Hacker Conference Installed a Literal Antivirus Monitoring System (wired.com)
- Reference: 0180197661
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/11/25/0024229/hacker-conference-installed-a-literal-antivirus-monitoring-system
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/this-hacker-conference-installed-a-literal-anti-virus-monitoring-system/
> Hacker conferences -- like all conventions -- are notorious for giving attendees a parting gift of mystery illness. To combat "con crud," New Zealand's premier hacker conference, Kawaiicon, quietly [1]launched a real-time, room-by-room carbon dioxide monitoring system for attendees . To get the system up and running, event organizers installed DIY CO2 monitors throughout the Michael Fowler Centre venue before conference doors opened on November 6. Attendees were able to check a public online dashboard for clean air readings for session rooms, kids' areas, the front desk, and more, all before even showing up. "It's ALMOST like we are all nerds in a risk-based industry," the organizers [2]wrote on the convention's website. "What they did is fantastic," Jeff Moss, founder of the Defcon and Black Hat security conferences, told WIRED. "CO2 is being used as an approximation for so many things, but there are no easy, inexpensive network monitoring solutions available. Kawaiicon building something to do this is the true spirit of hacking." [...]
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> Kawaiicon's work began one month before the conference. In early October, organizers deployed a small fleet of 13 RGB Matrix Portal Room CO2 Monitors, an ambient carbon dioxide monitor DIY project adapted from US electronics and kit company Adafruit Industries. The monitors were connected to an Internet-accessible dashboard with live readings, daily highs and lows, and data history that showed attendees in-room CO2 trends. Kawaiicon tested its CO2 monitors in collaboration with researchers from the University of Otago's public health department. The Michael Fowler Centre is a spectacular blend of Scandinavian brutalism and interior woodwork designed to enhance sound and air, including two grand pou -- carved Mori totems -- next to the main entrance that rise through to the upper foyers. Its cathedral-like acoustics posed a challenge to Kawaiicon's air-hacking crew, which they solved by placing the RGB monitors in stereo. There were two on each level of the Main Auditorium (four total), two in the Renouf session space on level 1, plus monitors in the daycare and Kuracon (kids' hacker conference) areas. To top it off, monitors were placed in the Quiet Room, at the Registration Desk, and in the Green Room.
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> Kawaiicon's attendees could quickly check the conditions before they arrived and decide how to protect themselves accordingly. At the event, WIRED observed attendees checking CO2 levels on their phones, masking and unmasking in different conference areas, and watching a display of all room readings on a dashboard at the registration desk. In each conference session room, small wall-mounted monitors displayed stoplight colors showing immediate conditions: green for safe, orange for risky, and red to show the room had high CO2 levels, the top level for risk. Colorful custom-made Kawaiicon posters by New Zealand artist Pepper Raccoon placed throughout the Michael Fowler Centre displayed a QR code, making the CO2 dashboard a tap away, no matter where they were at the conference.
Resources, parts lists, and assembly guides can be found [3]here .
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/this-hacker-conference-installed-a-literal-anti-virus-monitoring-system/
[2] https://kawaiicon.org/health-and-safety/
[3] https://github.com/oseiler2/co2monitor?tab=readme-ov-file#why-use-a-co2-monitor
This should have been a thing during the pandemic (Score:2)
For ages, we have had thermostats to tell us the ambient room temperature, and to adjust HVAC settings accordingly. And more recently, they've gone smart--letting us see and control it automatically, or manually with a smartphone interface.
Why not also have this technology for measuring CO2? The sensors are not expensive, they don't need a lot of power, and they are low maintenance. CO2 is a reasonably good proxy for indoor air quality with respect to environments occupied by humans. And you don't need
Funny about page (Score:2)
Worth a read of the about page at [1]https://kawaiicon.org/about/ [kawaiicon.org]. Maybe I will go to the next one.
> Kiwicon came first. Kiwicon started decades ago with a couple of hundred nerds down at Pipitea campus with a sense of bewilderment that anyone showed up at all, and the cleaners refusing to do the men’s bathroom overnight.
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> We’ve grown up since then. Not too much.
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> ...
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> We’ll always have black t-shirts and lasers, but we’ll also have glitter fountains. Maybe a petting zoo.
[1] https://kawaiicon.org/about/
CO2 is a virus? (Score:3)
It would've been helpful if the post titled "Security Hacker Conference Installed a Literal Antivirus Monitoring System" with a summary describing the conference having CO2 monitoring, could maybe have included literally ANY detail on wtf CO2 levels have to do with knowing whether viruses are in the air.
Hack in better ventilation. (Score:2)
And windows, no - the ones with glass that you can see through and open to drop CO2 levels.
Missing one key piece of information: (Score:1)
Did it actually work though? Did notably fewer people get sick this time?