T2 infosec conference

History

The first t2 conference, held in 2004 in Katajanokan kasino, Helsinki, Finland,[1] had some presentations in Finnish; however, starting in 2007, all presentations have been in English. The conference is always held in the fall and lasts two days, always on a consecutive Thursday and Friday.

Nr. Date Venue
12004-09-30 – 2004-09-31Katajanokan kasino, Helsinki, Finland
22005-09-15 – 2005-09-16Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
32006-09-28 – 2009-09-29Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
42007-10-11 – 2007-10-12Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
52008-10-16 – 2008-10-17Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
62009-10-29 – 2009-10-30Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
72010-10-28 – 2010-10-29Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
82011-10-27 – 2011-10-28Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
92012-10-25 – 2012-10-26Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
102013-10-24 – 2013-10-25Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Helsinki, Finland
112014-10-23 – 2014-10-24Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Helsinki, Finland

t2'15 will take place in 2015-10-29 – 2015-10-30 in Helsinki, Finland.

The conference

The mission of t2 is to be an annual conference dedicated to those who are interested in the technical aspects of information security.[2] Since networking is an elemental part of the ideology of t2, it is always held in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.[3] The evening program gives the attendees a unique chance to chat with speakers in relaxed environment. For speakers' comments about t2, see blog post by Jani Kenttälä and this one by Ivan Krstić.

The conference was born at a time when there was no technically oriented and independent information security conference in Finland.[1] To guarantee the independent nature of the conference, t2 has the following rules:

All submitted presentations are reviewed by the t2 Advisory Board:[2]

Presentations and Speakers

t2 has had several presentations on hot information security topics that have made the news. In the 2012 keynote speech, Rick Falkvinge showed how we all have the power to change the world.[6] In 2011, Commander Juha-Antero Puistola set the tone in his keynote speech with broad analysis of terrorism and counter-terrorism from the perspective of information security.[7] In the 2010 keynote speech, Olli-Pekka Niemi and Antti Levomäki described the evasion research framework implemented in Stonesoft and demonstrated how poorly many security devices handled evasions. In 2008, Jack C. Louis and Robert Lee showcased attacks that rendered a remote system unavailable by exploiting TCP state table manipulation vulnerabilities using very low bandwidth. In the 2007 keynote speech, Hillar Aarelaid, the manager of CERT-EE analyzed the attacks and defense in the massive online attacks that were launched against Estonia in April and May 2007. In 2006, Harri Hursti gave the keynote speech on electronic voting.

The material in t2 presentations is not always publicly available. In t2'09, Mikko Hyppönen presented a case study into an investigation against an international malware writing group. The presentation, titled "Case m00p", was not open to the media and no presentation material was made available either. In t2'04, Grugq's presentation "Defeating Forensic Analysis on Unix File Systems" contained material that had never been presented on the North American continent simply "because anti-forensics scares the feds".[8]

Some t2 presentations have reflected the “from hacker to hacker” spirit especially well. In t2'10, Pwn2Own winner Nils demonstrated how to turn Google Android and Palm WebOS phones into bugging devices. In t2'09, Andrea Barisani demonstrated how to sniff keystrokes with lasers and voltmeters, and how to hijack SatNav Traffic Channel. In the same conference, Felix Leder and Tillmann Werner demonstrated techniques for botnet mitigation and takeover.

In addition to aforementioned, other well-known t2 speakers have been:

t2 Challenge

As the prices of information security conference tickets can be prohibitive, especially for young enthusiasts, the t2 Challenge was created to solve this problem by giving those considering attending the conference an opportunity to win tickets.[9][10][11][12] There are two winners each year: the one who is the first one to solve the Challenge, and the one with the most elegant solution. The Challenge was introduced in 2005, and in that year it was downloaded more than 10,000 times during the first 24 hours of its release.[13]

The Challenges from 2005 to 2008 were reverse engineering puzzles that had a hidden e-mail address the contestants had to discover.[14][15][16][17] In 2009, the Challenge type was "Incident Response", where again the goal was to find a hidden e-mail address but this time it was a multistage, with multiple ways to solve it.[18][19] The t2'10 Challenge was similar to t2'09's, and a scoreboard was introduced to display the results (almost) in real-time.[20][21] The multistage Challenge in 2011 was popular: it was downloaded almost 5000 times during the first 20 minutes after the release.[22] t2'12 Challenge required a more diverse skillset than ever before, and it was also the first time the stages could be solved in any order - or even simultaneously, allowing team work.[23] The t2'13 Challenge was similar to t2'12's.

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Suomen tietoturvaosaajilta puuttuu yhteisö / Tietoturva / Digitoday. Digitoday.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  2. 2.0 2.1 About | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 23 August 2014.
  3. Conference | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Sponsors | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  5. Call for Papers 2011 | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi (1 July 2011). Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  6. Keynote: Changing the world by refusing to understand you can't | t2 infosec conference. Retrieved on 23 August 2014.
  7. Terroristien propaganda rehottaa kyberavaruudessa | Tietokone (27 October 2011). archive.org. Retrieved on 23 August 2014.
  8. T2'04 Conference. archive.org (20 October 2004). Retrieved on 23 August 2014.
  9. Pähkinän murskaaja pääsee ilmaiseksi T2:een / Tietoturva / Digitoday. Digitoday.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  10. Softapähkinän särkijälle ilmaislippu T2:een / Tietoturva / Digitoday. Digitoday.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  11. Salaviestin aukaisijalle ilmaispääsy T2-tapahtumaan / Tietoturva / Digitoday. Digitoday.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  12. Pelin selvittäminen avaa ilmaispääsyn konferenssiin / Tietoturva / Digitoday. Digitoday.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  13. Challenge | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  14. t2′05 Challenge | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  15. t2′06 Challenge | t2 infosec conerence. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  16. t2′07 Challenge | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  17. t2′08 Challenge | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  18. t2′09 Challenge | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  19. Nopein ja nokkelin pääsee taas ilmaiseksi T2:een (It-viikko). Itviikko.fi (21 August 2009). Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  20. t2′10 Challenge Scoreboard | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi (28 August 2010). Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  21. T2-konferenssi julkaisee perinteisen haasteen hakkereille / Tietoturva / Digitoday. Digitoday.fi. Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
  22. t2’11 Challenge downloads | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 23 August 2014.
  23. t2′12 Challenge to be released 2012-09-01 10:00 EEST | t2 infosec conference. T2.fi. Retrieved on 23 August 2014.

External links