Hackathon 4
March 19 marks the fourth SkullSpace Hack-a-thon, and is looking to be our biggest yet! Everybody is invited to come hang out, work on projects, see some talks, or just wander around and meet new people! Saturday will feature a few talks/projects that you can participate in, if you choose. The point is to get together, meet new people, and have some fun!
The event is completely free, but we'll be happily accepting donations (and new members). If you can afford $5, $10, $20, or more, you can help support the cause! We take cash, cheque (made out to SkullSpace Winnipeg Inc), and paypal.
Not only is this free, it's open to anybody who wants to come, with any interests, at any skill level. The most important thing is having an interest in technology and the desire to learn more and meet people. So, everybody is welcome to come out! Bring friends! Bring family!
- Date: Saturday, March 19, 2011 (corresponding with the Global Hackerspace Challenge
- Time: 12:00 (noon) - 20:00 (8pm)
- Location: LES.net - 130 Portage Avenue East at the old Nutty Club building (big red door by the #130, use the doorbell, listen for the click)
Projects
Having set projects will be an experiment that I'm hoping will work well for us. The idea is that we have a few projects going on during the day, led by somebody who can answer questions and get people started. The "leader" won't necessarily be working on their project, but they're the person to talk to if you need help/advice.
We strongly believe in learning and teaching, so no matter what your knowledge level is, feel free to get involved!
| Leader | Name of project | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Andrew | Launchpad | Launchpad is a low power, low cost, programmable device made by Texas Instruments. It's a great way to get into embedded development! Andrew is also doing a talk on Launchpads, see below for talk times. |
| Mak | Nmap Scripting | Writing scripts for the Nmap Security Scanner tool. This includes reverse engineering protocols, learning how software works, and finding security vulnerabilities. |
| Martin | Arduino | Embedded, programmable, and highly sophisticated devices. Martin will also be doing an introductory talk about Arduinoes (see below for talk times) |
| Ron | BreachDB | An online site to archive and track data breaches. This will be written in Ruby and MySQL. It uses an aggressive caching mechanism due to the speed of queries, and manages a huge amount of data. |
| (open) | Quadrocopter | Les has a Quadrocopter that's controlled by iPhone software. We're hoping to look at the protocol it uses and see if we can control it ourselves! |
Other miscellaneous projects that won't be "officially" led (unless somebody wants to): Possible projects
- Wireshark plugin development
- Gameboy DS hacking
- SkullSpace Challenge
- Bo-Keep memberfee plugin
Talks
We're hosting a few talks during the day. These will be short and informal (except for Mark's, which will be interactive and breaks new ground).
If anybody is interested in doing talks for April's hack-a-thon, please let me know (info @ skullspace.ca) as early as possible and we'll add you to the list!
For this month, these talks are very basic. We're hoping to ramp up and do some more "advanced" talks in later months!
| When | Who | What | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:00 - 13:15 | Ron | Welcome to SkullSpace | A quick introduction to SkullSpace, our members, our mission, and our current situation. A great time to ask questions about what we're up to! |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Mark | Plone | Mark will explore the obscurity separating an announced Plone security vulnerability from actual exploit steps; and slowly unveil
(what may be the first public) exploit steps. Audience will be invited to race to attack a test installation. |
| 16:00 - 16:15 | Martin | Arduino | What is an Arduino, how are they used, and what kind of cool stuff can we do with them? Martin is also leading the "Arduino" project, so you can ask him questions here or track him down all day. |
| 18:00 - 18:30 | Burke | Fuck Yeah Nouns! | Burke, Stef, and Tim created an Internet sensation earlier this month with the launch of FuckYeahNouns.com. Burke's going to talk about how he built, maintained, and promoted the site, despite repeated issues with being banned from image searches and copyright violations. |
Talks for next hack-a-thon (or that will be given if a speaker can't make it):
- Russ - GIS
- Andrew - Launchpad
- Ron - BreachDB
What we need
If you have any of this, or can borrow it, please let us know! info @ lists.skullspace.ca
Some things, like food, we may have to get everybody to kick in some money unless we find somebody who's willing to sponsor.
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| Projector/screen | Mike will bring |
| Networking gear | Provided by LES.net |
| Food | Still needed |
| Snacks | Ron and Russ will bring snacks |
| Drinks/coffee | Still needed |
| Tables/chairs |
|
| Recording gear | Andrew and Mak will take care of recording the talks (and possibly streaming) |
Donations and new members
Part of our goal is to raise donations for getting our own physical space. Anybody who wants to bring a cash or cheque is welcome to! We'll record how much you donated and add it to our startup cash.
The other part of our goal is to get the word out to more people. Bring friends, co-workers, and anybody who might be interested. They don't have to come all day, just long enough to get some free stickers!
