Presented at
DEF CON 18 (2010),
July 30, 2010, 11 a.m.
(20 minutes)
Our world is instrumented with countless sensors. While many of these are outside of our control (at least without significant effort...) there is an incredible amount of publicly available information being generated and gathered all the time. While much of this data goes by unnoticed or ignored it contains fascinating insight into the behavior and trends that we see throughout society. The trick is being able to identify and isolate the useful patterns in this data and separate it from all the noise. Sites such as craigslist provide a wealth of wonderfully categorized trend information. What job categories are trending upward? What cities show the most (or the least) promise for technology careers? What relationship is there between the number of bikes for sale and the number of prostitution ads? All of this and more can be explored through data available from this single source - and it is just one of hundreds out there. This exploration was inspired by a past DefCon talk (Meme Mining for Fun and Profit) and seeks to inspire others to explore the exploitation of such publicly available sensor systems.
Presenters:
-
Daniel Burroughs
- Research Associate, University of Central Florida
Daniel Burroughs first became interested in computer security shortly after getting a 300 baud modem to connect his C64 to the outside world. Since that time he has moved on to bigger and (somewhat) better things. These have included work in virtual reality systems at the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida, high speed hardware motion control software for laser engraving systems, parallel and distributed simulation research at Dartmouth College, distributed intrusion detection and analysis at the Institute for Security Technology Studies, and most recently development of a state-wide data sharing system for law enforcement agencies in Florida (FINDER). He currently works as research faculty at the University of Central Florida and is the Associate Technology Director for the Center for Law Enforcement Technology, Training, & Research.
He is also the proud owner of two DefCon leather jackets won at Hacker Jeopardy at DefCon 8 & 9 (as well as few hangovers from trying to win more).
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