Shmoocon is a security conference that ranks with other top-tier events like Defcon, CCC, HOPE, Black Hat, etc: this year’s talks are all on the Internet Archive for streaming or download.
Regrettably, the videos don’t include the talk summaries; you can cross-reference with the talk precis from the event’s schedule until it’s updated for the 2017 edition (I hope someone annotates the videos with summaries before that happens!).
I’ve been working my way through some of the most immediately interesting talks as I got ready for work this morning and will write them up as I go. I am presently watching/listening to Neal Gershenfeld’s opening keynote. Gershenfeld runs the MIT Media Lab’s Center for Bits and Atoms, which is the birthplace of both the modern maker movement and the Internet of Things (not coincidentally, Gershenfeld wrote canonical, must-read books about both subjects: Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop–from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication and When Things Start to Think — though both texts are almost inconceivably old by tech-book standards, they remain important foundational texts).
Gershenfeld’s talk is a tour-de-force and a tour of the secret history and potential future of computing: he talks about all the non-binary (quantum, fluid, biological etc) ways of creating computationally complete machines that can do things that our dumb binary devices can’t do. It has at least one jaw-dropping revelation every 2-3 minutes and is as refreshing as an ice-water bath.
ShmooCon is an annual east coast hacker convention hell-bent on offering three days of an interesting atmosphere for demonstrating technology exploitation, inventive software and hardware solutions, and open discussions of critical infosec issues. The first day is a single track of speed talks called One Track Mind. The next two days bring three tracks: Build It, Belay It, and Bring It On.
Shmoocon 2016
[Internet Archive]
(via O’Reilly Radar)