Hack In The Box SecConf 2012: Google bounty, and surprises in store
Tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, groundbreaking security conference Hack In The Box is set to open its doors to an estimated 1000+ attendees - in the same place it launched ten years of security conference controversy, hacking headlines, and an era of epic exploits and disruption.
After a day of observing setup while sleep deprived hacking legends arrived to the five-star Southeast Asian hotel, we got hints of what's to come over the next two days of notorious speakers. We're sure that Hack In The Box will be one-upping its own reputation with this special decade-anniversary conference.
Over 40 speakers from all over the world will bring more than a few surprises to attendees from all over the world at the InterContinental Hotel on Wednesday and Thursday.
Pirate Bay founders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij are going to give a talk - but won't reveal what they're going to speak about.
At present Sunde and Neij still have one-year prison sentences and a hefty fine held against them in Sweden. Only four days ago, Neij won the restoration of his passport so he may travel internationally - and to attend this week's Hack In The Box.
The notorious Apple iOS jailbreaking crew will also be on hand, both with individual talks and a panel of jailbreakers that will surely be lively.
We'll also see Twitter's Charlie Miller talk about NFC (Near Field Communication) exploits; Mozilla's Lucas Adamski; and ICANN RSSAC founder (among many other historical contributions), Paul Vixie - and many more.
Another iconic speaker is John Draper - aka "Captain Crunch" - whose activities and methods to "explore" telephone networks gave rise to the culture of "phone phreaking" among contributing to and participating in other hacker culture benchmarks.
Some big corporate players are directly participating in HiTB's anticipated two days of controversy and excitement.
Notably, Google is holding the competition Pwnium 2, where security researchers are invited to hack on Google's Chrome browser for full exploits (and other non-Chrome exploits) to the tune of up to $2 million (USD) in prize booty.
Hack In The Box is a veritable attendee's playground - and not just for the speakers, competitions, charity auction, hands-on Lockpick Village and 32-hour game of Capture The Flag.
Malaysian telecom TIME dotCom Bhd is making history here, as it is supplying internet speeds of 500Mbps to Hack in The Box - giving attendees access to the fastest-ever internet access in Malaysia.
That kind of crazy speed should grease a few wheels.
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Stay tuned - we'll be posting galleries from every day of the conference, along with interviews with star speakers and posting about news and action as it happens here in Kuala Lumpur.