During the recent revolutions in Africa and the Middle East, governments have shut down both Internet and Phone services in an attempt to quell communication among demonstrators. In addition, during natural disasters, people have been left without a means of finding out the latest news regarding emergency services. We will discuss methods that can circumvent severed telecommunication infrastructures, including the use of mobile devices to act as ad hoc network access points. At the end of this talk, a new open source project will be announced, with the goal of developing the capabilities to generate spontaneous networks in times of crisis using current cellular phone technology.
Thomas Wilhelm is a Senior Security Consultant within the Penetration Test practice at Trustwave's SpiderLabs. SpiderLabs is the advanced security team responsible for application security, incident response, penetration testing, physical security and security research for Trustwave's clients. Thomas has been involved in Information Security since 1990, where he served in the Army for eight years as a Signals Intelligence Analyst / Russian Linguist / Cryptanalyst. Thomas is also a Doctoral student who holds Masters degrees in both Computer Science and Management, and has written numerous articles and books; the latest being "Ninja Hacking," published by Syngress. Twitter: thomas_wilhelm