October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so this meeting’s topic may be uncomfortable for some. If you need to sit this one out, we’ll hopefully see you again in November. Take care of yourselves.

This month we are joined again by floofinfried, who will be presenting their talk “When Shit Gets Real: Abuse, Escape, and Advocacy”:

In this talk, we’ll go over abusive situations, how to spot them, how to help people escape, and how best to support a victim’s recovery process.

Bio: Floof has seen some shit. They try to use it for good.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined again by Drakespirit, who will be presenting their talk “Short Circuits, Fire, and Slag: A Recovering Welder’s Guide to Melting Metal”:

Before I traded cracked and burnt knuckles for a terminal, I made a living using ungodly amounts of current to liquefy steel. Laying a clean bead is just applied physics, and chemistry (while trying your hardest not to start your pants on fire.) In this talk, we’ll tearing through the god like powers of how the world gets glued together. We’ll talk about why Stick is still the dirty field king, why MIG is just an angry hot glue gun, and what those cryptic rod numbers like 6010 and 7018 actually mean. From there, we’ll talk basic joint geometry and safety straight into the heavy stuff: Dual-Shield, Sub-Arc, pulsing waveforms, and the fun, wild processes like friction-stir and plastic welding. Whether you want to fab a custom rack, build a battlebot, or just understand the violence happening inside an electric arc, pull up a chair and let’s talk shop.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

We have exciting news: The 2026 DC612 Toxic BBQ is on!

Big thank-you to Marie for purchasing the permit two three years in a row!

• When: Saturday, September 12th from 4PM to 10PM Central
• Where: Minnehaha Falls Regional Park, Wabun Picnic Shelter F (map here)
  • 4655 46th Ave South, Minneapolis MN 55406
  • NOTE: This is the same site from the last two years, and we’ll be sticking with it going forward if possible.
• What:
  • Food! Bring food and we will grill it, or just show up and eat.
    • No frozen grilling items please – they take forever to thaw
  • Hackers! We have been told there may be hackers in attendance.
  • Music? Games? Prizes? Stickers? Whatever you bring!
• Cost: Zero days Cool dollars!
  • Nobody is required to bring anything or pay anything to attend and eat, but keep in mind that our official budget is also zero dollars, so we will only have what we all contribute.

This is a group-led event, so it is only as good as we make it. We have a sign-up sheet here to track what everyone is bringing, please fill it out if you plan on bringing stuff or want ideas for what’s missing. We always need food, but paper plates, plastic utensils, and napkins never go out of style. If someone wants to bring musical entertainment, or games, or a vulnerable WiFi spot, all the better! This is also considered a “family event” so alcohol is not allowed per the permit (I will not be checking contents of personal bottles however).

A quick note on weather: Last year we had some heavy rain toward the end. I’ll be bringing a portable grill to move things under the pavilion if necessary, but barring a literal tornado we’re planning on keeping this going rain or shine.

For those of you keeping score at home, this will be our sixth year running:

• 2021 at the Lauderdale Community Park
• 2022 and 2023 at Minnehaha Falls Picnic Area, Wabun G
• 2024 at Minneahaha Falls Picnic Area, Wabun F
• 2025 same as 2024

and we’re hopeful to keep this tradition going for even longer.

See you all there!

This month we are joined again by Lozaning, who will be presenting their talk “How to become your own cell carrier for fun and profit”:

This talk represents the culmination of two years of research and development into how to legally own and operate Lozaning-Tel, my own cellular network. We’ll cover the entire software and hardware stack that makes this possible for relatively cheap by using FOSS and rescued e-waste, as well as how to get the proper certifications and spectrum access grants so that we don’t go to radio jail. 100% human generated presentation!

Bio: I am the reigning Holland Neighborhood Association Jell-O sculpture champion. I like baking and am starting to get pretty good at gel nail art. I’m a sucker for a glittery bath bomb. Sometimes do embedded RF stuff too

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined again by Macros, who will be presenting their talk “Bypassing Subscription APIs by Printing Shit”:

Every now and then you run into a problem where the official answer is “pay more money.” In this case, I wanted access to a large number of malware analysis reports, and the available options were an API tier or a threat intelligence subscription. Rather than doing that, I opened my terminal and started poking at the website.

Bio: Macros. Most know who I am, if not feel free to say hi.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

This month we are joined again by floofinfried, who will be presenting their talk “Fascinating(ly Fucked) Fabric Facts”:

Do you want to know what’s on your body, and what that material contains? Me too! Tonight, I’ll give you a quick tour of fabrics: the basic types, the processes they go through, what is and isn’t fucked about it, and how you can make better choices for your body and the planet when you get dressed.

Bio: Floof is a blue teamer by day, an exhausted lump that sometimes does some sort of craftwork by night, and an aspiring NPC at all times.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

This month we are joined again by Ashley, who will be presenting her talk “Ashley’s Quest to watch Monty Python faster”:

This talk details Ashley’s journey to watch Monty Python (and every other blu-ray she got her hands on) faster, in which she got nerd-sniped into building a computer cluster capable of handling asymmetric nodes and tasks dynamically, to minimize latency and maximize throughput, and all of the specific intricacies she utilized to optimize it.

Bio: Ashley is a cybersecurity professional specializing in hardware, reverse engineering, and cyber operations, with a wide variety of interests (aka a massive nerd). She is also a federally certified drone pilot. “If you can break things, you can also almost break things, and I think that’s neat.”

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

This month we are joined by lambda who will be presenting their (very timely) talk “Help! I Can’t Stop Making Tax Spreadsheets!”:

Have you ever wondered how the math adds up for your paychecks? Do you like changing numbers around to imprecisely model how your budget should be set up for next week’s little treats? Want to see if your AGI could fit under the Free File Alliance’s thresholds next year? While I can’t be your financial advisor or trainer for Excel Esports, I can show you how some of the math works and where to figure it out, where this might end up being useful, and why LibreOffice ended up being my tool of choice for this specific task. (I’ll also cover the FFA’s options, because free file doesn’t have to mean doing all the math yourself.)

Bio: lambda (any/all) is a practicing computer scientist, number cruncher, user of the third person, and everything-doer. A professional SRE with overlapping experience in both software engineering and DevOps, they have interests in security and privacy with special consideration for consumer rights.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

This month we are joined by bajiri who will be presenting their talk “EvilAI 2.0”:

This, but a talk. Evil AI has leveled up to using advanced installer on top of their inno installer. This talk examines that evolution and looks at the different levels of obfuscation they employ to hide their payloads.

Bio: I’m a soc analyst who likes malware. I also shitpost a lot.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

This month we are joined by RECONLESS who will be presenting his talk “Electric Eye: Automated License Plate Readers, Minnesota Regulations, and Tracking the License Plate Trackers”:

Learn about ALPRs (Automated License Plate Readers), what they do, why they are popular, regulations in Minnesota surrounding them, recent drama with the largest ALPR provider, learn about the community of people mapping the locations of ALPRs, and how to add ALPR locations to said map.

Bio: RECONLESS (he/him) is a software engineer of 6 years at a large legal technology company, specializing in web scraping, content/data normalization, cloud infrastructure, and security/SDLC best practices. He’s also a cybersecurity hobbyist, interested in legal compliance, consumer rights, and the odd Capture The Flag here and there.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined again by Ashley Gay who will be presenting her talk “Ashley’s Crash Course to 3D Printing (Faster)”:

Have you ever considered getting a 3d printer? Have you ever been bored waiting for a 3d print to finish? Well, this talk will cover a variety of 3d printing related topics, including practical 3d printing/basics, impractical 3d printing (going really fast), alternative uses of a 3d printer (including cooking), PCB assembly, and more. This talk will also cover both ways I managed to have my 3d printer on fire, and how not to make the same mistakes.

Bio: Ashley is a cybersecurity professional specializing in hardware, reverse engineering, and cyber operations, with a wide variety of interests (aka a massive nerd). She is also a federally certified drone pilot. “If you can break things, you can also almost break things, and I think that’s neat”

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined by Meander who will be presenting their talk “Back to Basics: Why we get it wrong, and how to get it right”:

Cybersecurity isn’t just about firewalls and compliance checkboxes- its about strategy,
leadership, culture, and more. Despite increasing investments in tools and frameworks,
breaches and disruptions continue to plague organizations of all sizes and industries. Why?
Because technology alone doesn’t solve security challenges- but adding strong governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) can.

Bio: Mea Clift is a distinguished cybersecurity executive with a multi-decade career rooted in excellence, innovation, and mission-driven leadership. As Principal Executive Advisor for Cyber Risk Engineering at Liberty Mutual, she provides strategic guidance to underwriters and insureds on emerging cyber risks, maturity models, and industry trends—bridging the gap between cybersecurity strategy and enterprise risk.

With deep expertise in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), Mea is a champion of NIST-based frameworks, fundamental security principles, and supply chain security. Her background spans critical infrastructure protection, regulatory alignment, and the development of governance structures that embed security across the business. She is widely respected for her ability to translate complex technical risks into clear, compelling language for executives and stakeholders alike.

A 2025 Honoree of the SC Media Women in Cyber Award and 2024 Cyversity Educator of the Year, published author, and active mentor, Mea teaches Fundamentals of GRC and advocates for diversity in cybersecurity through many organizations including Wicys, Cyversity and ISACA. Outside of her professional work, she is a passionate quilt historian and educator living in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she shares her love of textiles and design alongside her three greyhounds.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined again by Drakespirit who will be presenting their talk “AI in War Games Simulations: Shall we play a game?”:

We all know AI can deliver on a solid chocolate chip cookie recipe as a pirate, and can even be used to do some basic chemical analysis if you want to hack together a lava cake in a pinch. But can a language model help in a war games simulation? Join us as we examine a use case where one team was using AI in a war game simulation and what happened.

Bio: [404 NOT FOUND].

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined by Ashley Gay who will be presenting her talk “Ashley’s Crash Course to Computing”:

A talk in which Ashley attempts to explain low level function of computers, and its implications on cybersecurity, including logic gates, transistors, pipelines, as well as the technical reasons why you may not be getting good performance in games, and what actually bottlenecks computing. This talk will also cover a history of ROM.

Bio: Hi, my name is Ashley Gay and I use She/Her pronouns. I’m an Offensive Security Engineer specializing in low level hardware.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined by @TactiFail who will be presenting his talk “Chapter 1: Designing Graphical Interface…”:

Serial interfaces to conference badge challenges are almost a given at this point, and the badge from the recent SecretCon 3 in Minnesota was no exception. In this talk, Tacti will briefly cover the badge’s interactive challenge element, then go a bit into serial communications, and finally take a slight detour into Unity game development, ultimately leading to a demo of a quick and dirty 3D interface wrapper around the badge’s serial challenges.

Bio: Tacti is the DC612 lead, but not POC in case any Defcon staff are reading this He does infosec for a living, hacking for fun, and cooking because if he has to eat, it may as well taste good.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail (hey, that’s me!)

P.S. Please note that there will be no meeting for August next month, as that is when Defcon proper occurs. We take that month off, as a lil treat.

We have exciting news: The 2025 DC612 Toxic BBQ is on!

Big thank-you to Marie for purchasing the permit two years in a row!

• When: Saturday, September 6th from 4PM to 10PM Central
• Where: Minnehaha Falls Regional Park, Wabun Picnic Shelter F (map here)
  • 4655 46th Ave South, Minneapolis MN 55406
  • NOTE: This is the same site from last year (2024) and we’ll likely be sticking with it going forward if possible.
• What:
  • Food! Bring food and we will grill it, or just show up and eat.
    • No frozen grilling items please – they take forever to thaw
  • Hackers! We have been told there may be hackers in attendance.
  • Music? Games? Prizes? Stickers? Whatever you bring!
  • Beeeeeees! Due to budget cuts, we will again not be providing bees this year. BYOBeeeeee.
• Cost: Zero dollars!
  • Nobody is required to bring anything or pay anything to attend and eat, but keep in mind that our official budget is also zero dollars, so we will only have what we all contribute.

This is a group-led event, so it is only as good as we make it. We have a sign-up sheet here to track what everyone is bringing, please fill it out if you plan on bringing stuff or want ideas for what’s missing. We always need food, but paper plates, plastic utensils, and napkins never go out of style. If someone wants to bring musical entertainment, or games, or a vulnerable WiFi spot, all the better! This is also considered a “family event” so alcohol is not technically allowed per the permit (I will not be checking contents of personal bottles however).

A quick note on weather: Last year we had some heavy rain toward the end. I’ll be bringing a portable grill to move things under the pavilion if necessary, but barring a literal tornado we’re planning on keeping this going rain or shine.

For those of you keeping score at home, this will be our fifth year running:

• 2021 at the Lauderdale Community Park
• 2022 and 2023 at Minnehaha Falls Picnic Area, Wabun G
• 2024 at Minneahaha Falls Picnic Area, Wabun F

and we’re hopeful to keep this tradition going for even longer.

See you all there!

P.S.

Being our fifth year, I plan to have some fun prizes for various shenanigans that have taken place over the past year. Stay tuned…

This month we are joined by Drakespirit who will be presenting their talk “I had copilot offer up some titles because titles are something I suck at [sic]”:

Can you make lava cakes at home? Yes, but can you make lava cakes at home with only some brownie mix, ice cream and pudding mix? Possibly, but you need an advanced degree in hackery with a reckless disregard for your own safety if you’re going to engineer something of this magnitude. Join us as we take an in depth look at what makes a lava cake a lava cake, and what kinds of gastronomic alchemy we will need to barter with to create a lava cake that’s as much party trick to make as it is to eat.

Bio: Short for biology, of which DrakeSpirit is purported to have. So much biology, more -ology than bio at this point really. They are known for use of -ology where ever possible, and especially when the use of hats is involved. All stalling for time and attempt to pad out the bio not withstanding, there is not much to say. DrakeSpirit is a (mostly) carbon based life whose knowledge base is obscure at best and eclectic at worst. Sneakiest “ah~ha” moment I’m willing to cop to: Figuring out that an oven that can hold a constant 250 temp is perfect for making caramel, and terrible for the diet.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined by Floofinfried who will be presenting their talk “Root Cause Analysis (and Getting it Right)”:

People talk at length about RCA reports, and the cybersecurity industry seems to be slowly settling on a standardized method for going about RCAs. However, there are several other industries that have had this nailed down for decades (for example, aviation and occupational safety) that we can learn from to improve our methodology. In this talk, we’ll go through the basics of the RCA process from multiple perspectives in order to deepen our understanding of the process and do better in the future.

Bio: Aspiring NPC with experience in several aspects of Blue Team work and a bit of experience in the physical & social engineering side of Red Team. Not much to write home about, but I’m here to help where I can.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined again by @brianhalbach who will be presenting his talk “Tools of the Trade: How basic items can get you access almost anywhere.”:

You do not have to be James Bond to break into most buildings; in fact, a handful of simple items are often all you need. Success isn’t just about having the latest gadgets—it’s about knowing how to use simple, everyday items in creative ways. This talk explores the tools of physical penetration testing, from advanced lock picks and RFID cloners to common objects like clipboards, duct tape, and hotel key cards, demonstrating how these can be effective in bypassing physical security controls. Attendees will gain an understanding of the commonly used tools, including both specialized gear and unconventional items that can provide surprising advantages. We’ll discuss the importance of hands-on familiarity with your tools, selecting the right approach for a given scenario, and how to use these tools to expose real-world vulnerabilities.

Bio: Brian Halbach has eight years of cybersecurity experience, six of which have been penetration testing. He has been featured on Nightline ABC where a camera crew followed him and his coworker around while they broke into multiple companies in the Twin Cities Metro area. Brian was also featured on Darknet Diaries where he has regaled audiences with stories of physical penetration testing gone wrong. Brian has spoken about cybersecurity at conferences such as Defcon’s Physical Security Village, Wild West Hackin’ Fest, and GrrCon, Secure360. While he is passionate about hacking into things, he is equally as passionate about helping organizations learn how to secure themselves.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined again by @Bajiri who will be presenting their talk “A Day in the Life: Blue Team Edition”:

Directly inspired by both the phishing analysis talk and the pentest panel (I have 0 creativity and originality), I thought it would be interesting to dive in a little deeper into the daily workflow of a SOC analyst (me). Focused mainly on what I do day-to-day, processes/procedures, tools we use in the SOC, and incident walkthroughs for some of the bigger incidents I’ve worked.

Bio: I am a SOC analyst and otherwise boring person

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined by… well, a few people?

It sounds like there is interest in having a panel-style discussion led by pentesters, so that’s what we are gonna do! Each member of the panel will give a quick intro, some of their history, how they got into pentesting, etc. Then when that is done we will open it up for a general Q&A format. Wanna know what the day-to-day is like? Need advice for what to study? Opinions on the future? Ask away!

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined by Ringmast4r who will be presenting their talk “Wonderful World of Wardriving”. Simply put:

A comprehensive overview of wardriving

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

P.S. Going forward we are removing the time/location info from post titles and just having the date and talk title. This should make it easier to search for things going forward.

This last month of 2024 we are joined by @Bajiri who will be presenting their talk “Bypassing EDR Constraints via WSL 2”:

Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2 can be utilized to bypass logging and detection, as well as network containment functions, of a major EDR vendor. This bypass is incredibly simple to execute, and several rounds of escalating tests show that this flaw in monitoring is easily exploited to execute malware on the host device undetected. When contacted about this issue, the vendor said they don’t support WSL2 or have any plans to fix their broken network containment /shrug

I am a SOC analyst, but I spend most of my time brain rotting in front of a computer and getting paid for it. I really like writing and researching malware too! Any time I am not doing cyber things, I’m usually playing FFXIV or other MMOs.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined again by repeat speaker and general tinkerer @r1otctrl who will be presenting their talk “Laser Rat Labs” which consists of, quite simply:

Lasers, ducks, rapid prototyping, and more lasers

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail

This month we are joined by first-time speaker and new DC612 member Macros who will be presenting their talk “Automated Malware Analysis”:

Overview of CapeV2 and Automated Malware Analysis. A bit of history of Cuckoo and its evolution into Cape. Basic Usage and features. Demoing various malware samples on a Windows 10 box. Overview of analysis of the samples.

Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.

Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.

— TactiFail