Episode 21 Def Con Hacker Homecoming!

In this episode Commander Bob reflect on all of the connections he made during Def Con 30 and gives advice to anyone attending a event of this type.

Transcripts Are Automatically Generated.

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
All right. All right.

(00:00):
Here we go. It is that time ofthe week for the Globalbob show.

(00:07):
How about that intro music wegot going on here. You guys
feeling a little old schoolVegas vibe. Imagine the flamingo
dancers and the time that whenElvis used to reign king over
this beautiful city. I'll tellyou what those that know me know

(00:32):
that I'm a huge fan of LasVegas. And if you listen to the
last podcast, you'll know thatthe reason why your host is out
here. That's right. I'm out herebecause of the DEF CON event.
And the black hat event. Andtogether we call it the summer

(00:53):
camp prepare. We fired off theold Cadillac and headed west to
beautiful Las Vegas. Now I'mkidding actually flew out here.
But that's beside the point. I'dlike to thank everybody that
tunes into the show each andevery week. like to really thank
everybody that asked somebodyelse to listen to the show. Your

(01:17):
support and encouragement makesa difference. One I like to do
the show and to get newlisteners all the time.
Even the international ones. Soreally neat. All right. Well,
I'll tell you what, we havewrapped up another wonderful

(01:38):
year of info sec, andcybersecurity and the two
conferences together. I believewe're just an absolute success.
Now this week's podcast is notbeing recorded at the home
studio. So we have left theRichard Cook broadcast facility

(02:01):
packed up the minimum gear thatwe need to put a podcast
together. And we traveled outhere to Las Vegas. And this
podcast is being recorded on the63rd floor of Caesar's Palace.
And very nice room here thatlooks out over the very awesome

(02:26):
pools that are in kind of likethe courtyard area of Caesar's
Palace. So anyways, I guess if Igot to be away from the home
studio, then what a what a fineplace to be able to record from.
Now with that said, if youhaven't listened to the previous
episode, where I talked abouthacker summer camp and kind of

(02:49):
what the history was of DEF CON,we'll give you a real brief
summary just so you know whatbrought me out here. And what
brought me out here is theannual two events. It is called
Blackhat. And then DEF CON. SoBlackhat runs first. And then

(03:10):
DEF CON runs after that. Sothere's a one day of overlap.
And some people such as myself,they come in and they'll do a
little bit of the Blackhat andthen they'll head on over to DEF
CON. Now Blackhat for the lastmany years, I don't know maybe a
couple years for a while andthen Blackhat has been at

(03:33):
Mandalay Bay, and DEF CON kindof changes around this year. DEF
CON was at Caesars forms. And ifyou guys ever come out here to a
conference and they say it's atCaesars form, just make sure you
pay attention because Caesarsform is not really at Caesar's

(03:54):
Palace. And it was a whole lotof confusion with people, which
we'll talk about a little bithere in the podcast. But so here
at Caesars you have the hotelcomplex, and then you have the
shops, forms or Caesars formsshops. Anyway anyways, there's
another part of Caesars that hasthe word form in it. And that's

(04:18):
still not where you want to go.
You want to go to Caesars form,which is across the street, and
in this area called link. And itwas just kind of crazy kind of
confusing. And I think thereason why is is that a lot of
people thought that it was hereat Caesars because it's been at
Caesars before. And when you seeCaesars forms, you're like okay,

(04:39):
well there's the forms, shopsand very nice restaurants but ya
know, two separate things. Butyeah, the link area if you are
familiar with Margaritaville,which is another global Bob
hotspot that I like to visit sothat's kind of the like the
start of the link area. However,the conference, whether it be in

(05:01):
separated like that, it was alittle bit different. And I
actually played traffic copquite a bit, I would see the
person kind of looking aroundlooking at their phone, and they
haven't gotten their badge yet.
And then, of course, they seeGlobalbob with his badge on and

(05:22):
the one couple stop me there's ayoung fella and what appeared to
be his significant other. And hesaid, Excuse me, sir. Mr. Do you
know where I can find Caesarsforms? I've been looking all
over the place for the last 30to 45 minutes. And instantly, I
said, wow, you know, I guess Imust be getting old sir. And Mr.

(05:46):
But so I explained it to him. Isaid, Well, you can't get there
from here, which is one of thefunny things that I've had
somebody actually tell me beforeand no one you can get from here
to anywhere in the world. Butanyway, so I tell him, I said,
Well, what you got to do, yougot to get out the door here,
you got to go to Las VegasBoulevard, you need to cross
over walk toward theMargaritaville, all this stuff.

(06:07):
And his girlfriend looks at himand looks at me and says, I
think that he's trolling you.
And that's probably not whereit's at. It's probably he's
probably just saying that. Ithought to myself, come on, I
wouldn't do that. And if youdon't know, in the hacker world
trolling or online world, it canbe used in both places. That's

(06:29):
kind of like where you're tryingto get a rise out of somebody.
So anyways, I told him that Ihad just gotten back from there.
But however, trust me go thatway. And they started walking
that way. So yeah, a littleconfusing on the the DEF CON
part. Now, just how I met thatcouple, and hopefully get them
convinced that I was nottrolling them, get them going in

(06:51):
the right direction. But thatwas pretty cool, right? Because
that is what the heart of thisconference is about, is making
connections, and helping peopleand exchanging ideas and
educating. And one of the coolthings was is that this is DEF

(07:13):
CON 30, which means they've ranDEF CON 30 times. And so they
call this one, the hackerhomecoming. And that was the
theme, it was all about thehacker homecoming. And I know
for me, this was kind of ahomecoming also. Now, before,
whenever I would come out tothese conferences, especially

(07:35):
black hat, I had obligations,there was times that I was given
demonstrations of variousexploits and stuff at DEF CON,
we all know about the electionhacking I did and also with a
crypto mining on on routers. Andso this was kind of the the
first one that I came here. Isaid, Man, I have no

(08:00):
obligations, I don't need tomeet up with any customers. I
don't need to give anydemonstrations. And it was just
really a breath of fresh air.
Because before leading up toBlackhat, myself and some of the
people I worked with, I mean, wewould start planning out what

(08:21):
we're going to do at BlackHat.
And for months in the making,and then of course with all the
media circus that sometimessurrounds Globalbob, when he
would show various things thatyou know, I mean, it was a lot
always had a good time, but itwas a lot. But with this
particular one, if you want tocall it a homecoming, I'll walk

(08:43):
you through some of thehomecomings that I had. Now, as
soon as I landed, I had a textmessage from somebody. And they
said that they have a hookup forgood ol global Bob here. And
that was to get into Blackhat onwhat they call the business

(09:08):
Hall. Now the business Hall iswhere all the vendors they set
up these mega booths. I mean, itis like two story booths with
coffee shops and, and this iskind of like where the vendors
come and they, you know, areshowing off their latest tech.
But anyway, so I got to thank myboys out there. And my ladies,

(09:30):
how about this? How about myfamily at rapid seven. So they
really hooked a brother up hereand they hooked me up with a
business hall pass. Now when Isay they hooked me up with a
business Hall Pass I want togotta let you know it is quite
expensive. It's not like thesepasses are $30 So the rapid

(09:53):
seven, fella he acts Lee emailedme the past and said, you know,
you're good to go. And I go upthere and I look at the receipt,
I want to say it was like 500.
And something dollars. I mean,don't quote me on it, it was
pretty expensive either it'slike 498 or five, something. But

(10:16):
so I really think the rapidseven folks, now they don't
sponsor my podcast, I'm not acustomer of theirs. But I have
worked with those guys in thepast. And so I really appreciate
that. Now continuing on, theytell me that they have a party
that they'd like for me toattend. And so they told me

(10:39):
about a phone number that Ineeded to text and I would be
hooked up. So anyways, when youget out here, there's always
something going on some kind ofparty some kind of something but
not here. But so they hooked meup with the old biz Hall Pass
and greatly appreciate that. Andthen I made contact with the

(10:59):
with the person and was able toretrieve for not the one but for
party passes, and a nother phonenumber contact of when I got to
the location, the venue, then toget a hold of this person. And
they would escort me in with VIPprivileges. So myself and my

(11:23):
compadres. We were able to go tothe party. And so the the people
I was with, right, there wasthree, three people that have
not been to a rapid seven party.
And there's those that have beenthere and talk about it and
those that have been there andcan't talk about it because they
don't remember leaving. Butthat's I'm telling them all of
this, like, Hey, we got to getthese these passes on. And then

(11:44):
we got to Texas guy, and I wasthinking to myself, Man, I hope
all this pans out, right? I hopeI hope the dude didn't get
drunk. And you know, or we makeour way there and things fall
through. But you know what?
Sweet. It all came together, wehad a good time, the rapid seven
party was I feel a success. Itwas a very cool party. And so I

(12:11):
really appreciate those guys,not only with the business, pass
hookup, but also the party pass.
So anyways, if you guys are inthe InfoSec world, you probably
know of rapid seven, they're themetal sploit people, and just
really good people. I've workedwith them in the past and other

(12:35):
well, let's just say in otherpast employers, I worked with
them. Alright. So you know, butit's all about making those
connections, right? So I fly in,get the business pass, then I
get my three friends that havenever been to this party, and I
get them into this party. And tome, that's what this is all

(12:57):
about. Now, as soon as I get tothe party, I started getting
messages on signal. I got one ontelegram. I got a few on
Facebook Messenger. Andeverybody's like, hey, global
you out here at the hackersummer camp. I'm like, Yes, as a
matter of fact, I am. And so Iwas able to meet up with a lot

(13:19):
of people that I had worked within the past. And I was really
just so honored that theyactually reached out to me and
said, Hey, let's meet up for adrink. And there was a lot of
those occurrences. And it wasjust really nice to be able to
connect with old friends. Now,going into DEF CON, like I said

(13:41):
it was kind of across thestreet, whichever. The first
thing I noticed was is thatthere was a few people that were
texting me and say hey, what'sthe deal with his mask
situation? We're being told thatwe got a mask up there's no mask
mandate in Las Vegas. And plusDEF CON is more the underground

(14:02):
right? So if you think ofBlackhat think of the suits and
ties and the you know CFOs andthe control the money are out
here with the CTOs that aretrying you know and all that
stuff right all the vendors andyou know so so think of Blackhat
is the more I would say thechurchy suit and tie stuff and
DEF CON that happens you know atthe same time you know, with one

(14:27):
day of overlap that's more ofthe underground grunge right so
those guys leave their suits andties at the Mandalay Bay and
they put on their Jenko jeans ifyou remember those and their
chains with the wallets on themand all that good stuff. So
anyway, so DEF CON has alwaysbeen kind of rebellious and
actually is kind of rebellious.
Whoa, you know, screw society.

(14:48):
No one has any any hold over us.
But yeah, they actually told himthat you got to wear a mask,
which absolutely perfect my wifehad sent me with a mask in case
I got into some areas of highconcentration, then I could put
my mask on and stuff. And thatmask was my Elvis Presley TCB
mask. So taking care ofbusiness, and I get it, you

(15:13):
know, I mean, there's a lot ofpeople that come out here to DEF
CON that's International,there's
everybody's kind of smashedtogether. At some point, they
have lion con. And you know,it's just a good, good thing.
And but I was talking to one ofthe goons there. And if you

(15:35):
don't know what a goon is DEFCON, these are the guys that are
kind of, and girls that arekeeping the show going. And some
of them are trying to do theregistration. Some of them are
trying to keep the various talksgoing the AV equipment, and some
of them are enforcers. And sowhen you go to DEF CON, the big
goons, the ones that look likethat they could take you apart

(15:57):
systematically. They're the onesthat are like making sure
everybody has their badge on andthey this year, they're making
sure that they have their, theirtheir mask as well. So anyway,
so I've been talking to the biggoon. I'm like, Hey, man, have
you run into any issues? He'slike, Yeah, I mean, a little
bit, but but word spread that,you know, we're not going to
have any any tolerance forpeople that don't want to wear

(16:18):
their mask. And he said, youknow, the whole idea with DEF
CON, is to come here, spread thelove spread the knowledge. But
let's don't spread theCoronavirus. I was like, wow,
okay, that makes sense. So yeah,I mean, that was that was a
little bit different. And as Imentioned, DEF CON last year,

(16:39):
they did have an in personagain, but you had to bring your
vaccine card, and from what Iunderstand it was verified by a
third party. And then the yearbefore that, you know, they had
it in safe mode, which wasonline. Now, you know, I'm just
glad that you know, kind of theprogression where it was online.

(17:00):
And then they have it where yougot to have your backs card, and
then this year Novak's card, butyou had to be masked up. Now,
whenever I met up for drinks anddinners, and all the various
people that I worked with, andsome of my different employers
was really cool. Now, as you allknow, I've been involved with

(17:24):
the voting machine securityissues. Some people call it
election hacking, voting,machine hacking and stuff. And
it was really like, to me thatwas like a real good homecoming
event for me was to go see mybuddy, Harri hursti. And Harry
and I last time we had saw eachother we were in New York City

(17:45):
Times Square, and we were doingsome filming there. But Harry
has always been passionate aboutthe voting village. And the
voting village was absolutelyamazing. I even told her, I
said, Harry, look at what you'vedone. I mean, remember before
when it was just this thing, andlike, you know, a couple

(18:05):
machines. And now look, you gotthe latest and greatest machines
here. And these security folks,I took some pictures, which is
kind of a no no at DEF CON. Butyou know, I asked everybody Hey,
can I you know, I'm gonna We'rewearing masks, I'm gonna, you
know, try to, you know, limityour face. But I took pictures
because I was like, Oh, my God,this looked exactly like my
office whenever I was trying todevelop the first exploits into

(18:29):
it. And Harry and I, we tooksome pictures together, I put
them out on Facebook, butactually saw him one other time
at the conference and just toldhim said, Harry, you know, I
mean, this is your thing. Keepgoing for it. And so that was
that was a really cool one.
That, you know, just just tomake those connections. Now, one

(18:51):
of the connections I made whileI was here was yet again, there
was a dude that was looking forCaesars forms. And he was down
in the casino area of CaesarsPalace. And in this particular
situation, I told him, I said,Hey, look, man, I'm headed over
there myself. Why don't we walktogether? And I mean, when's the

(19:13):
last time anybody's ever donethat, you know, it's, you know,
you go to Walmart and people getupset because people are bumping
the line or someone's a, youknow, a walker or a wheelchair,
they get mad because they'regoing so slow. But, you know,
with the vibe in the air, it'slike, hey, let's help each
other. Let's get together andhelp your fellow human. And so I

(19:37):
walked with him, and it wasabout a 15 to 20 minute walk,
and I told him, I said, Hey,like, just so you know, we're
gonna, you know, go across thestreet, we're gonna go down
here. I said, Hey, man, I'm notgonna take in McGee, or anything
like that, but just follow me.
It's a lot to tell you. So I gotto walk in with him, and had one
of the most amazingconversations. One of the things
I'm really into is the openledger technology. And when you

(20:01):
hear open ledger, you want tothink like Bitcoin and all the
coins. But that's just one part.
You know, the cryptocurrencyuses open ledger, but there's a
whole nother utility for theopen ledger. And in this
particular case, this thisfella, he works for a major

(20:23):
grocery store chain. Now, Itried for 15 minutes in every
possible way other than justsaying, hey, look, dude, you got
to tell me who you work for.
Because he would never come outand tell me. And he said that
the grocery store chain hashired him about a year ago. And
he is in the process of havingall their transactions where

(20:47):
they could use cryptocurrency.
And you know, right now you goto the grocery store, and you
can do Apple Pay or Google Pay,and you can tap your credit
card, swipe your credit card,put the chip from the credit
card, and but he said that he'sworking on a way for them to

(21:08):
have open ledger technology forall their inventory system for
their accounting system. Butmoreover, where they'll be able
to take cryptocurrency. And youknow, that's another ha ha
moment for me is is that, youknow, when cryptocurrency came
out, which we've talked about itbefore, y'all know, my take on
it, you know, I mean, I've madenot tried to hide the fact that

(21:29):
I think that some coins arenothing more than a Ponzi scheme
with a lottery system attachedto it. So if you want to learn a
little bit about that, just goback into the archives here, the
global Bob Show and pick outthat one and listen to it. But
he would not tell me who thatstore was. And but you know, so

(21:50):
that's something that is kind ofcool. Because after he went his
way, and I went my way, at theconference, you know, where
would I ever even begin to doresearch and get that kind of
knowledge. And so when you guysare able to use your crypto
currency at the local grocerystore, then you can rest assured

(22:13):
that Globalbob has met theperson that was charged with
implementing it. So I've givenyou a couple examples about, to
me one of the most value boldparts of the conference is
meeting like minded people, andmeeting up with people that you
used to work with meeting newpeople. Now, this takes me into

(22:36):
my last connection story. So Iwas out here with some new
friends of mine. And I will notmention their names. But you
know, they were staying at ahotel. And then it was kind of,
you know, some rooms dispersedaround, and they're really into
a hardware hacking. And ofcourse, I'm a hardware hacker

(23:01):
myself. It's kind of my, myspecialty or the stuff I like to
do. And so we got to talk andthen they're like, Well, you
know, we can have some peoplemeet here. We can have some
people meet there and I said,Hey, why don't we just meet at
my room. And that was reallycool, because I've never done
that before. So we kind of hadour own little our own little

(23:22):
conference inside of aconference. And so I had some
really good pictures ofsoldering irons, circuit chips
everywhere, USB cables, and itwas just a lot of fun. I was
talking to my wife this morningand I said you know what, this
is one of the best times I'veever had, you know, and I'm

(23:46):
telling her all the connectionstories and stuff but it's like
for three days I think it isalmost every day at least three
times. I mean, we all descendedon the global Bob Room here at
Caesars and we had some peoplethat were trying to hack into
the badges that they give youand they were trying to do stuff

(24:06):
with USB and with their Linuxcomputers and stuff and then I
had other people that weretrying to solve like puzzles and
soldering stuff and it was justgood so we kind of dubbed it
global Bob's solder con sosolder like soldering iron. So

(24:27):
yeah, I guess that was soldercon one. So maybe 30 years from
now solder Cana a takeoff andit'd be an underground
conference whatever room globalBob's and so that was a lot of
fun. It actually made me feellike I was back in high school
or college because I didn't havea refrigerator in this room
which I need to put that on mylist of requirements. Last time

(24:50):
I was out here had a very nice aroom refrigerator, but made me
feel like I was back in college.
We went Got some beers, and weiced them down in the sink in
the bathroom. And for those thatdid not drink, they had other
beverages that were ice down inthere. And it was just really a

(25:12):
lot of fun. And whenever I gotup one of the mornings, I'm
walking through and I step onone of the solder leads, you
know, half asleep and like, Yep,I've done that many times in my
own office. But yeah, that wasreally something that I enjoyed.
And my room was completely 100%trashed out now not bad trash,

(25:36):
but yeah, beer cans and, andenergy drinks and stuff. And we
had,you know, the soldering irons
everywhere, because they willleave their stuff here. And I'm
gonna like, actually, I actuallyfound some stuff that got like,
shoved under the bed. I don'tknow what that was about, but
I'll make sure to get it back tothem. And like I said, that is
what it's all about. Now, one ofthe things that I didn't find

(26:00):
out here at Caesars is thatyou're only allowed to have two
devices connected to thenetwork, and you put in your
room number and stuff. Soneedless to say, possibly
somebody that you guys and girlsmay know, actually have a really
neat way to get around thatwhere you could, you know, get a

(26:21):
couple more devices on that. Soreach out to me, if you want to
go over that particularscenario. So yeah, and that was
cool, too, you know, so we hadthe ham radio repeater hooked
up, and we're making contactswith people around the world,
using DMR, made a couple ofcontacts with a friend of mine
back in my home state. And itwas just really, like, amazing

(26:48):
that, you know, everything thatcame together and had just such
a wonderful time, and this willdefinitely go down and Globalbob
history as one of the favoritecons. Now, something I want to
tell you, we talked about theconnection. So make sure if you
guys you know, I mean, asconferences start to open up,

(27:10):
and no matter what businessyou're in, you know, get out
there and just don't look atyour phone the whole time. You
know, if people are going to aconference, chances are you guys
and girls or like minded people,whether it's a automobile
conference, or it's a hackerconference, you know, just go
out there and immerse yourselfand you never know who you might

(27:32):
meet, especially people used towork for and with, but what
about the new people I met, I'vegotten like five or six new
friends from this and willprobably keep in contact via
signal Telegram, whicheverTwitter and just know that we
are getting older. And that'sone of the things that I wanted

(27:53):
to talk about in this podcast.
Is is that that couple Yes, sir.
Mr. Oh, my gosh, I mean, therewas so many formalities, and it
made me realize that I amgetting slightly older I mean, I
don't think I'm battled, it'snot like I'm decrepit by any
means. But you got to invest inthe future. And so if you can

(28:14):
take in your industry, findsomebody that's hungry, maybe
somebody that reminds you, ofyourself back when you got
involved, and try to fosterthat, you know, you don't have
to, you know, set up a time andyou know, really have an
official mentoring program, butsit and talk to him. I had one
fella that I met a new fella,and I was explaining to him

(28:36):
about software defined wide areanetworks. I know a lot about it,
I've developed code that doessoftware defined networking, and
his eyes were just like lit up.
I'm not sure how old he is.
Maybe he's 2122 years old. Buthe asked me, you know, over a
couple different days atdifferent times, and it was

(28:58):
mostly about hey, how does thiswork? Or how does that work? So
I knew from that first day,whenever I told him Hey, go out
to this website, you can get afree version do this. Like he
went back to his room. I mean,in research he would had to
because the follow on questionsthe next day, we're you know
more specific and just know thatany spark you can put in

(29:22):
somebody that that is going tobe the people that are going to
be leading whatever industryyou're in, in the future and so
you have to invest in that. Nowno one of us like to admit that
we're getting you know, a littleolder but now's a good time
before you get too old to findthat person and put a spark in
them. And hopefully they comeinto the industry stay in the

(29:45):
industryand make a really nice career
and then know that you know,maybe you helped give them that
spark to do that. Are right weare at the bottom of the Half
hour. That means that the showis almost over. I appreciate
everybody that tunes in eachweek. Appreciate your writing

(30:08):
along the highways and byways ofcyberspace with your host here,
global Bob. Now, this is thefirst show that we've done
remote. And I think we're on apretty good track record if our
first remote show is from LasVegas, Nevada, at the beautiful
Caesars Palace complex. So onelittle tidbit about Caesars real

(30:29):
fast if you look at the name,and you look in and the way that
the grammar is, there's noapostrophe. It's not Caesar's
Palace. This is a his palace.
They've purposely left that outof there. So it's Caesars
because they want everybody tofeel like a Caesar when they're

(30:50):
here. So maybe I'll add that tomy signature block. Cesar Bob,
now I'm just good. All right,everybody. Well, thank you so
much. And I will see everybodynext week. And as always, you
can reach me via FacebookMessenger. You can get me on
Twitter, or you can just emailGlobalbob [e-mail]. And

(31:14):
with that, everybody stay safe.
See you next week.