<p> Lots of people think the “maker culture” is a relatively new phenomenon. However, one group has been doing it for close to 100 years: amateur radio operators. While some dismiss amateur radio as an aging artifact from decades ago, today’s radio amateurs are putting together wide area wireless networks, developing digital protocols that use the tiniest amount of bandwidth, and building radios from scratch. This presentation will review the basics of amateur radio, the advantages over unlicensed devices, and areas of interest you can apply to your existing projects. </p>
<p> <strong> Ben Jackson </strong> is just another geek from Massachusetts. He spends his days doing InfoSec stuff, generally breaking things, and being relentlessly yet constructively paranoid for a large public sector organization in southern New England. In his spare time, he enjoys being a husband and dad, messing around with computers, VoIP, analog telephones, amateur radio, doing research as part of Mayhemic Labs, and generally pressing anything with a button on it. Ben was the lead author for <em> Asterisk Hacking </em> from Syngress Publishing, former host of <em> Binary Revolution Radio, </em> has spoken at Defcon, HOPE, Source Boston, QuahogCon, and various other conferences and strongly dislikes writing about himself in the third person. </p>