Hi!
Sorry. Blog not dead. It’s just been summertime. In Montreal. If you live here, you’ll understand.
The biggest event of the summer for us was throwing Recon 2010. Preparations had me so busy that I didn’t even blog about it. Recon is a well-known Montreal security / reverse engineering (i.e. hacking, by the original and only real definition) conference that has existed since 2005. 2010 was our biggest conference ever – an enormous success and a lot of fun. We had six training sessions and 3 days of conference. The conference schedule was packed with speakers from all over the world. The Recon party, which was legendary, had guests such as monochrom and int80 from Nerdcore group Dual Core. Here’s a clip.
We also had a contest organized by Tipping Point’s ZDI that was totally new for Recon 2010. It was like having a CTF, but without all of the setup, and much closer to the heart of what Recon is all about. ZDI awarded 20,000$ in prize money. Not bad. Props to ZDI / Tipping Point for coming up with the contest idea, it was a great and I hope we do it again next year.
We closed out Recon 2010 with a party at my place for speakers, trainers, and anyone left over who we could round up. I had about 50-55 people from maybe 20 countries in my house on Sunday night. No complaints or police. Pretty amazing.
Looking forward to next year.
MTLSEC July took a break and returned in August. We held it last week. I’ll return to announcing them here for September’s meeting.
Also, check out Next Montreal, a blog about Montreal technology scene stuff run by people in the scene.
It’s August 17 and Byron Sonne is still in jail on bullshit charges. Byron is one of us, a well-liked member of hacklab.to. His ongoing detention is outrageous, even if you don’t agree with his political views. Byron is not a terrorist. If you are unfamiliar with this ongoing case, educate yourself. Spread the word.
Keep announcing really deep connections between hacklab.to and Byron Sonne. Are you speaking for the group? When he gets convicted of making bomb threats and having the materials to do it, it will reflect really well on you and your group.
He was voted most likely to become an international terrorist by his High School because he planted fake bombs in his school.
Maybe Hacklab.to should attend a course on how to run a background check on its members? Trust is an integral part of security. And associating a group with someone who can’t be trusted extends that distrust to your group.
Byron’s continued detention is an incredible injustice. He hasn’t been convicted of anything and he’s no imminent threat to society. Certainly not because his high school voted him “most likely to become an international terrorist” (gee, why didn’t they just get him then?). That’s laughable.
I can relate to whatever it was that he did – I made explosives too as a kid, real ones, and detonated them at school. Because it was more interesting than kicking a ball around. Got caught. Was ordered to write an essay on Oppenheimer. Did not become a terrorist.
I’m not speaking for the group, I don’t even live in Toronto.
You have no basis in judgement to claim that Sonne is being held illegally. Im fairly certain you don’t know what the evidence is against him. But the evidence pointed at a very high risk to society to allow him bail. They let murderers out on bail. But not sonne.
Its called managing risk, something I think you should be familiar with.
If you are not a member of hacklab.to, I would reword your sentence saying that “he is one of us.” They might not like you speaking on their behalf.
That explosives stuff- was that before or after Columbine? Did you get it expunged from your record?
Alright, you’re a troll. Skipping ahead to your question.
Did not get a record. At least not one that mattered, i.e. criminal. Would have been juvenile, anyways. I’m sure there is a very yellow sheet of paper describing the incident that is slowly decomposing in a filing cabinet at my old junior high school. Micro-organisms are hard at work slowly expunging it. It was long before Columbine.
Sonne had a public record. And he had explosives, the same type the shoebomber used. He dared the cops to arrest him. And he threatened people with the explosives again. The courts have reason to keep him locked away and you decreeing the government’s risk management “bullshit” seems pretty short sighted.
“JailByron” is most certainly Pat Blcher aka Dan Strator (http://belch.com). He’s been trolling every article that mentions Byron. He’s a racist, homophobic right-wing nutcase. Don’t bother responding to him.
If this is the kind of person that hates Byron, then I consider that a plus *for* Byron.