DEFCON Kids is a not-for-profit dedicated to teaching kids around the world how to love being white-hat hacker. A white-hat hacker is someone who enjoys thinking of innovative new ways to make, break and use anything to create a better world.
DEFCON Kids 2 will be July 27-29, 2012 at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas as part ofDEFCON, the largest hacker gathering in the world. Confirmed speakers include Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine; Cory Doctorow, sci-fi author; Joe Grand, famous hardware hacker; and Marcia Hoffman, an EFF lawyer. Partners include AllClear ID, the DoD, Hackid, AT&T, Max Kelly, EFF and the NSA.
One year ago at DEFCON Kids 1, CyFi released a new class of zero-day vulnerabilities called Time Traveler. The Time Traveler bug exists across all major mobile platforms. It is a mistake made by thousands of app developers. At the same time, Time Traveler is a critical bug, allowing for exploit code to run on servers. CyFi and AT&T responsibly notified app developers about the Time Traveler bug, but few have fixed the problem.
It is important that this bug be fixed and it is easy to do so. App developers just need more awareness about the importance of security. That is the point of this contest (and cuz it’s fun). CyFi loves the mobile app world and wants it to survive. If you do too, help her find more vulnerable apps and notify the developers.
Adafruit has had paid day off for voting for our team for years, if you need help getting that going for your organization, let us know – we can share how and why we did this as well as the good results. Here are some resources for voting by mail, voting in person, and some NY resources for our NY based teams as well. If there are additional resources to add, please let us know – adafruit.com/vote
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
