F-BOMB is a disposable computing project, and Reticle is its software brain: a distributed, leaderless system for transferring data and commands to and from the tiny, distributed, dirt-cheap little boxes. Together, these two systems form a botnet-styled sensor network that can be deployed the same way as a smoke grenade by a field agent, but with intelligent encryption, plausible deniability, and a peer-to-peer command network to ensure that an enemy can't compromise your goals-- whether you're providing Internet access to an Occupy group, or playing distributed hide and seek for cell phones. We discuss the design and implementation of Reticle, which was intended to take some of the networking ideas from modern botnets and apply them in a more useful context. Reticle was created with support from DARPA Cyber Fast Track, and the code, utilities, and documentation created under that project will be released with the talk.
Brendan is a geek of many trades: violin, ham radio, civil rights, and privacy. After growing up in Montana and finishing two degrees at Johns Hopkins, he did DARPA research for a time in Arlington, VA, before leaving to found his own consultancy, Malice Afterthought - a security research group which recently completed a DARPA Cyber Fast Track contract. After spending six months teaching information warfare for the DoD in 2011, he decided to attend law school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison; he is between his first and second years. He lives and works in Madison, WI with his two cats, Lysistrata and Deus Ex Machina.