DEF CON 24 - Panel - MR ROBOT Panel
Channel: DEFCONConference
Date: 2016-08-24

MR. ROBOT is a rare treat - a network television show whose hacker protagonist is a fully realized character with a realistically attainable set of skills. No hyper-typing, no gibberish masquerading as tech jargon, no McGuffins to magically paper over plot holes with hacker dust. MR. ROBOT takes the tech as seriously as the drama. 

One of the main reasons for this verisimilitude is the work of Kor Adana, MR. ROBOT's advisor on all things hackish. His fingerprints are on every terminal window in the show. Another advisor to the show is our very own CJunky - known to the outside world as hacker and raconteur Marc Rogers. Join Dark Tangent for a panel discussion of MR. ROBOT: the phenomenon, the hacks and the crazy ways the show seems to pull its storylines from the future. Bring your questions, and keep an eye out for late-breaking special guests.

Kor Adana’s interest in technology started as a child when he tried to build a red box to get free calls on pay phones. By the time he was in middle school, he was building his own computer systems and getting into trouble. After obtaining a B.S. in IT Network Administration, Kor went on to work in enterprise network security for one of the world’s largest automakers. He performed penetration testing, designed security policies, managed enterprise-wide eDiscovery, and conducted forensics for legal and HR matters. While there, he also worked alongside NASA in a high-profile government investigation. He eventually left the IT world to pursue his true passion, writing for film and television. He’s worked with the producers of THE WALKING DEAD, THE SHIELD, LOST, and DEXTER. He is currently a writer and technical supervisor for USA's Golden Globe Award-winning drama, MR. ROBOT. He also has one of his own projects in development with Universal Cable Productions.

Ryan Kazanciyan is the Chief Security Architect for Tanium and has thirteen years of experience in incident response and forensics, penetration testing, and security architecture. Prior to joining Tanium, Ryan was a technical director and lead investigator at Mandiant, where he worked with dozens of Fortune 500 organizations impacted by targeted attacks.

Ryan has presented security research at dozens of events worldwide, including Black Hat, DEFCON, and RSA. He has led training sessions for hundreds of the FBI's cyber squad agents, and was a contributing author for "Incident Response and Computer Forensics, 3rd Edition", published in 2014.

Andre McGregor is at DEFCON 24 celebrating his one-year anniversary as Tanium’s Director of Security responsible for internal cybersecurity. Prior to joining Tanium, Andre was a fresh-faced new agent with the FBI working cases like the NYC Subway bomber and Times Square car bomb while arresting his share of Italian Organized Crime bosses. His computer engineering background led him to help form FBI New York’s first cyber national security squad focused on computer intrusions from China, Russia, and Iran. Having deploying with NSA Blue Team and DHS US-CERT/ICS-CERT as a technically-trained cyber agent, Andre has led numerous large-scale cyber investigations ranging from financial crimes to critical infrastructure protection. In his free time, when he wasn’t sifting through terabytes of Netflow with SiLK and playing around with Autopsy and IDA, Andre was an FBI firearms instructor, dive team medic, and a volunteer firefighter driving fire trucks. After graduating from Brown University, Andre worked as an engineer at Goldman Sachs and later transitioned to IT Director at Cardinal Health/Advogent. Having shed the badge and gun last year, Andre currently serves as the FBI cyber technical consultant for the TV show Mr. Robot.

Kim Zetter is an award-winning, senior staff reporter at Wired covering cybercrime, privacy, and security. She is writing a book about Stuxnet, a digital weapon that was designed to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.