ToorCamp: Adventures in an American hacker camp
ToorCamp is an American-flavored hacker camp that was inspired by European versions like CCC Camp in Germany and HAR Camp in the Netherlands. ToorCamp 2009 was the "first ever full-scale" USA hacker camp and was held inside an abandoned Titan-1 Missile silo at Moses Lake, WA. After the Black Hat and Def Con hacking conferences, ToorCamp 2012 was held at the northwestern tip of the U.S. at Hobuck Beach Resort in Neah Bay, WA. Since about 400 people either pitched tents or stayed in cabins, not only does it dispel the notion that all hackers avoid sunshine and the great outdoors, apparently a good time was had by all.
As you would expect from a hacker conference, there were workshops like the one for lock picking and a plethora of presentations from “hacking computers to brain hacking, from brewing soda to fighting robots, from civil rights to lightning guns.” Joe 'Kingpin' Grand, previously with Discovery’s Prototype This and the infamous hacker group L0pht, kicked off the keynote. Some of the talks and activities that received the most news coverage included Amal Graafstra, who has experimented with human augmentation by having RFID implants in both hands. He found eight other willing souls and implanted them with RFID chips. Dan Kaminsky talked Black Ops and played “with some techniques that are obviously wrong and evil and naïve.” Talking about embedded systems, David Bryan presented “I pwned your router. Oops.” A few YouTube videos posted include Sai talking about “Make Your Laws” and “Cognitive Psychology for Hackers.” Jerry Whiting posted “Occupy your camera: Policing the police through your len(s)” on Vimeo.
