Good afternoon. Hello. Wow. Everybody's got their own conversation going on. Cool. I guess
you're not really wanting to pay attention to what the badge means or any of the good
wonderful puzzles and other fun hijinks that Vost has put into it. But if you do, here's Vost.
How's everybody doing today? I love you, Vost. Thanks. I love you, too. I would ask a little
patience. For those of you who may have heard rumors in the wind, we have hiccups with
regarding the badges every year. And this particular hiccup has made me go the past three days
with roughly two to three hours of sleep per day. So I'm going to give you a little bit of
total. So bear with me. I also am going to do a kind of new thing during this 101 talk. It's
going to be kind of an experiment. And it's either going to go totally off the rails or it's
going to be fine. But that will be based on you guys and me. So we're going to try and go
through this together. I do this 101 talk every year. For those of you who don't know, because
it's 101, I'm going to drop ODAM. I'm not going to talk about elite stuff. I'm not going to
come and act like I'm this snooty jackass who knows more than you do. Because most of you are
way smarter than I am.
I'm just a weirdo with a soldering iron and like math a lot. But how many of you, this is your
first DEF CON, but show hands. Holy crap. Yeah, welcome. Welcome.
So I really hate giving talks like this because I really prefer having discussions. And on
that note, there is a room on the conference floor that's the 1057 room. And I request that
couches are put in there every year because I encourage people to come in and just sit down
and hang out and talk with people. Because if people at this con, whether they are the person
who invented a programming language or wrote some major app, if they're so pretentious that they're
not approachable, I don't want them here. So. And if you try and approach someone and you try
and talk to them and they're too high and mighty to talk to you, you can tell them to fuck
off because I just don't want them here.
.
.
Of you guys that are here for the first time, how many of you are from out of the United States?
Wow. Thank you. Thank you for traveling so far to come here. Okay. A couple things we're going
to do here. So for those of you who don't know, my name is Lost. They call me 1057, Lost Boy,
a couple other things. All the crazy crypto puzzley stuff that you see, stuff that you don't
know, stuff on the lanyards, stuff in the program, that's all me. So that's basically a representation
of all of my free time from the last year.
. And I'm often asked, you know, how do I structure these things? How does that come up with?
So I believe I do have ADDOCD where I'm constantly changing what I'm completely obsessed about.
And I have these little quirky things I do every year. Like one thing that I would recommend you guys do is I pick two publications
of any kind that are completely out of my wheelhouse every year and I read them during that year.
And over time, the knowledge base that I have tends to grow. And the reason I do that is I have a couple of pet peeves.
And in full disclosure, I use the one on one talk to try and dispel or stop some of the pet peeve stuff that I have in the community.
And I try and do that by raising us all together. So here's a couple of pet peeves that I have. For those of you who've heard this before, I apologize.
But there's a lot of new people here. I mean, who here has been to a talk of mine before?
So not very many. Okay. Sorry about how helter-skeltered it is. Like I said, I'm running on very little sleep right now.
In fact, I promise the opening ceremonies tomorrow will be much more structured. We're supposed to be having fun in here.
This is one on one. And originally, it wasn't even an official track part of DEF CON. It was just us hanging out in the highways
and some other people put this track together. But anyway, one of my pet peeves is this idea
that as hackers, you have to be creative. And in order to be creative, you have to think outside the box.
And how many have heard the term, think outside the box? Raise your hand.
How many of you know what the origin of that term is? Where does that come from?
Besides the obvious imposed, you have a set of mental heuristics that you're imposing upon this problem.
And you carry those with you. And if some high and mighty guy came down from off the mountaintop and said,
Thou shalt not impose this particular idea.
Then all of a sudden, magically, you're going to be creative and go, Aha! Eureka!
And you're going to solve the next, you know, major problem.
So there have been studies that have shown that that's total bullshit.
The original origin of that term is from the nine dot problem.
Which is a puzzle where you draw nine dots in a box. Three, three, and three.
And they say, connect all the dots without lifting the pen.
How many lines can you do it in? And of course, or sometimes you'll have the constraint.
You can't cross the line as long as you can. It just depends on the variant.
And of course, invariably, people have imposed this mental box because it's in a square.
And so it's really, really difficult. And then some jackass comes up and is all clever.
And he's like, Oh, I go outside what that frame was. Yadda da, yadda da.
Well, it's been studied and it's been shown that even if you take a group of people and you tell them from the start,
you have to draw outside of this imposed square that the same percentages of people
solve the problem or can't solve the problem.
And that the way you get people to have those epiphanal, aha, creative moments
is through deep study in a particular subject area.
Now, as we go further and further with technology, Google, search engine, instant gratification, phone in your pocket,
I don't have to go through any of the mental labor to get any of the answers of questions that I have anymore.
We do certain things faster, but we've lost a sense of wisdom in our knowledge.
And by doing so, we're starting to shortchange ourselves.
And we're going to start to lose.
The epiphanal genius moments that come from that deep study of a subject area.
So when I do my cryptographic puzzle challenges, I structure them to do three things.
I want you guys to talk to each other.
I intentionally put things on the lanyards every year so that you have to find other people and you have to interact with them.
Not only that, but there's stuff even on the back here.
You have to take it off.
You have to linger in front of the other person.
It forces at least a time for you to interact with one of those other people.
And for a...
For a crowd that is predominantly introverts, you know, I'm trying to force you to talk to each other.
Yeah.
You know, the whole joke about you can tell who the extrovert at, like, the DEF CON conferences is.
He's the guy looking at someone else's shoes.
But anyway, so that's my soapbox for that.
During the one-on-one talks, I have a tradition also of saying,
I'm not going to explain...
Obviously, in a 40-minute talk or 50 minutes, I don't even know how long I'm supposed to be up here.
But in a talk, I'm not going to be able to teach you or...
Thank you.
Or give you deep knowledge in a subject.
What I'm hoping to give you are hooks.
I'm hoping to give you hooks that give you the right points to start to go down.
And by the way, I do not mean to show disrespect to anybody.
I know a lot of you have deep knowledge in a lot of these subject areas.
But I kind of shotgun it to try and give people a foundational knowledge of,
these are the things that I think if you kind of generally know about,
you can have a well-informed conversation with someone at a place like DEF CON.
Cool?
You understand where I'm coming from?
Yes? No?
You awake?
Yeah.
I'm tired, too.
Well, what do you think of the badge this year, by the way?
So because this is one-on-one, and don't tell DT, I'm going to tell you this.
Because I'm not going to...
I don't know if he'll say it in how many ceremonies.
I don't know if it's a secret or not.
I'm going to tell you guys.
Because you're at one-on-one, which means you're hardcore.
There were, let's just say, I can't tell you the quantity,
but there were thousands of badges that were ordered.
How many of you have ever done production of electronics of any kind?
Okay.
How many of you understand how long it takes to not only do pick and place,
but how long it takes to program firmware onto something?
Every single one of the badges that you have around your neck right now
were programmed within the space of the last three days.
And that's why I say none of this would happen without the community.
Because that wasn't me.
That wasn't lost jackass with a programmer.
That was hundreds and hundreds of volunteers who weren't paid,
who are people that come to the con, that are here early,
that we run up and down the halls going, we have an emergency.
Guess what?
Badges showed up, and they weren't programmed before they got to us.
And so we set up a chop shop and went to town.
And there are people, there are people in this room right now
who have been awake literally for four days.
Some of them are in the front row right here.
Okay.
Pet peeve number two.
I get really frustrated with people.
First of all, if you don't understand or know something,
admit it.
I don't know lots of stuff.
When I talk to people at DEF CON,
there's really, really smart people around here.
You guys.
And when I have conversations with you after I give talks like this,
people come up and they want to talk about stuff,
and they'll say something and I'll be like,
oh, I don't know what that is.
Tell me.
Explain that to me.
My grandfather used to talk about Columbo.
The younger people in the audience are like,
who the hell is that?
Google him.
So Columbo is a fictional character who was like,
excuse me,
the ultimate social engineer.
He used to get everyone he met to teach him something,
even if he knew it already,
because it disarmed them.
So social engineering tip 101 right there.
But I try and not have,
you know,
when I first came to DEF CON,
I was scared crap.
I was like,
these guys are way smart.
They're going to say stuff I don't understand,
and they're going to think I'm an idiot,
and they're going to kick me out.
I didn't know what was going to go on.
And if you can just be confident enough to talk with people
and be like,
hey, I don't know what that is.
And then flip side,
don't be an arrogant ass,
but if you know something,
share it with other people.
Because that's the only way this community is going to get better.
For example,
how many of you are aware with the discussions that are going on
with cryptography and backdooring?
Yes, no?
The politics involved with what's going on?
That's going to fundamentally change communication.
And with people like us,
the folks at the DEF CON conference,
we need to talk about stuff like that.
Because otherwise,
stuff's going to go,
and the genie won't be able to be put back in the bottle
after certain events.
So I'm not going to push my politics on you,
but let's just say,
we need to share the knowledge and information
so that we can all elevate
and it's not select.
So.
Okay.
I get really tired
when I talk to people
and they make the statement,
I know that a computer uses binary.
I know that a computer speaks binary.
Oh, that just like,
it's like a cheese grater on my thigh.
I don't know how else to describe it.
Sorry.
So.
And I often will ask people,
do you know what that really means?
And do you understand that?
Now I know there's a lot of people in this audience
that are like,
all I do is code.
I don't give a shit how the processor works.
I hate that attitude.
How can you think like that?
Remember the discussion we just had
about creative epiphanal moments?
A lot of times,
those epiphanal moments
come from tangential information
that may be related to the subject
but not directly involved.
Because if it was directly involved,
some jackass would have already thought of it.
How many of you know about the original Bell Labs?
Or heard of it?
And if you haven't,
especially young folks,
go look it up.
Because it's like,
my dream mecca,
like if I could go anywhere in a time machine,
I would go back in time
to the original Bell Labs.
The reason the original Bell Labs,
by the way,
you have C
because of the original Bell Labs.
You have a lot of things
that you use in your daily life
because of the original Bell Labs.
What it was is a collection of experts
in different areas,
but they weren't stove piped.
It wasn't like,
here's the math department,
here's the physics department,
here are the electronics guys.
They were like,
the chemist was next door
to the computer guy
who was next door
to the mathematician,
to the linguist.
And they all had access
to each other.
And that's what caused
this genesis of all
of this great creativity.
And we've started losing that
because everybody wants
to keep everything secret.
They don't want to share.
And so we lose
those epiphanal interconnections.
So back to the,
I know how a processor works.
If you come to me
and say,
Ryan,
you wasted my time
at DEF CON
because I don't care
how a processor works.
I just want to code.
I would say to you,
you do not have the mindset
of a hacker
and I don't want
to talk to you.
So.
I mean,
go back to that comment
I said about subscribing
to magazines.
I subscribed to like
a sewing magazine
for a year.
You know,
just,
and I actually learned
really cool stuff.
So,
here's one of the experiments
we're going to do today.
And you guys are all
coming along with me
on this ride
because this one's
going to be fun.
So,
can I have a couple of you
or however many you want.
I know you all got cell phones
in your pockets
that have timers on them.
I'm not going to lie,
I did not practice this part
because I was like,
let's,
balls to the wall,
let's go.
Let's see if we can do this.
Pull out your phone.
So,
in a second,
we're going to synchronize
and we're going to start.
And I'm going to try
in 10 minutes
to talk through
going from
the three basic
fundamental logic gates
to a functioning processor
in 10 minutes.
How many of you
have had
digital logic
classes
and things like that?
How many of you
could sit down
and actually describe
that process
today?
Somebody.
How many of you
kind of remember?
Okay.
How many of you
are students
right now?
Everybody should raise
their hand,
by the way.
It's a trick question.
Okay.
So,
are you ready?
Because I need
to drink some water
and we're going to go.
And the reason
I'm only doing it
in 10 minutes
and that way is
if you guys,
if this is a total failure,
we only wasted 10 minutes
and you can kind of,
you can kind of
forgive me for that.
So,
what this is not,
this is not me
teaching you
all this information.
This is me running
through the forest
wildly like my hair
is on fire,
screaming out the things
that you should Google
or look up
that you would then
be able to have
the knowledge of
what these things are.
And if one or two things
sounds interesting to you,
hook onto that
and go down that path.
So,
again,
one-on-one talks,
nobody's going to be able
to give you a deep dive
in a 40-minute talk.
Are you ready?
Okay.
So,
at like
three minutes
or somebody,
you do it every minute
like one,
two,
because I kind of got a feel
for how we have to do this
and I have to talk really fast.
So,
here we go.
no hype.
How to build a processor
in 10 minutes.
No pressure,
lost.
No pressure
is total failure.
All right.
Ready,
set,
start your things.
Okay.
So,
we got this guy.
His name is George Boole.
He's cool.
He comes up with this type
of logic
where he talks about
these three fundamental
logic gates
and not.
How many of you heard of that?
Raise your hand.
Yes,
we all heard of it.
Okay.
So,
if I take a piece of wire,
okay,
and I cut it here and here,
I have just created
a logic gate.
It's called AND.
Why?
Because if I connect the wire
here but not here,
the electricity doesn't flow.
If I connect it here
and not here,
electricity doesn't flow.
If I have two cuts
and I put them both down,
this and this,
electricity flows through it.
So,
I can make an AND gate
with a wire.
So,
we have the first fundamental
logic gate
or
I can take
the same wire
and I can run it
in parallel
and I can cut one
or cut the other
and if I connect one of them,
electricity is still going to flow.
So,
if the top one
or the bottom one go,
we'll have electricity
or
not.
Not.
Okay,
can't laugh.
You're going to take my time.
Not is going to basically
invert the signal.
We won't talk about
how we do that.
Let's just say
that you can do it in electronics
and if you're interested in that,
think about that.
The first fundamental piece
I'm going to build.
So,
we have three fundamental
building blocks.
We have AND,
OR
and we have NOT.
And I claim
that if you connect them
in this particular configuration,
I will have this thing
that I am going to call
an adder.
But this is a half adder
because there is not a thing
which people call
a carry in.
This takes two bits
of information.
One and two.
And if they are both one,
out the ass in comes
a zero
and a one
which is a carry.
If that doesn't make sense to you,
Google it.
The important point
to take away is
two bits of information
in,
one bit of information out
and a carry bit out.
So,
two in,
two out.
Boom.
So,
we got a count.
How do I make a counter?
Trick question.
Ha,
I'm burning the time
just to make you nervous.
So,
we're going to take
that half adder
and I'm going to shove it
inside a box.
And this is called
abstraction.
We do this a lot.
We do it in everything we do.
Everyone does OOP programming
and all these other things.
We shove it into a box
because we're going to
grow complexity.
So,
everybody's comfortable
with the fact that
that box represents
the two things coming in,
one thing coming out
with the carry.
Yes?
Go.
Incrementally better.
I'm going to stack these things.
I'm going to take one
and I'm going to put it
on top of the other.
Now,
I claim I can have
two bits of information
coming in
and two bits of information
coming out
with a carry.
Everybody cool?
If you don't understand that,
look up half adder
and stack it.
So,
that brings us
to an important point.
I said two bits in,
two bits out,
so we have to use this thing
we call hex
to represent the numbers.
If you're not familiar
with why we use hex,
I would challenge you
to take a bunch of switches
from Home Depot
home with you tonight
and take the first switch
and sit and look at it
and say,
how many things
can I represent
with a single switch?
On and off.
Two.
Binary.
That's why a computer
uses binary.
But,
I just said we use hex,
not binary.
Why is that?
Because on standard systems
when we first started,
we took a little bit
so we added a bunch
of bits together.
The basic standard of bits.
So,
if I take one switch,
I get two things.
If I take two switches,
I get how many things?
Four.
If I take three switches,
I get how many?
Eight.
And if I take four switches?
Sixteen.
Sixteen.
So,
we need at least four
to represent decimal
which is our natural
tendency to count
because we've got
ten of these things.
Right?
So,
we have to go
up to four bits.
But,
if we only go to ten
but we used four bits,
we don't want to waste those.
We want to be efficient
so we use a different
representation
or number base
also called a radix.
Look it up.
And that number base
is base sixteen
also called hex.
By the way,
on a side note,
there is a number
number base
or radix
called hexamal
which is base six
which is what I believe
a pirate would count in
because he has five fingers
and a hook.
So,
a bit negative.
Okay.
You just told me
the computer only has
one of the zeros inside.
How do I deal with
having a minus sign?
Oh, shit.
We're at four minutes.
Let's go.
So,
I need to have
a clever,
tricky way
of reassigning
what numbers mean
in binary
so that I can have negative.
There's this cool thing
called one's complement.
Well,
that kind of sucks
because things didn't line up right.
Look up one's complement.
Then,
look up two's complement
because we said
I can take one's complement
and I can fix it
so that we can do
this cool thing
by having negative numbers
that cancel each other out
when we add them together
and that's where
two's complement comes from.
We'll give you
two's complement
representation of a number.
Look it up.
There's these things
called sobbing pots
everybody hates in class
so we're going to skip it.
Get off your half adder.
I claim that it's a half adder
because we didn't have
a carry in
so we want to fix that.
I would claim that
the logic of a carry
is A and B
and it together.
If A and B
are both one
then I'm going to get
a carry.
Full adder
is what I get from that.
We're going to shove
that into a box
because we're going to
abstract and go further
because how much time
Five minutes?
Fully stacked.
Now I'm going to take
my full adders
I'm going to stack them together.
This is a representation
of a two bit.
I would leave it
as an exercise to the reader
to extend it to four bits
so we can get our
four bit microprocessor.
Guess what?
It looks exactly the same
just keep stacking.
So,
full
if you have four
full adders
in a box
and put them together
you get what is known
as a four bit adder.
You have a carry in
you have a four bit number
on the top
four bit number on the bottom
comes the answer
plus a carry
let's go.
What I steer you wrong
okay
we can now
represent numbers
kind of inside
but I got to steer stuff
around inside the processor
so how am I going to do that?
I have to have a way
of steering stuff around.
We have these things
we call mux
many come in
one comes out
I have a way to choose it
so this is kind of like
a traffic cop inside.
I also have to have
the opposite
I have to have one come in
and I can drive them
to other places
with these two things
called a mux and a demux
I can steer anything
anywhere I want it to go
inside the processor.
Stack the deck
if I take two muxes
and put them together
I am building six minutes
okay we gotta go
stack the decks
two muxes
put together
out the other end
I can control where data goes
you all get the point
we're controlling the flow
of information inside
the processor.
By the way
why does this matter?
Because we're eventually
going to get to registers
and those matter
when you start doing code
and you start programming
in assembly
which you're going to do
if you're going to write
shellcode
so shut up
if you don't want to hear this
just kidding
so logic
we have to have logic
right?
We have to be able
to do logical functions
on the data we put in it
or we have to be able
to do arithmetic
so we have this thing
we call an ALU
that's from the TV show V
ALU looks like a V
if you look at it
those of you who get the joke
if not google it
so you take all of this stuff
you shove it in
the ones that's complement
the twos complement
you put it in
and we are going to create
this thing
we call
an egg knot circuit
an egg knot circuit says
I have data coming in
and coming out
I can either choose
to negate it
or get the knot of it
so I have the ability
to do a function
oh let's go
and or
with no pass through
information comes in
comes out the ass end
with the control here
this is all abstraction
that we just built up to
I can take data in
as it comes out
I can choose
to do an add
or or it
so I have math
and logic
in that place
so this is
with a pass
all I did
was stick a mux on the end
which we talked about before
I want the data
to either be processed on
or not processed on
that's what the mux is for
that's what the pass line is for
let's go
so
I stick all that in the box
I get the and or chip
ALU
there it is
in all of its glory
that is basically
in essence
what you have inside
your processor at home
now
there's been a delay
there's this cool thing
called propagation delay
which we now don't have time
to talk about
because we're in a hurry
so look it up
basically it says
data takes amount of time
to go through all this crap
and come out the ass end
now what
we have the ALU
I need to be able
to produce input
and store it
and then I'll have my
decoders
but guess what
that's exactly the same thing
as DMUX
well shit
why didn't you just call it
down in the first place
so
I can decode my decoders
and decode the decoders
of the decoders
in which case
I can grow the address space
and I can go from 4 bits
to 8 bits
16 bits etc
basically this is just
stacking decoders
so I have flip flops
flip flops are really cool things
that are latches inside
that hold information
so I can now have
not just a state machine
but I can hold stuff over time
pick your logic
combinational
or sequential
we're going to talk about sequential
because we have to have memory
so we're not just based on
the here and now
or the state
so
then we build these things
called registers
which are a flip flop
with the shit coming in
so we have the thing
that can hold information
those registers are what you see
when you open up
like IDA Pro
and you see
register whatever
that's what this is
David step back
general structure
we're going to get to this
really quickly
how much time
brains
this is a brainless microprocessor
you got the ALU
you got your memory
which we just assigned
control coming in
you notice the control
has nothing there
you need a brain one
so how do I do that
I take that
I've got buffers on the side
that's the data or the program
I've got a thing called a decoder
which takes my instructions
but I don't know how to control it
see all the switches in the middle
so I need a thing called a RAM
we need to go from the one on the top
where the control lines are blank
to the one on the bottom
and we'll have everything done
PC address generation
PC it's called
our program counter
we have to be able to step
through the steps in our program
we saw we can do an incrementer
from an adder
so we got that piece
we got the mux
we got the data
we have a thing called a ROM
which basically defines
all the control signals
for what I want this thing
to actually do
I put them all together
and that's your full processor
did I make it
did I make it
five
what time
four
three
two
one
go
so that's ten minutes of your life
you won't get back
how many of you guys are in college
how many of you have taken digital logic
why don't you go up to your processor
or your professor
why don't you demand your money back
see I got this in ten minutes
where's the clip
so not a joke
a little bit of feedback here
because I prefer to talk to you guys
I hope I gave you some hooks
of maybe some things to look up
about basically how a computer works
because a lot of people
don't understand that
and everything's abstraction
we went from pounding rocks
and starting fires
to a playstation
shit how does that happen
do you think your average person
can tell me how the insides
of a playstation works
no no no
and that's the whole point
of abstraction
is that I'm going to build up the pieces
but I would argue as hackers
having these fundamental basic knowledge points
are what is going to cause epiphanal stuff
I will argue with anyone right now
everyone will say
oh there's no longer a need to program in assembly
okay I'll have the argument with you
or I'll have an edify discussion with you
where you'll teach me stuff that I don't know
and I'll change my mind
because that's the other thing
that people in this community
need to be willing to do
you need to be able to change your mind
if somebody explains something to you
that makes more sense
and I think there's too many people
that get fixated on their ideas
so excuse me
I'm going to take one more drink of water
because that really took it out
now do a couple push ups
I want everybody in this audience right now
to find one person next to them
that's not somebody they know
and introduce yourself
in the next 30 seconds
okay
okay okay okay
okay
okay
okay
is that longer than three seconds
I lost control
alright alright
let's focus focus focus
people. Bring it in. Come on, come on, come on. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi. All right. Thank
you. Okay. What just happened just then is fucking awesome because that's what DEF CON is
for me. It's the people and the interaction. Okay. Those of you who came here thinking I'm
going to sit with my laptop unless you're doing CTF or you're doing my challenge, but this is
the best part about my challenge. CTF, you know, they're going to sit in isolation with your
team with your head down on your laptop and you're going to talk to them. You're going to do
my challenge, you're going to talk to other people because you don't have a choice. So it's
all about the people for me. By the way, I have just morbid curiosity. How did the
teleprompter people do with that monstrosity we just went through?
Awesome. Awesome. So how did they deal with foreign language? Can we see?
Yes. I'm not a first-time speaker. I don't drink, but thank you. I will, I will.
Thank you very much.
.
Thank you.
.
So that's a perfect example. Yes, we have fun here at DEF CON. I encourage you to challenge
the speakers. If somebody is saying something here that you think is bullshit, go up and talk
to them. Okay? Challenge people. That's what we're here for. I want people to challenge me. I
want you to come up to me like, dude, I thought that was crap or whatever. That's how I get
better. So, yeah. . So I will prepare you for the next session. I'm going to
prepare you for 101 if you go, not 101, the opening ceremony is tomorrow. So, like I said, usually
Thursday was our fun day where we were just kind of joking around. And it's kind of evolved into
another official day of DEF CON. DEF CON didn't used to be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It
used to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So this is, this isn't technically DEF CON because we
haven't officially opened the conference yet, but I think that's crap, so. .
. Yes, it is. 101 is official. Yeah. . It is now. It is now, but it wasn't. . Now that you're
here. Amazing. . So after this talk, by the way, there will be a 101 panel where we're
going to interact with you guys more and talk with you more. And then tomorrow, opening
ceremonies, I will talk more specifically about the badge and some of the production and some
of the problems we had and some of the craziness in the program. But I kind of like to give a
reward to the folks that make the effort of coming to the 101 stuff and talk just slightly about
some of the challenge stuff that may give you a little bit of a leg up if you're
competing with other people. How many people in this room are actually working on some
aspect of the puzzle right now? Or have? Or thought about it? Okay. Um, it, I hope it's kind of
fun. Um, it's a little bit painful at times. So let's talk a little bit about the, uh, the math
that you see in the program. If you look in the program on the second page where my ugly mug is
at, um, there's a, there's some equations there. . Everybody see that? Okay. So, uh,
you see those? Everybody see that? The math that's there? How many of you looked at it and
you were like, hell no, I didn't come to DEF CON to freaking do math. Hell no! How many of you are
familiar with a website called Wolfram Alpha? Yeah. How many of you tried to put that
equation into Wolfram Alpha? And how many of you got with, what the fuck am I looking at?
. Now, second thing that was designed to stump you guys. And see what I'm doing is I'm
talking about an aspect of the challenge that hopefully will give you a hook or piece of
information you might not have already known. If you did, you're really freaking smart, come
talk to me because I want to know you. Um, there is a, there is a way of representing
equations in, uh, basically in a, in a line of text because you're like, how the hell do I put
in integrals in there? How do I do this stuff? There is a thing you can look up called reverse
Polish notation. And it sounds like you're being, like, racist, but it's, it's not. It's
really called RPN for short. Reverse Polish notation. It's the way, it's the way you can
say it. Those of us who are old, like me, used to put data into, uh, a calculator. Holy crap, I
just realized, I just realized, no, but I just realized you, you are like a foot taller than
last year. Stand up for a second. Those of you who don't know this young man right here, this
is one of the smartest kids I've ever met. He came to DEF CON, what, two years ago was your
first one? Four? He was like this tall. His dad brings him and he brings, he brings his dad, I
think. He brings his dad. He brings his dad. He brings his dad. He brings his dad. He brings his
dad. And this is why I love DEF CON, this kind of stuff. He was correcting speakers. He was
correcting, like, Joe Grand and me and stuff like that. Introduce yourself to this kid, because
he's going to go places. Those of you who, like, have, like, these track programs for hiring
people, like, when they're young, this is a kid you guys need to meet. His name's Skyler,
anyway, by the way. Say hi. So. That was one of the best parts of CON, was the look on Joe
Grand's face when he corrected him. Yeah.
Okay. So, I did a, I did a puzzle badge for a conference called The Gathering for Gardner. How many of you know who Martin Gardner is? If you don't know who Martin Gardner is, he is the father of what we call recreational mathematics. And he's also, like, the champ, he used to write for Scientific American doing, like, puzzle stuff. And most of you who've done puzzle-y type stuff, like in the newspaper or in magazines, he probably influenced that somehow. He's a pioneer. I've got, like, much respect to Martin, who is no longer with us.
So, at that conference, basically, I found we had two camps of people. We had mathematicians and we had professional magicians, which is a really interesting mix. And I met this guy who comes up to me and was introducing himself. And apparently, how many of you know what XKCD is?
Yeah. So, XKCD had written a comic strip about the tool that this guy wrote. And he came up to me and he had heard that I was, like, this puzzle guy and I do all this puzzle stuff. And he goes, I made this thing and it got a lot of press.
Because XKCD featured it. And I was, like, his website got all this, and he goes, but nobody uses it. And I said, you know what, I'm going to use it. I'm going to use it at DEF CON. And I'm going to give you credit for it. And I'm going to make sure people drive to your, so there is a tool. And I have a challenge for people at this conference.
Find the XKCD comic, the tool, and the name of the author before the end of DEF CON and come to the 1057 room and tell that information to me and I will have something for you.
So that is me giving kind of like a mini challenge to the folks that don't want to get hardcore into the competition. It shouldn't take you very much time with Google to define.
But in his algorithm, he is able to put in a number, and generate functions and equations that produce that number.
Now you're sitting yourself, oh, this is passe, this is easy, I have lots of processing power now, I will just do an exhaustive search. Bullshit. For any of you who understand how complexity grows, that is not what this means.
this guy is doing and this algorithm is brilliant and I bring it up for a reason because I'm
convinced that someone out here that's in hearing what I'm saying right now is going
to look at that and is going to get inspired in a way to use that algorithm because I have
an intuitive feel that that particular algorithm is applicable to some other aspects of what
we do as hackers that I haven't quite put my thumb on yet and if one of you finds it,
just give me a nod or something. I don't care. But I really believe somebody out there
is working on a problem or working on an exploit or working on something in security
that this particular algorithm would be useful for. I don't know what it is, but I'm throwing
that challenge out there and you remember I said this and it's being recorded so when
some guy wins a Nobel Prize or does something amazing I'm going to be like, I helped make
that happen and that's what this is really all about.
I am about dead on my feet. This is what I have for you guys for 101. I want to know
if you guys have any questions for me because I prefer to talk. You guys are new to DEF CON,
ask me anything you want. Like, hey, I'm new to DEF CON. Yeah. What type of IC, he's asking
what type of chip is on badge? Who knows? What is it? It's an Intel cork D2000. What does
that mean? It means it's x86 compatible. Ooh. Yeah. Any other questions before we get to
the debate? No? No? Really? No question? I'm getting, carte blanche, like why do you wear
those shoes? Why are you wearing Rod Serling on your shirt? Yeah? Yell it. You mean like this?
You mean like this? The lanyards. Oh, the lanyards? So I have a question for you. Why would I
make different lanyards and then just give it all out in a picture? Ah, meet space DDoS.
this is meat speak
after the fact
so generally people that compete in my competition
tend to write up descriptions of what they had to do
to solve the problems
and I guarantee you somebody will have done that
so this is
confession sorry guys
I usually count on them doing that so I don't have to
I really want to thank you guys for coming out
I hope you
yeah yeah go
okay so
I'll save it for the panel
I'll save it for the panel
thank you guys for coming
oh and these are awesome
gunner glasses that I love so
thank you guys for coming