Infonomicon

Infonomicon Computer Club is a computer hacker organization that is a collection of over a dozen people from across the United States. It was once called Infonomicon Media, a majority of the group members produce hacker-related webcasts, including both podcasts and TV webcasts. The group changed its name in early 2006 to the Infonomicon Computer Club, and has since started work on projects outside the media realm. Members of the ICC have done many presentations at various hacker conventions across the country, the most recent being PhreakNIC 12 in October 2008 (for complete listing, see Presentations section).

There has been little "mainstream" attention to the Club as of 2007, but its episodes and member sites have been mentioned often in other hacker-related broadcasts such as by Binary Revolution Radio and Hak5.

Members

(in order of appearance)

History

Infonomicon started in June 2004, with its first episode broadcast under the title of droops Radio (later changed to Infonomicon Radio). Episodes focused on a variety of subjects, from hardware hacking, lockpicking, and FM transmitters, to wilderness survival tips. The series lasted until December 25, 2005 and produced 53 episodes.

The show was originally hosted by droops, later bringing in Obfuscated as a second host in episode 3 (July 20, 2004). The show released sporadic episodes for about a year, and then in late 2004 added a video webcast, called Infonomicon TV, which included content from both droops and other outside contributors.

In August 2005, one of their contributors, Phizone, joined the group, and helped launch a new website called PodcastIncubator.com, which provided free hosting to other individuals who were interested in starting their own podcast. Also in August, droops became the administrator of HackerMedia.org, a site which many hacker audio and video webcasts had been using to announce new episodes of shows.

Towards the end of October, 2005 droops began setting up free computers for children by installing Linux on old Windows 98 boxes. He used Edubuntu, which was designed as an educational tool for children to learn how to use Linux at the same time as they learned other things with the educational software that was included in the Linux distribution.

The club has also released two Linux Live CDs called PodcastFertilizer and Slast. Podcast Fertilizer, or PodFert, was designed for people who want to make their own podcast. It contains free audio editing software as well as other tools embedded directly into a Slax Live CD. Slast is also based on the Slax Live CD, and has asterisk PBX software pre-compiled on it. Users simply have to enter in some basic information and they can make any computer into a temporary asterisk console.

In April 2006, several members of Infonomicon gave presentations at Notacon 3 in Cleveland, Ohio, and also participated in a Hacker Media panel, moderated by Jason Scott.

In October 2006 again several members of ICC gave presentation at PhreakNIC X in Nashville, TN. In April 2007 one member of ICC(Kn1ghtl0rd) spoke at Notacon 4 in April, 2007 once again in Cleveland, Ohio.

In October 2007 Lowtek_Mystik and Kn1ghtl0rd gave a talk again about RFID at PhreakNIC 11 in Nashville, TN. This was part two of the duo's RFID information and covered previously unaddressed material.

October 2008 brought the members of ICC together again at PhreakNIC 12 in Nashville, TN. Droops and Morgellon (formally Lowtek_Mystik) gave a talk that started with basic electronics knowledge then moved into discussing how to build embedded systems (specifically using the Arduino). Irongeek presented a talk on hardware keyloggers, their use, the advantages/disadvantages of the current crop on the market, and how to possibly detect them via physical inspection and software.

Presentations

Notacon 2

'C64 RIP (Revival In Progress)' by Zach Notacon 2 April 2005

Interzone 5

'Hacker Media' by droops and Ponyboy Interz0ne 5 March 2006

Notacon 3

'Build Your Own Linux' by droops Notacon 3 April 2006

'Blended Threat Management' by kn1ghtl0rd Notacon 3 April 2006

'The Rise and Fall of Payphones, and the Evolution of Phreaking' by Ponyboy Notacon 3 April 2006

'Network Printer Hacking' by Irongeek Notacon 3 April 2006

'Hacker Media Panel' by droops, Ponyboy, Lowtek_Mystik, Dosman, Zach, (also featuring slick0, Jason Scott, and Drew) Notacon 3 April 2006

PhreakNIC X

'Understanding RFID' by Lowtek Mystik and Kn1ghtl0rd October 2006 (see video below)

'Penetration Testing with Bart's PE' by Irongeek October 2006

Notacon 4

'Grid Computing with Alchemi and .NET' by Kn1ghtl0rd April 2007

PhreakNIC 0x0b

'RFID 2.0' by Lowtek Mystik and Kn1ghtl0rd October 2007

Notacon 5

'Lock Picking into the New Frontier: From Mechanical to Electronic Locks' by Dosman April 2008

PhreakNIC 12

'The Extraordinary Journey from Fundamental Electronics to Fabulous Enchanted Systems with Arduino's and Magical Potions.' by Droops and Morgellon October 2008

'Hardware Keyloggers: Use, Review, and Stealth' by Irongeek October 2008

Notacon 6

'Interactivity with Arduinos, Transducing the Physical World' by Droops & Morgellon the Lowtek Mystic April 2009 (Morgellon was unable to make this con, droops presented this talk solo)

PhreakNIC 13

'Arduino Fun Part Deux' by Droops & Morgellon the Lowtek Mystic October 2009 (Morgellon was unable to make this con, droops presented this talk solo)

'Darknets: Fun and games with anonymizing private networks' by Irongeek October 2009

'Lock Picking is Not a Crime (unless you are here)' by Dosman and Dave October 2009

Other projects

References