Friday, July 29, 2016

BlackHoodie #2 – We roll again :)



Last year I held a free reverse engineering workshop for women, mainly in the not entirely un-selfish interest to see more of them around in the whole security field. More about the motivations, the why's and obstacles and how it turned out you can read up here, here and here. Looking back, I'm super happy with this little project and, leaning out the window a bit further, call it a big success.

That said, I gleefully announce BlackHoodie #2, the next women-only reversing workshop, to take place in Bochum, Germany the weekend of 19th + 20th of November 2016. This edition will be held in cooperation with Katja Hahn, a splendid binary analyst herself, and Priya Chalakkal, an up-and-coming hacker of all things; and comply to the same principles as last year. It will be free of charge, no strings attached, and aim to help femgineers entering a field thats not easily accessible.

Moreover, in a wonderful initiative community members announced their support of this year's edition by covering the travel expenses of a BlackHoodie attendee. The US startup Iperlane and Thomas Dullien aka. Halvar Flake will cover the trip for a lady, who decides to come join the workshop. The lucky attendee will be randomly selected from the group of registered participants.

May there be oh so many participants :) :) So here we go again..

Why women only?

Because a girl-to-girl conversation is so much more fruitful than a full classroom with only one or two women hiding in the corners. I've done so many things in my life where I was the *only* girl among X other participants, and I promise I've been hiding in the corners more than once.

For the gents it might not be that obvious, but it is not easy for young females who haven't yet found their place in life to walk into a class room, a university lecture, an office or a conference room full of men. Who, generally speaking, very often very well seem to know their place.

I've had girls in my classes before, hiding and holding back although I am so certain they would have been capable to be so much better than what their final results showed. So yeah this will be women only, for every female should feel welcomed and encouraged to do her best and get the most out of it.

Why more women in low-level technical jobs in general?
  • It’s difficult. Mastering something difficult makes you happy. I want all of you to be happy.
  • It pays well. While money makes you also happy, what’s more important, it gives you courage and independence.
  • It keeps you busy. Lots of open job positions globally, even better, believe it or not it is addictive and you might even find yourself a new hobby.

Hardfacts
  • Its gonna be Katja, and Priya, and me, and a binary, and you, and plenty of debuggers
  • Online preparation assignments, 4 of them, over the course of two months prior to the workshop
  • Workshop 19./20. of November at G DATA Academy, Bochum Germany
  • No fees, no strings attached, all you have to do is get there
  • Please register with your name or nickname and a short note about your background at blackhoodie at 0x1338 .at

Prerequisites
  • Being female
  • Computer science background in a sense you understand programming logic, how a processor works and how an operating system works
  • A Notebook capable of running at least one virtual machine
  • A virtual machine, preferred WinXP 32-bit
  • Guts :) (It is going to be a lot to learn in a very short time)


REGISTRATION:

Please register with your name or nickname and a short note about your background at blackhoodie at 0x1338 .at. About two weeks before the event you will be asked for a final confirmation of your participation.