September « 2011 « Hackers For Charity

Hackers for Charity and the 304Geeks Present Hack3rCon II

For the second year in a row, Hackers for Charity and the 304Geeks will bring you, Hack3rCon. Back in the capitol city, Hack3rCon II will be from October 21st-23rd, 2011 at the Charleston House Hotel and Conference Center in Charleston, WV.

The conference will feature nationally re-known speakers and published authors from around the country, focusing on a wide range of information security topics. In addition, we have added a new event. This year we will be offering several live workshops where attendees can spend time with experts earning valuable hands-on experience.

In addition to the talks and workshops, 304Geeks will sponsor a party featuring musical guests Dual Core. The party will give attendees an opportunity to network with speakers, industry leaders, and other attendees. Friday night will also feature a podcast party with podcasters from the InfoSec Daily Podcast.

Back by popular demand, the Network King of the Hill (NetKotH) challenge returns. Top prizes for the winner!

Tickets are now on sale at http://Hack3rCon.org.

Half day in kampala today for more dentist fun. The evening will be consumed by music night: live sound mixing and recording. A ton going on in Jinja.

Our client’s server is back up thanks to Sparks, only to get fried by horrible power spikes and fluctuations this morning. Apparantly the spikes were bad enough to rip through a regulator and a ups. As an aside, power has been horrible lately. Two weeks ago, UMEME, the power company, decided to feed 110 instead of 220. Last week they fed 250. I guess they’re happy to feed anything. Makes their uptime look better. The result was a surge (pun) of power related computer repairs which Sparks is swimming in.

Our training server is mostly up, but all the training software is still copying. It has taken 12 hours so far to copy the nearly 1TB of data. Training center problems are entirely bearable right now because I’m not sweating it’s survival. I am also realizing that the center is so much less stressful for me right now because some of the stress was somewhat related to less than honorable self-appointed “competitors” who quite frankly were seeking to profit from what we were trying to offer at “nearly free”. I didnt come here for profit, but it feels GREAT to realize that the dishonorable competitors will have to PAY their clients if they want to compete with FREE.

It all started with a simple, honest post two weeks ago. The center was ready to close. My dream all along was for a center that offered only free computer training, but I couldn’t afford it, not without help. By noon the day after the post, donors led by @Brav0hax had stepped up, sending in over $1,000, enough to float the center for a month and a half.  Then @gdbassett tweeted, challenging Rapid7 and IOActive to donate. Rapid7 stepped up, donated $5,000 along with their own tweeted and blogged challenge. @Threatpost tweeted, along with many others, and the HFC Training Center Fund began to grow.

I am stunned at the result. The message is clear. You believe in what we’re trying to do with the center. You spoke loud and clear with your tweets, blogs, messages and support. I am humbled, and grateful. I admit, I still feel stressed a bit, in fear of the always-present thought of “what if the support ends?”, but for now, we don’t have to scrape to keep the training center open. I am thankful to each one of you for your part in making this happen. On the scale of things, the amount we raised may seem like very little, but I want to be very clear: You all are funding a free computer training center in East Africa. You are making a difference.

In two weeks, you sent in an overwhelming $6,192.44 in individual donations. Combined with the $5,000.00 coming from Rapid7 on October 1st, together we raised enough money to operate the center for over 14 months!

14 months. Amazing!

I’ll do my best to make sure your money isn’t going to waste. I’m excited about the ideas you’ve sent in and I’m looking for creative ways to get the student’s stories out to you.Thanks again, everyone. I am truly humbled.

Here are the somewhat obfuscated donation totals. I’ve tried to keep it as anonymous as possible, but if you or your organization would like public “partnership” recognition, please let me know.

dalerap: $  20.00
neil.at: $ 100.00
socepek: $1000.00
bubba@k: $ 125.00
jt@seve: $ 100.00
reid.ha: $ 250.00
lonefer: $  20.00
dpeters: $ 250.00
nchilbi: $  75.00
ronin7@: $ 200.00
Rapid7 : $5000.00
danasme: $  20.00
emilam@: $ 685.00
scriptj: $  50.00
csr-gro: $ 500.00
jmoran1: $  20.00
peterwo: $ 100.00
jimwass: $ 100.00
borys@b: $  20.00
daniel.: $  20.00
lithron: $ 157.44
steve@o: $ 100.00
yori@co: $  10.00
dc949..: $  10.00
Foss.Gr: $  10.00
ferruh@: $ 785.00
beau.mo: $ 100.00
gbasset: $ 100.00
jeremy.: $  20.00
jsand51: $  20.00
evanpin: $  25.00
Daniel.: $ 500.00
kuzushi: $ 200.00
rockyde: $ 500.00

Woke up yesterday with high hopes for the day. It lasted about an hour. Then I found out that because of underestimating the repair of a clients server, our tech announced it was still down when the staff showed up to work in the morning. Nothing like offlining a charity. Kinda the opposite of what we are supposed to do.

Then I found out that a routine virus scan had nailed the encrypted drive on the server in the training center. That drive held all our course material.

I was supposed to go to Kampala today to meet with the Commissioner or URA who had agreed to help us get the 25 Drobos we won I to Uganda. I had to cancel.

Today, the client server is still down, the training server is only partially rebuilt, the Drobos are still stuck in the US and all the other crap that had been going on is still plaguing me. I’m a wad of stress as I prepare for my speaking gigs in the US and Canada.

The good news is that the training center is in good hands, thanks to some very generous donations. More on that later today.

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