The mental disconnect that occurs in a "limiting assumption" is an excellent opportunity for exploitation. This cognitive security hole makes it possible to identify opportunities for injecting "rootkits" into human-scale systems that won't be found by conventional thinking. Con-men and marketing professionals have already realized the importance of these techniques and use them to great effect. In this workshop, we'll work through a methodology called Axiomatic Design that exposes these assumptions. We will apply this and other techniques to design problems and develop an "assumption-hacker" toolkit that will let you spot and make use of these opportunities.
Joe "Crazy" Foley is currently a researcher at iRobot's Government and Industrial Research Department. In addition to designing sneaky killer robots, he develops software for destroying expensive things. He got his Master's at MIT's AutoID Center developing the Object Name System for improving RFID visibility/tracing. He then spent the rest of his MIT graduate career trying to put the genie back in the bottle by improving RFID security and privacy culminating in the Tinfoil system.
Eric "Unlocked" Schmiedl majored in physical security at the playground of his elementary school, where he taught his friends to pick a freshly-bought Master padlock while they were hiding from the teachers during recess. He sits on the board of The Open Organization of Lockpickers (US Division), a group dedicated to promoting locksport and critical thinking about security, and helped found the Boston chapter while he was at MIT. Schmiedl has spoken on securing the physical world at many conferences over the years, including DEFCON, Black Hat, SecureWorld, and LockCon.
Zoz, PhD is a co-founder of Cannytrophic Design. He is famous for a variety of Discovery Channel shows and faking a UFO crash-landing.