beersides - precon party | bsidesmcr-2018

"beersides" - precon party

Last year we held a precon party and called it "beersides" (a play on the BSides name!). It was a resounding success and a great way to get the BSides vibe going. There are a lot of people in Manchester for BSides Manchester so we decided to bring everyone together for a precon party.

"beersides" will be drinks, talks, socialising and a darn good time.

So what to expect?

Beers

Obviously. We are in a bar, so you can expect to be able to buy beers, or whatever is your tipple. The venue is very good for cocktails...

There is no "beersides" sponsor for this event so it is a pay bar.

Timings

Wednesday 15th August

We have the upstairs room of the venue from 6:30pm

Talks starting around 7:30pm/8:00pm

Lightning Talks Schedule

We have hired the upstairs floor of the bar complete with project and sound system, so lets have some lightning talks. They should be no longer than 15 mins per talk, so there will be lots of breaks. Thanks to the following people for providing the talks at beersides.

For more details on the talks click here

Socialising

There will be loads people form the InfoSec, Hacker, Cyber community, so it will be a great place to catch up with old mates and make news ones. It's not all talk talk talk, there will be plenty of opportunity to socialise.

Food

Yes the venue sells food - so don't go hungry - order some.

Capacity

The event is free to attend, but there is a limit on the venue capacity (we didn't reach it last year, but who knows this year...)

Entrance is on a first come first served. When the venue is full it's full.... The good news is there is a 2nd bar downstairs.

The Venue

Upstairs

Revolution Manchester - Oxford Road

90-94 Oxford Rd,

Manchester,

M1 5WH

http://www.revolution-bars.co.uk/bar/manchester-oxford-road/

Presenters and Talk details

19:30

Speaker: Michael Jack

Title: bash Scripts Matter

Synopsis: How to write better, more robust bash scripts

20:00

Speaker: Tim Panton

Title: Droids, Hackers and QRcodes - what we learned in Dorking and Varaždin

Abstract: We took 10 raspberry pi+picam based robot kits to 2 cons. This is a light-hearted look at what happened.

The attendees were asked to build the robots, then _remote_ drive them round a course collecting QRcodes.

I’ll describe the tech in the robots and what the rules of the competition were. (with pictures) I’ll talk through the attempted hacks that we know about.

I’ll summarise with lessons learnt (hackers like to build things too and they love to play)

Speaker Bio: Tim is CTO at |pipe| - a toolkit which provides secure realtime video and control links for IoT devices.

He was a co-founder at Westpoint - a Manchester based internet reconnaissance company.

20:30

Speaker: Catherine Chapman

Title: Visualizing Cybersecurity: Going beyond the hacker in the black hoodie

Synopsis: We’ve all become familiar with the image of a black hooded hacker every time a data breach or state-sponsored cyber-attack hits the headlines of the mainstream media, with some outlets even turning to popular culture – Terminator anyone? – to illustrate some of the very real threats to our digital landscape. While we may find these stock images hilarious, they continue to hinder public perception of cybersecurity, where the hacker has almost become synonymous with criminality. This talk will provide examples of how the media currently visualizes its ‘cyber stories’, and focus on the ways in which we can change the black hooded hacker narrative to better inform the public on information security, drawing on the work of artists, scientists, and war reportage.

Catherine here again - the journalist with The Daily Swig. Realize it may be too late, but wanted to submit a lightning talk proposal for the upcoming beersides. It encompasses a lot of my past work and promises to be visual, hilarious, and informative.

Speaker - Catherine Chapman is a journalist who has been reporting on security and privacy issues since the 2013 Snowden Revelations, her research then having predominately focused on the relationship between media and intelligence agencies. She has worked with numerous stakeholders in creating public engagement surrounding cybersecurity topics, often focusing on culture to help make the digital realm visible. She currently writes for The Daily Swig – a new online publication created by PortSwigger.

21:00

Speaker: Ken Munro

Title: Dumb attacks against smart locks