The U.S. Maker Response to COVID-19

Presented at HOPE 2020 Virtual Rescheduled, Aug. 1, 2020, 7 p.m. (50 minutes)

The U.S. government has become world famous for actively ignoring the inbound COVID-19 pandemic, opting to disband the NSC pandemic team which had been directly and recently trained to respond to these issues, splintering them into other roles. The new Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense did not move to effectively prepare the country for a massive biological crisis, leaving most health care (and really, all other) facilities vastly under-prepared to handle the inbound sickness while keeping essential workers protected. Realizing it was time to promote dev to prod, “rapid-prototypers” from all sorts of maker realms from 3D printing to sewing stepped up to donate their time, materials, machinery, project management knowledge, and even personal health in order to get these essential workers the personal protective equipment (PPE) they need to ensure they can treat infected individuals while minimizing personal risk. This presentation will provide an overview of these efforts.


Presenters:

  • Johnny Xmas
    **Johnny Xmas** is a predominant personality in the information security community, most well known for his work on the TSA Master Key leaks between 2014 and 2018 (all presented at HOPE!). Currently working with the security engineering firm GRIMM as an AppSec consultant and trainer, he was previously the director of field engineering at the anti-bot vendor Kasada. Prior to that, he was the lead consultant on Uptake’s industrial cybersecurity platform. Johnny has spent many years in the field as a penetration tester, focusing heavily on both IT and physical security of financial and medical facilities, and has served in security engineering for global Fortune 500 retail corporations.

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