April 9th, 2026 – “Ashley’s Quest to watch Monty Python faster”
Hello Hackers!
This month we are joined again by Ashley, who will be presenting her talk “Ashley’s Quest to watch Monty Python faster”:
This talk details Ashley’s journey to watch Monty Python (and every other blu-ray she got her hands on) faster, in which she got nerd-sniped into building a computer cluster capable of handling asymmetric nodes and tasks dynamically, to minimize latency and maximize throughput, and all of the specific intricacies she utilized to optimize it.
Bio: Ashley is a cybersecurity professional specializing in hardware, reverse engineering, and cyber operations, with a wide variety of interests (aka a massive nerd). She is also a federally certified drone pilot. “If you can break things, you can also almost break things, and I think that’s neat.”
Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.
March 12th, 2026 – “Help! I Can’t Stop Making Tax Spreadsheets!”
Hello Hackers!
This month we are joined by lambda who will be presenting their (very timely) talk “Help! I Can’t Stop Making Tax Spreadsheets!”:
Have you ever wondered how the math adds up for your paychecks? Do you like changing numbers around to imprecisely model how your budget should be set up for next week’s little treats? Want to see if your AGI could fit under the Free File Alliance’s thresholds next year? While I can’t be your financial advisor or trainer for Excel Esports, I can show you how some of the math works and where to figure it out, where this might end up being useful, and why LibreOffice ended up being my tool of choice for this specific task. (I’ll also cover the FFA’s options, because free file doesn’t have to mean doing all the math yourself.)
Bio: lambda (any/all) is a practicing computer scientist, number cruncher, user of the third person, and everything-doer. A professional SRE with overlapping experience in both software engineering and DevOps, they have interests in security and privacy with special consideration for consumer rights.
Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.
February 12th, 2026 – “EvilAI 2.0”
Hello Hackers!
This month we are joined by bajiri who will be presenting their talk “EvilAI 2.0”:
This, but a talk. Evil AI has leveled up to using advanced installer on top of their inno installer. This talk examines that evolution and looks at the different levels of obfuscation they employ to hide their payloads.
Bio: I’m a soc analyst who likes malware. I also shitpost a lot.
Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.
January 8th, 2026 – “Electric Eye: Automated License Plate Readers, Minnesota Regulations, and Tracking the License Plate Trackers”
Hello Hackers!
This month we are joined by RECONLESS who will be presenting his talk “Electric Eye: Automated License Plate Readers, Minnesota Regulations, and Tracking the License Plate Trackers”:
Learn about ALPRs (Automated License Plate Readers), what they do, why they are popular, regulations in Minnesota surrounding them, recent drama with the largest ALPR provider, learn about the community of people mapping the locations of ALPRs, and how to add ALPR locations to said map.
Bio: RECONLESS (he/him) is a software engineer of 6 years at a large legal technology company, specializing in web scraping, content/data normalization, cloud infrastructure, and security/SDLC best practices. He’s also a cybersecurity hobbyist, interested in legal compliance, consumer rights, and the odd Capture The Flag here and there.
Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.
Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.
— TactiFail
December 11th, 2025 – “Ashley’s Crash Course to 3D Printing (Faster)”
Hello Hackers!
This month we are joined again by Ashley Gay who will be presenting her talk “Ashley’s Crash Course to 3D Printing (Faster)”:
Have you ever considered getting a 3d printer? Have you ever been bored waiting for a 3d print to finish? Well, this talk will cover a variety of 3d printing related topics, including practical 3d printing/basics, impractical 3d printing (going really fast), alternative uses of a 3d printer (including cooking), PCB assembly, and more. This talk will also cover both ways I managed to have my 3d printer on fire, and how not to make the same mistakes.
Bio: Ashley is a cybersecurity professional specializing in hardware, reverse engineering, and cyber operations, with a wide variety of interests (aka a massive nerd). She is also a federally certified drone pilot. “If you can break things, you can also almost break things, and I think that’s neat”
Meeting will be on Discord. If you need an invite, look no further.
Talk starts at 6:12 PM U.S. Central, but feel free to hop in early and chat.
— TactiFail