On Saturday, September 26 the Mini Maker Faire was held at the East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library.
dezinsINTERACTIVE’s Edmond Major III participated with the many other vendor booths at the event. We asked him several questions about his experience.
- Who were you working with at the event?
I was working with DEF CON 225, which is known as DC225 as well. It’s a local DEF CON group for the 225 area code and surrounding areas. The 337, 318, 225, 504 area codes are also represented. DC225 is composed of students, professionals, researchers, and hobbyists that meet and discuss current trends, topics, and research in the fields of computer security, digital forensics, and related fields.
- How long have you guys been together as a group?
DC225 has been around since January 2007. It was started by Blakdayz.
- What did you do at your booth?
We showcased drone hacking, updates to our remote controlled Roomba, lock picking, and provided interested people with more information about DC225 and how to get in contact with us to get involved.
- What did you hope to gain by working as a vendor at the Mini Maker Faire?
By teaching people how to pick locks and demonstrating how easily it can be done, anyone with the proper tools and 5-10 minutes of spare time, we were hoping to not only share the knowledge of a useful skill, but to educate our local community on how physical security is only as good as the mechanisms behind it. If you understand how something works, you can strengthen your own security by utilizing it properly. We were also hoping to educate the public that the common negative connotation that goes along with the word ‘hacker’ is false. We are a group of local IT and security professionals and enthusiasts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a hacker.
- What do events like these do for the community? Good? Helpful? Inspiring?
Events like these bring the local community together, and they help people learn about things they might not know much about, but may have always been interested in learning.
- What was your favorite part of working the event?
My favorite part of working the event was actually seeing the look of frustration on a person’s face as they were picking their first lock. Then, seeing their faces turn into pure satisfaction and excitement as soon as they picked that lock, and they would often turn that excitement in to eagerness to grab the next lock and start picking away!
- Who were some of the other types of vendors at the event?
- Make.BR had their R2D2 and other robotics showcased
- Evasion, a really cool group of guys who made a board game app
- LA Homebrew, local home brewing group
- BR Amateur Radio Club
- LSU ACM Arduino
- STEMup Baton Rouge, which is a community-based, collaborative project designed to close opportunity gaps and strengthen local STEM talent pipeline by providing high-impact STEM mentoring to middle school students enrolled in the East Baton Rouge School System.
- EMDM, LSU School of Music