages.
So if you're used to going to villages, they are now wards, and we have 35 of them for you to check out.
I really encourage you to go around and see as many as you can.
We have things like password prepping, we have neurohacking, AI security, and so much more.
So please take the time to go through all these spaces, meet all these people, and check out the wards.
And between all of these wards and places, we have a myriad of sponsors that I would love for you to visit.
Can we thank our sponsors for making this possible, please?
Please scan their badges for some of the competitions that are going on.
Make sure you stop by and talk to GuidePoint.
They're right outside over here.
They do digital forensics and incident response.
And speaking of incidents, can we bring up our monster, the host for tonight, Michael Getzman.
It's super hot.
Friends and family, welcome back.
Our community stands at a crossroad of choice.
This year we gather under the theme
that cuts right to the heart of technology.
Hackers and futurists, it's called fate or no fate, asking us, what can we truly control?
So Joe, come on up.
So we have a table here today, or this year, for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
It's here to protect our privacy rights.
And my son Joe...
My son Joe here is raising money for the charity.
So if you see him in the hallway, he's giving out cow plushies in return.
So get out your money.
And please donate to good causes.
And Joe, I think everybody's expecting a moo.
Moo!
Thank you, Joe.
So in the spirit of the themes, you see that we've renamed things from villages to wards.
So I encourage you to go to every ward and see what individual specialties are in each of those areas.
There's lots of things to discover and unique corners of the umbrella of cybersecurity and hacking.
While you're going around the event this year, keep in mind, are things predetermined or do you have choices?
And can you pivot those choices as you go?
So here we have all these different specialties.
You can suddenly find a new path that changes everything in your life.
But the most important thing I want you to do, if you take away anything from this event, is make two or three new friends.
It takes a community to make an event like this successful.
And find somebody that has a specialty or a skill that maybe you don't know anything about.
So who are you sitting next to?
Probably people you already know.
Try to find people you haven't interacted with.
That's the intent of the badges.
That's the intent of a lot of our competitions, is for you to interact with others.
I want to thank our AV staff.
I want to thank our ward volunteers.
Registration, security, there's so many aspects of the ZMAC to make it successful.
So thank you.
I want to thank our speakers.
Raise your hand if you're a speaker.
There's 125 speakers this year on seven tracks.
Please visit the sponsors.
They have all sorts of really interesting services and products.
We have 49 sponsors this year that pay for us to expand and offer cooler and cooler things.
So thank you sponsors.
We have a new chill-out space with music and a sticker war so you get free stickers and it's all that way.
So we used to only be on this side of the south wing.
Now we have everything.
And in 2026 to 2028, which I just signed the contract, so we're going to have three more years of CypherCon, we're going to have all this space, including the space behind us that's blocked off.
One of the most important pieces is our famous party, which is this evening.
And so last year it was Casino Heist, and we encourage you to cheat at the games and get away with it.
Tonight, in the Hilton lobby, starting at 10 o'clock, will be Casino Glitch.
And I'm not going to tell you what the glitch is, so figure it out.
The goal is to figure out what I want in the glitch to earn a lifetime badge, which is the red blood badge of CypherCon.
So see if you can win.
We will have a special guest, Upshells, who will be DJing this evening.
She's really good.
She does live rap.
Just give her a couple words and she starts rapping.
And if you check on her YouTube, she's done freestyle rapping for 10 hours straight.
I don't know how.
So let's control how amazing this year's CypherCon is going to be with an adventurous spirit and full of curiosity.
And there's no fate for what we make, and as hackers, we have our fate and our community in our hands.
So thank you very much.
We at CypherCon, we believe in your power to choose.
You've probably seen some of that in the booklet.
And what will you do with that power?
I hope you use that to choose to visit some of our sponsors on the platinum list, including Northwest Mutual Contracts, Rubric 701, CenterCom, American Family Insurance, we've got Centric IT, the EFF, and WIDS, who are sponsoring tonight's party.
Chris, tell us about the career world.
Absolutely.
So if you're paying attention to the news today, you can see that we're actually trying to crash our economy, and I'm sorry.
So here's what I'm doing to help for you to be able to take your career into your hands.
We have a career award.
What that is, is an opportunity to meet with people, most of whom are hiring managers.
They are not hiring for their roles.
They are there to have career conversations with you.
If you are looking, if you are new to career, if you are trying to move up in your career, or you're trying to move laterally to a role in Cypher, the career village is for you.
It fills up fast.
So at about this time right now, on the Discord, you'll see a sign-up link.
The only thing that I ask is that you sign up and you make sure that you show up, because every year it fills up, and there's more need than we have the capacity to handle.
So I want to encourage you to do that, and just give a word of encouragement that if you're struggling right now in your career, in your job, it's not just you.
You're not alone.
So we see you and understand that.
The last thing I want to mention is we also have a career panel coming up tomorrow.
We'll be moderating this session with Leslie Carhart, Melissa Miller, and Kimberly Amos.
We'll be doing the rant wheel of cybersecurity careers.
So if you're familiar with the rant wheel, if you'd love to leave it, you know what I'm talking about.
Otherwise, you're in for a fun time.
Thanks so much.
So some of the responses that we really want to thank for coming out is Sysdig, Clarity, Supply and Security, Census, Reversing Labs, and Cream City Cyber, who had told me they're hiring, too.
So let's hear about some of our contests.
Sure.
Hello, everyone.
I'm Zagreb.
I'm running the CTF this year.
If you'd like to give it a shot, good luck.
I don't know if you participated in last year, but we have a fun variety of puzzles that will probably earn you a lifetime badge.
I don't think Mike approved that, but it doesn't matter.
So good luck.
Hey, he got a lifetime badge at ThoughtCon for writing the contract, so I think I have a little bit of wiggle room, right?
But good luck.
We're up on the top side, right by the entrance.
So come on by.
Thank you very much, Trenton.
And while Trenton's coming up to talk about Capture the Con, we've got a couple more sponsors, like Lumio, SecureWorks, Ock Security, F5, Skitch, Cloudflare, and CoreLite.
Yeah.
So I think everybody has seen the awesome badges by the time makers.
They let me piggyback.
So if you see this little sticker on the bottom of your badge, or if you've got a paper when they've been handing them out, they're NSC tags that you can scan with your phone, and it'll take you to CaptureTheCon.com.
Everybody in this room is now a flag in the Capture the Con CTF.
So the goal is to be as social as possible, meet as many people.
A couple people are already doing it, right?
I saw them waiting at the registration line, like, scanning people as they were going through, so some people are being hackers already.
We're adding more of the villages to the scoreboard as well, so we're going to be tweaking the points over the next couple of hours and adding more challenges in as everybody gets settled.
But there will be some ice cream values at all the different villages.
So go check them out, enjoy as much of the con as you can.
It's great to see all of you.
If you have any questions, feel free to find me walking around.
Thank you very much.
We'll take a short break.
To increase device security...
Oh, wait, I need to find Eric.
Is Eric here for the wireless?
Yeah, come on up here.
Device security, Camero, RapidSev, and Proofpoint, and Sprocket Security, which...
Sprocket, thank you for the pen.
I appreciate that.
Let's hear about the wireless CTF this year, Eric.
Absolutely.
All right, so we have some oldies but goodies.
I have shock collars, so if anybody wants to try and shock themselves with a Flipper Zero or some other software, find Radio.
I have those.
You will get points for that.
You also don't have to shock yourself.
You can just make a buzz or something a lot less exciting.
We have a new challenge this year.
It's King of the Hill.
So the way that it works is there's a wireless access point.
It is completely open.
You submit your name or your team name to the King of the Hill.
And when you do so, it downs the access point for one minute.
So you claim the hill for one minute.
After that, it will pop up with a little bit different wireless SSID and on a different channel.
And you have to do the same thing over and over and over and over.
And you will get a substantial amount of points if you are the one that holds onto the hill the longest.
And so it's super easy.
You can do it from your iPhone.
Or you can do it from some custom script kit that you created.
So it's as easy as you want it to be and as hard as you want it to be.
So I encourage you to come check that out.
We also have three foxes.
All three foxes, I believe, are in this room right now.
So if you're not familiar with what a fox hunt is, there are three access points.
Fox one, fox two, fox three.
And it is in somebody's pocket.
If you believe that you have found somebody that is a fox, you have to ask them one simple question.
What does the fox say?
Wait, what was the question that you had to ask them?
Everybody say it right now.
What does the fox say?
So, then they will give you flags.
And I think there's also a couple more wireless CTF things, but those are the big ones.
I encourage you to come try the king of the hill because it's the new one this year.
Thank you very much.
Next we're going to hear from Toymakers about the badge.
So why don't you come on up while I do our last list of sponsors here.
Which is Sumo Logic, Coordinate, Proud Strike, Forescout, Checkpoint, and a whole list of other bronze sponsors that are out there too.
So please, say hello and talk to our sponsors while we now hear about our new fancy badge.
How about that?
Hi guys, eighth year.
I was actually kind of terrified that we had written the wrong number.
And I was like, are you sure?
We're on like 8.0 because they're starting to manufacture these.
And if we get that wrong, we are pooched.
Crazy, eight years.
So, this year we made around 700 badges.
There are six colors.
White is for general conference goers.
Blue for speakers.
Green for vendors.
Black for founders.
Red for lifetime.
And purple for extreme!
Now, the theme was fate, no fate, and what can we control?
So we thought that an appropriate take was bubble wrap.
Because can you really control not popping the bubble wrap?
So what I want you to do right now is, for all those who have digital badges, if you can put it near your ears and just like...
Right?
Yeah.
So, my job this year was to check all the switches that they have available in the marketplace to see which switch sounded the most like bubble wrap.
So, let us talk about the badge.
It is a Raspberry Pi Kiko-based badge.
To access it, you will need a chowdered-up micro-USB cable, and we will see why.
I have some at our badge board, so you can borrow them.
This badge consists of a number of puzzles to get through, some of which are easy, some of which are deliberately made to frustrate you.
And the badge is needy, so if you get to a certain point, a certain level, and you don't interact with it, you don't pay attention to it, you don't touch one of the buttons, it is going to go down to the previous level.
No matter how high you are.
Now, if you hold the top-left button down, you will encounter the HUD.
For VIP badges, you are going to see that your badge is unlocked, and that you can essentially go to any game level you choose.
And some settings, like LED brightness, and you can make your badge a general badge, so it forces you to go through all of the puzzles.
General and speaker badges, you are going to see that your badge is not unlocked.
If you want to unlock it, you will need to visit the vendors to get codes from them.
Now, I have told all the vendors this year that they need to make you work for it.
So, negotiate with them, you know, if they want you to listen to a spiel, and you say, well, can I just give you a funny joke instead?
Like, let's work with the vendors here.
So they'll have codes, collect the codes, and you can enter them on the HUD to unlock the badge.
Again, the settings will allow you to change your game level, allow you to turn off that functionality, change LED brightness, and turn off the game timeout functionality as well.
VIP, you guys also have extra files on your badge, so if you need help getting those off your badge, or, you know, reading them, what have you, feel free to come to the board and we can help you out.
Now, some of you may notice that these switches are kind of pokey.
Yeah .
So, that's because SMT or surface mount versions of them cost about a dollar a piece, and I think Michael would have killed me with that budget.
So , at The Village, I do have foam backs that we can try to see if they work.
I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure if they do, but they are probably better than nothing.
Now, on most years, the communication protocol is infrared, or last year it was serial.
This year, it's human communication.
And what I mean by that is talk to each other.
Ask each other questions, share tips.
Now, if you would like me to help do that, come by the board, share the tip with me, and I will share it with others.
To keep it fair, I will not share any tips that haven't been shared to me, and I will not confirm nor deny the veracity and accuracy of the tip.
We are in 101C, in the corner.
Come visit, say hi.
We would love to chat.
And the power switch is on the top, left corner.
Toward the outside, it's on.
Toward the inside, it's off.
These batteries will last for exactly 48 hours, so if you sleep, please turn your badge off.
Welcome to another year, guys.
I just wanted to personally thank all the effort that goes into these badges, so thank you.
I also want to give out this year's first lifetime badge.
Already.
I gave out a lot last year, too, right?
Mail Hubs, where are you at?
Come on up.
I take briberies.
Do you want to tell them how you won?
Yeah, so he mentioned before the Casino Heist competition.
Last year's Casino Heist competition.
Myself and all of my friends from Birch Tech.
Might have broken the competition.
But yeah, that's how we won, so hopefully we get to see everybody at the after party today.
Thank you so much.
So, last bit of advice, like everyone's saying, introduce yourselves, ask questions, provide some answers, give some advice.
And you can always stop by the Birch desk.
We have a limited edition, here it is, limited edition collared shirt.
Stop by, it's for a limited time, like, you know, this week.
And the after party tonight is going to be a blast.
We're going to have the DJ there, for DJ Thug Shells, at the Casino Clash.
So we look forward to hearing and seeing you there.
I hope you have a great CypherCon, I fully expect you to do it.
So, go get it!
Thank you.
Tonight, can you believe it?
Take my shirt.
Go to CypherCon, what are you waiting for?
www.cyphercon.com