For the F-15 system, it was really to probe just how many different ways that people get in.
Do we have a design flaw? Is it a design flaw? Is it a hardware flaw where we've got embedded
systems that have back doors that can be accessed? Is it a software flaw? Or is it a little bit of
all of the above? It's a little bit of all of the above. And so after doing a meeting with
the hackers that got in, they walked through. I tried this and it worked. Then I tried this
next path and it worked. And just like electricity always flowing through the path of least
resistance, they kept trying methods. It got increasingly harder, but they didn't have to pull
their toughest tricks to get in. So the direction I think we're going, that we ought to go,
is fully embracing the hacker community at DEF CON and not waiting until systems are built
to create opportunities to learn and help us learn. We should bring the hacker community
into systems as we design them. Help us make them more secure before we're producing them.
And I think this could be win-win. We would learn a ton from this community, but also create some of
the most interesting challenges because the systems we build are unique. They have some
pretty amazing technology in them and I think the opportunity for the hacker community to get
new hands-on experience would also be really energizing and cool. So events like HackASAT
are awesome, live events, but the relationship and continuing it across a broader set of
opportunities is what's more exciting. There's an interesting synergy between, one, the hacker
community can touch devices you never would think you'd be allowed to touch. Weapons, satellites,
all the things that are pretty cool. It also helps us learn commonalities where we build a lot
of different things. And by learning those base cases of things we should do and should not do,
that helps the design. But at the same time, people need to understand that there's a
creativity to hacking. We often in the military, we think about checklists and spreadsheets and
things like that. But I know people who have done red team and hacking exercises,
it's much more of an art. And we want to bring that art into making our system safer.
So we started this planning a little bit last year and then COVID hit. How did that change the plans?
So there were moments where it was insanely stressful, where it's we are charging ahead
and I'm sitting there, oh my god, what's going to happen with DEF CON? But then we realized
we're perfectly situated for a virtual event. We have a VR environment, we have all of these
workshops, everything is now accessible from anywhere. And where I think it's really interesting
is we can now provide access to these workshops at a much larger scale. Whereas last year,
the workshops were awesome, but we were swamped. But now in the VR environment, we can take
thousands of people and also for access to the actual HackASet event. It's open to the world
now and it's going to be super cool. So a little anxiety, but we are good to go and I'm really
excited. I'm more excited about the virtual event than I would have been doing a live event at DEF
CON. And don't get me wrong, it would be awesome to have an event, a live event with people
attending, being able to shake hands and give high fives to the team that pull off what is going to
be a very difficult challenge. But the virtual event is going to allow so many more people to
be part of this experience, part of the community that gets to attempt this for the very first time
at DEF CON. And I am so much more excited about a bigger community than I am about putting up a
stage at Las Vegas and then taking it down after the event is over. We got to do this a few months
ago when we were kicking off our flying car program. Long story, but pretty awesome that we're
creating a new initiative to accelerate flying cars for the country. Well, that program was
supposed to be a major kickoff at South by Southwest, which canceled. And we had to decide
what do we do. Well, we kept the event rolling through a virtual event and had over 60,000 people
participate. We would have never had that number be able to make it down to Austin and get to an
event that could probably hold no more than 2,000 tops. So the potential for a greater community is
huge doing the event this way. We will still get all of the cool factor from multiple hacker teams
having the opportunity to let their code run live in space, which is just an awesome opportunity.
But imagine this, Roro. We had over 2,000 different teams just go through the qualls.
We had over 6,000 people who have already raised their hand to be a hands-on participant.
So who knows how many people will tune in during this week. But the opportunity to have a broad
group of people is the most exciting thing about being virtual. And I hope everyone that is logging
and participating, I hope that you're safe and well. So we're super excited that besides
HackASet, we are also having a series of workshops. We have bricks in the air again. We have a ground
station exercise. Now the thing that's important here is HackASet was extraordinarily competitive.
You know, as Will mentioned, thousands of folks tried out for it, and it got narrowed down to
eight teams. That's right. And so we have eight rock star teams doing that. But part of what we
want to do here is help people learn about the variety of technologies. Because what's really
interesting to me is, this is a different type of hacking. This is not your traditional going after
a web property or a traditional software app. There's a new set of skills to learn. So we have
workshops all available via VR, ranging from beginner level all the way up to advanced. Because
we want to help you learn more about the tooling and the skills you need for these types of systems.
And then when you get toward advanced, then you'll be ready to work on the HackASet type of
events. So we have the full stack ready for you. Remember my favorite comment coming out of one of
the teammates that participated in the qualls was, I didn't know I needed a degree in physics to hack
a satellite. We don't actually need the degree, but you do need to know a little about physics
to hack it. And part of the purpose of these workshops are to introduce the peculiar new
trade craft that will be needed so that you can take hacker skills you have today
and apply them to these very different opportunities in space and in the air.
So like I think we really crushed like doing the virtual piece. What do we do about stickers?
Like the whole Defcon sticker swap? A little stressful. Maybe we could do them like Bitcoin.
Crypto coins. That could be the new... because I can't give coins out right now. I have a bunch
in my office. I can't. So we can mail them, but crypto coins could be the wave of the future.
Yeah, for everyone watching, everyone in the Pentagon has coins. There are things that you give
out when someone's really done something great or helped you out. So it goes well back in military
tradition, but you give them out via handshake. With the coin in your hand, you shake hands. It
transfers from one person to the other. So COVID-19 has put a serious dent in this time-honored
tradition. So crypto coins... So you spray the coin first, right? But then it gets, it's a hot mess.
It's even worse than that. We have them in little plastic bags and we dump them from one hand to
the other. It completely has lost the sense of ceremony. So you have to open the bag first,
then dump them in the hand. It's just, there's no way to say, congratulations, stick out your hand
and then dump a coin in it, right? The firm handshake is needed to say, thank you for what
you've done.