Super Smash Bros: Melee." - Furrowed brows, pain in your thumbs, trash talk your Mom would blush to hear. That sweet rush of power you once knew as you beat all the kids on your block will be but a distant memory as SmashBot challenges you to a duel for your pride — live on stage. SmashBot is the Artificial Intelligence I created that plays the cult classic video game Smash Bros optimally. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, remorse, or fear. This final boss won't stop until all your lives are gone.
What started as a fun coding project in response to a simple dare grew into an obsession that encompassed the wombo-combo of hacking disciplines including binary reverse engineering, AI research, and programming. When not used to create a killer doomsday machine, these same skills translate to hacking Internet of Things (IoT) devices, developing shellcode, and more. Forget about Internet ending zero-day releases and new exploit kits. Come on down and get wrecked at a beloved old video game. Line up and take your turn trying to beat the AI yourself, live on the projectors for everyone to see. When you lose though, don't run home and go crying to yo Momma.
Dan Petro is a Security Associate at Bishop Fox, a security consulting firm providing services to the Fortune 500, global financial institutions, and high-tech startups. In this role, he focuses on application and network penetration testing. He has presented at numerous conferences, including Black Hat USA, DEF CON , HOPE, BSides, and ToorCon. He has also been a featured guest speaker at Arizona State University, South Mountain Community College, and the Dark Reading University series. Dan has been quoted in various industry and mainstream publications such as Business Insider, Wired, The Guardian, and Mashable among others. He is widely known for the tools he has created: the Chromecast-hacking device, the RickMote ContRoller, and Untwister, a tool used for breaking pseudorandom number generators. He also organizes Root the Box, a capture the flag security competition. Additionally, Dan often appears on local and national news to discuss topical security issues. Dan holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Arizona State University and doesn’t regret it.