A Project Byzantium ad-hoc mesh network (detail). (Image from their HOPE9 [2012] presentation; courtesy of Project Byzantium.)

“Project Byzantium’s application was for the Blackout Resilience category. We were recently notified that we are a finalist in this category, and have been invited to New York to attend the awards ceremony on 10 December 2012. We are honored to have been selected as finalists, and will be in attendance…”

The Access Innovation Prize is a new initiative that will award 5 lots of US$20,000 to individuals, organizations or networks that have the best actionable ideas of how to use information technology to promote and enable human rights or deliver a social good outcome. $100,000 will be granted in 2012.

Congratulations to our colleagues!

HacDC will be among the participating organizations at this event.

Admission is free. Register at http://dcdiyfair2012.eventbrite.com/

On Wednesday we will reassess and post (if possible!!) our availability for the rest of the week depending on the power situation. As usual, if you are a non-member and stop by unannounced, call 202-556-4225 (HACK) to see if anyone’s around to let you in.

Good luck to us all!

We’ve all seen headlines like “FBI denies link to leak of 12 million
Apple codes,” but not all of us know what they mean, how they affect
our daily lives, or how not to be the victim of such attacks. The
CryptoParty movement has been created to help educate and inform our
communities on practicing security in our daily lives.

“[CryptoParties are] a set of global get-togethers where more
experienced users can teach beginners how to use the commonly
available tools that tap into the incredibly powerful technology of
cryptography,” says Parker Higgins of the EFF. But not only do they
give people exposure to the tools needed to keep themselves safe, they
also introduce people to communities of security-minded individuals
allowing people to further their education in security and privacy in
a fun party environment.

On October 14th, HacDC will be holding its first CryptoParty. The
party will have many talks and workshops on different modern day
security and privacy applications and utilities and how to incorporate
them into our routine. Tor, OpenPGP, SSL, Crypto.cat, Truecrypt and
LUKS will be covered in depth as well as many, many other talks and
workshops. Pizza will be provided, and drinks will be had (BYO). Like
all HacDC events, our CryptoParty will be free and open to the public.
Bring a laptop, a mobile smartphone, and yourself. Install all
applicable updates before you come to the party. Do not bring
removable media (thumbdrives, external hard drives, etc), by
definition it can’t be trusted.

For more details on event specifics check out the meetup event for our cryptoparty: http://www.meetup.com/hac-dc/events/84193712/

Photo credit: Attribution 3.0 Unported https://cryptoparty.org/wiki/Promotional_Material

In 2005, 22% of computer science graduates were women. This is down from 37% in 1985. Have you ever wondered why more women aren’t working in fields of math, science and technology (or going to hackerspaces?) Join The Hacktory to learn more about the research on this problem and hear from others about personal experiences. We have a hands-on activity that will show how this problem persists, and identifies practical solutions each of us can use to combat it.

This event is free and open to participants of all identities, gender- and otherwise. To help us know how many participants to expect, we ask you to RSVP at the meetup event page.

These links will take you directly to the indicated lightning talk:

• Building a Software Synthesizer in 5 Minutes
• Language Learning in the Digital Age
• Robotic Ocean Sampler
• Cycling the C&O Canal
• Amateur Radio
• The Day That Took SOPA Down
• Open Source Hardware for CNC
• Are We Living in the Cyberpunk Dystopia?

Tech Demos:
A chance to demonstrate various OS’s, new revisions of the Pi and the latest add-on expansion hardware.

Workshop:
A Taste of RaspberryPi – A chance to play with the RaspberryPi hands-on.

Show & Tell / Prizes:
An opportunity to display RaspberryPi projects from the community with prizes for notable projects.

This event, as with all HacDC events, is free and open to the public.

For more information about Raspberry Pi: http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Friday 2012/08/24:

Starts:  7:30pm

Ends: ???

Saturday 2012/08/25:

Starts: noonish

Ends: 9:30pm

Mumble server:  mumble.urlw.us port 64738

At 16ft tall, the antenna is most efficient on the 20m band (14MHz). Other bands are also usable, including 40m and 17m. The radial lines provide a solid ground plane, so Earth grounding is not essential; coax feedline shield connected to ground plane, center pin to antenna.

Transmission performance is sufficient for strong transatlantic SSB voice contacts with low input power levels (20W or less). Further, PSK reporter has consistiently shown our signal is copiable across the US and Europe with the new antenna.

Thanks to Martin for helping install the new vertical antenna.
Text, photo credit, and antenna design and construction by mirage335.