DEF CON 26 is upon us! Official dates August 9th-12th in beautiful Las Vegas at Caesars Palace and The Flamingo Hotels but tonight marks the start. If you’re attending (why wouldn’t you be?), we have not one, but two fellow Tindarians hosting demos.
Take a look below for all the details on when, where, and what they’ll be showing.
Nick Sayer: Orthrus
Saturday 8/11/18 from 1000-1150 at Table Four
First up we’ve got Nick Sayer who is demoing Orthrus: a small appliance that allows you to create a cryptographically secured USB volume using two microSD cards. You can rest assured the data is safe, as the two cards are encrypted with AES-256 XEX mode.
The key material to derive the volume key is also spread across both cards for added security. No need to worry about passwords either. As long as you have both cards you have everything. If you’re stuck with one card, you’ll only have half the data and a key that cannot be reconstructed.
This setup provides a “two-man control” over your dataset. The device has no keys of its own, but a volume created or written for one Orthrus can be used with any other one or any device that implements the open specification. The appliance is open source hardware and firmware.
Nick Sayer himself is a software developer who has spent the last ten years honing his security and cryptography skills at his day job. Having been away from hardware for some time, he’s rekindled his love for the craft and has a nifty store on Tindie where he shares creations like Orthrus with the world.
Ashwin K Whitchurch: HealthyPi
Saturday 8/11/18 from 1400-1550 at Table Four
Next up we have Ashwin Whitchurch from ProtoCentral who is bringing the HealthyPi HAT for Raspberry Pi to demo at DEF CON 26. HealthyPi is made from medical-grade components similar to those found in vital sign monitors, but at a fraction of the normal cost for such a device. The hope is that devices such as this one will democratize medical hardware for new areas of research.
The main focus of the HealthyPi project was to create a vitals monitoring system that combined a simple, affordable, and most importantly, an open-source device that is easily accessible. The fact that it’s open-source means that users can “hack” patient data to get what they need without worrying about proprietary NDAs or patents getting in the way.
The HealthyPi demo will allow people to check out the device, get their vital sign monitored, and possibly hack it as well. Ashwin K Whitchurch, one of the creators, is the CEO of ProtoCentral (Circuitects Electronics Solutions Pvt Ltd) based out of Bangalore in India.
The company makes and sells open-source hardware products, while also supporting other products. The vast majority of these have healthcare and medical application. Ashwin has also published research papers, book chapters, and even reviews in well-known international journals.
Ashwin and ProtoCentral have been to many different hardware conferences like Maker Faire, the Hackaday Superconference, OSHWA Summit, and has given many talks on his other projects. You can check out one of Ashwin’s talks from the Hackaday Superconference below.
