All right, all right, all right, all right, man. Hi, everybody walking by. I know you
can hear me. This is Keenan from the XR Village, and we are about to have an amazing kickoff
talk to talk about what the XR Village is and what we do. And we have a special guest
who is the most amazing person that I've met in my life. She does such cool badass stuff
that it's just crazy. And I'm going to let her tell you about all of that. But they do
like packet capture and crazy XR stuff that is super fun. And you want to know more about
it, trust me. We do have a booth that's set up, just letting everybody know before we
kick off. If you go right around the corner there, you'll see big balloons that say XRV
for the XR Village. And that is my little intro. And now I'm going to get into the fun
stuff. But all of y'all in the back, why don't you come on in here? Why don't you come on
up? Anyone? Okay. So, hi again. Kenan Skelly. I am the founder of the XR Village and I'm
really excited that you guys are here with us today. This is our first village at DEF
CON and we are super excited to be here. So I'm going to give you a little bit of history
about why there's an XR Village and what it means and all of that fun stuff. So I started
my life out doing a lot of training and educational things that involved, you know, video
games and fun stuff like that, which is really cool. It's really cool. And the problem with
that is I started a company that was really meant to build out cyber security training
and education, like ready player one style, using artificial, I'm sorry, not artificial
technology, using AR VR, which we now call XR. And we're calling it XR forever now because
last year I had it put on our T-shirts and so that's what it is now. Make sure your companies
comply. So we started looking at development platforms where we could actually get in and
build AAA quality games on the AR, I did it, XR devices. And what was really interesting
about it is we looked at four or five different platforms and we found that there was no
security developer kit in any of those platforms. And we are a cyber security company trying
to teach cyber security to other people and we can't build something, we can't build our
ready player one without any actual security being put into the platform. So that's kind
of how the XR village was born. It was really me saying, I see a gap here where there's
not enough security and there's not enough really happening from a policy level, from
a legislation level, and at a technological level. And we need to kind of get ahead of
that because AR, VR, XR is about to explode. Now last year we were super, super lucky at
the very last minute to get a slot at the biohacking village. Nina was kind enough to
give us an hour on Sunday and we had bad VR there last year too, doing cool things and
scaring people with their magic. It was only supposed to be a one hour talk and for 25
people it was a 25 person room. And we stopped counting at 75 standing room only and they
had to kick us out after four hours. That was the level of security interest that was
garnered just by that one hour talk. And we got so many great ideas about what this needs
to address, what this problem looks like. Right now, the United States, and you might not
know this, but I hope you do because you're at this talk, we don't really have privacy laws.
Like, just, we don't. We don't have GDPR. We don't have the European Union stepping in
and saying that everybody's data is protected, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And when you
think about that in context of XR, that really scares the shit out of me. I don't know if
it scares you, but it scares me. So right now we have, you know, 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds,
7-year-olds who are going to school and being taught using a meta quest, being taught using
all of these XR devices. And the thing that's really interesting is that most of them have
some sort of AI capability along with the fact that they have biometrics, along with the
fact that there are like 17 cameras all the way around the outside of it that are actually
recording your entire environment. So just that right there should scare everybody in this
room. Especially if your kids are walking around your house and you're naked and out of the
shower. Because you're getting some recorded stuff. But mostly it's about safety. When we
start talking about how we make a safe future in technology, security by design is really
like the buzz word of the day. But it's not new. It's just something we don't do well. And
we need to get better at it. So I think that the real purpose of the village is to help
promote secure by design. But by driving policy technology and fun stuff like hacking, you
know, meta quests which we're doing over there. And also on Sunday for people who are
interested, we have Dave Maynor, our favorite hacker in the whole wide world who's actually
going to do a live stream hacking the meta quest as a training event for everybody that
participates in our hackathon this week. And he's actually going to hack into the meta
quest using the meta quest pro. Will be live streamed. You can check out more data on our
website or you can check it out with the DEF CON information. So those things are all super,
super exciting. But there's so much work to be done here. One of the things that I envisioned
when I kind of started this was we really need to have that triangle approach and do the
policy technology and legislation at the same time. Because privacy is already an issue
that's super important and super covered. And I'm a policy wonk nerd and I really believe
that when there's a lot of big legislation, you can kind of slip in stuff, right? So what I
would like to see is some privacy slipped in for some of the technologies that we're talking
about. The European Union, I think I said before, is very strict on this. In fact, they just
passed something that says that if you're in technology and you have something like
artificial intelligence and combined with biometrics, that you have to go through a government
approval process to do that. That would be cool. When we talk about XR, we're adding an
entire other element to it that is chaos and that's the AI biometrics and all of the cameras
that go with it. And the fact that we're giving it to five year olds in schools and having
them teach or do things, right? It's scary. It's a really scary world. But the policy piece
really has to be almost at the forefront in terms of pushing that, driving that and making
sure that people on the hill understand the complexities of this problem. That it's not just
an AI problem. That it's not just a privacy problem. It's not just a safety problem. It is all
of those things combined. And way more scary. So that's a big piece of it for me. The
legislation piece is the second part that I thought would be really crucial. There are so
many cybersecurity bills on the floor at any given point in time. It's actually ridiculous and
insane. Scary insane. And they all try to address privacy. They all try to address security.
They all try to address the things that we're talking about here. But it's not in a cohesive
way that really is going to let that legislation get off the floor and really move forward. And
then the third pillar of that for the technology is where we bring in our partner technology
companies like BadVR. And we really focus on how those are doing security, one. Two, how are
they helping the cybersecurity community? Because there's a lot of folks out there who are
using it to do really cool stuff for security and protection. And I think we're going to talk a
little bit about that today. And we also have a playground over there where you can get your
hands on a lot of haptic stuff and just kind of play with it and see what happens. But our
vision going forward for the next three years is to really have these hackathon events all
over the show at B-sides, at local places. And we got very fortunate this year that Meta was
able to supply devices for us. And we're hoping to work with them in the future to continue to
make this a very community style event. So that's all very exciting. I'm going to hand this
off to Susie in a second. But I want to say one of our core functions this year for being a
first-time village was making sure that everybody understood the concept of it takes a
village. I would not be here, our village would not be here if it weren't for Nina at Biohacking
who kind of pulled us in and gave us a platform to actually talk about. We would not be here
without the ICS village who had us at Hack the Capital this year and let us go on and on
about really cool stuff. We would not be here if it was not for the red team village who
helped coordinate us getting all of the stuff from Meta. So you'll see throughout the day,
throughout the weekend, that all of our talks are in collaboration with another village.
Today's talk is in collaboration with the ICS village. Unfortunately our ICS representative,
we had some timing issues with this talk and he had to go to another talk. But we're still
going to talk about ICS today. We're going to talk about the really interesting ways that XR is
kind of approaching security, both from a let's protect this device, also how to enable
cybersecurity, and also what are we doing when it comes to the grid and XR? What are we doing
when it comes to power plants and XR? So that's where we're going to hand it over to Susie and
we're going to introduce her and we're going to have a little chat about all of the fun things
that she does.
Thank you so much, Keenan. I appreciate it. Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here and thank
you for taking the time to come over and listen to this talk. We were actually billed at 2 p.m.
So if you're wondering, if you want a little bit more information about stuff, you can look at us,
look us up, and we were the ones initially in the 2 p.m. slot. That being said, thank you so much
for having me. I really appreciate it. A little bit of background about myself. I'm the CEO and
co-founder of a company called BadVR. It stands for bring all your data to VR. And similar to
your story, when I founded the company, we originally thought we were going to be a VR
company. But, you know, as with all sort of company journeys, that sort of morphed and changed over
time. So the irony of now is, of course, most of our products are actually AR products. But I do
believe that in the future, VR and AR are going to combine together to be sort of one device,
call it XR, call it what you will. But, yeah, our focus is really visualizing or using AR and VR
technology to visualize really large, complex data sets. And, you know, when people hear that
tagline or hear that description of my company, they usually think, like, oh, you're looking at
3D charts and graphs using a VR headset. And that could not be further from what we're actually
doing. So when I founded the company, my background was in doing 2D data visualization
interfaces. I was a UX designer, product designer. I really wanted to find a way to make data more
accessible to everyone. I felt that it was one of the world's most valuable commodities, more
valuable than even gold. And oil or anything like that. But the problem now is that a lot of people
can't see data, they can't work with data unless they're very highly technically trained. And a
lot of the people who are technically trained tend to be of the same sort of background and
skill set. So my vision for founding the company was to use that new technology, AR and VR, to make
data and the visualization of data and the analysis of data much more universally accessible
to everyone. So non-technical people could put on a headset and easily explore data. So to do that,
I couldn't just make it 3D charts and graphs because that's still very difficult for
non-technical people to understand. So long story short, really came up with brand new ways to
visualize data, new and novel interfaces. An example of this would be our product called
C-Signal, which we're demoing over here right by the front door. So you can actually stop by the
booth and demo this product if you're interested. Basically, you put on a headset and it allows you
to see your entire RF spectrum. So you can see anything from wireless signals to telecom signals,
5G signals, Bluetooth signals. You're able to see that data in the real world as it actually exists.
So think about it as x-ray vision for your networks or x-ray vision for the RF spectrum.
So you're able to see information as it's flowing through these networks. You're able to see the
strength of the network. You're able to see who accessed the network at what point, go through
time, go backwards, see it in present moment, see it in real time, interact with it, all of these
good things. So we visualize this as sort of signal sticks in space and you're able to look
at it multi-dimensionally. So just as an example of some of the stuff, some of the innovation that
we're working on, some of the product sets that we have. So yeah, we're really excited to be here.
A lot of applications obviously in the cyber security space. We also have a lot of telecom
applications using technology like C-Signal to help do 5G deployments and help troubleshoot
with home Wi-Fi networks and stuff like that. We also have another product that sort of goes away
from the RF spectrum and helps just visualize large disparate data sets. So it's sort of like
an immersive command and control center. So you can bring together live data feeds, you can bring
together historical data feeds, geospatial, non-geospatial, into this sort of multi-dimensional
command and control room and collaborate together and notate and all of that good stuff. But my baby
is C-Signal. That was the first product that we came up with. And I think that really fits
the atmosphere here. I think it's very, would be a lot of interest to people here. So definitely
be sure to come and check it out. My co-founder, Jad, who's over here, would be happy to give you
a demo. He's my technical co-founder, so if you have any super technical questions, he can answer
those for you as well. But yeah, thank you so much for having me and looking forward to this talk.
Yay! I told you she was amazing, right? And really, seriously, go check out the gear,
go check out all of the stuff that they brought with them. It really is amazing and scary to
think about. It will scare you, but in a good way that will make you want to change the world.
So one of the interesting things that when I first met Susie and when we first had them involved
kind of last year, they were the only technology partner that we had in our little tiny room of
25 people that had 75 people in it. And they did a great demonstration. So really wanted to bring
them back and talk about some of the applications that they have, not just what they've built, but
how they're using it. Now because this talk is meant to be a collaboration with the ICS Village,
our talk is going to focus on some of the things that apply directly to the electric grid, that
apply directly to nuclear power plants, that apply to things that might be scary to think about in
terms of that much access to data. However, on the flip side of that, having that much access
to data also makes it easier for cybersecurity professionals to visualize and understand what
the problem is. So it's kind of a double-edged sword and one that I think that I think is
absolutely critically important. There are two sides to that coin and we have to be dealing with
both of them at the same. So just out of curiosity, how many like critical infrastructures would you
work with? We work with several, one of them being telecom that I mentioned earlier. We've also done
work with utility companies like large electrical grids, power grids, stuff like that. We've had
demonstrations in smart cities, so visualizing like camera feeds from around different locations
in a city or a campus, stuff like that. So that speaks a little bit to like traffic flow and then
also security. So on the campus scenario, it was like monitoring video feeds and access points,
who's accessing what at what time, going back through it historically and then also monitoring
that data live. But I would say the biggest one would just be telecom because that's such an
important utility and it's such, most of our customers for C-Signal in the private sector
have that specific use case. And then also some public safety stuff too, I should mention that as
well, like police and firefighting and like wildfire response. So we did have an amazing
use case for our other products, which is the command and control center that was visualizing
wildfire data in Southern California, monitoring and visualizing ground temperature,
fire spread, asset resources, and then also monitoring water response and all of that sort
of stuff too. So yeah. So when you guys are looking at a power plant or telecom or any of
that kind of stuff, what is the most focal point that those utilities tend to be thinking
about? And then in tandem to that, have you guys had to face any unusual requests or
unusual ideas because it's critical infrastructure and critical infrastructure is challenging?
I would say like, you know, working with the power grids and stuff like that, there is a lot of
like older technology and stuff that's like not exactly like the most cutting edge stuff. So
there are a lot of like unexpected types of data that we would have to work with that we
were not anticipating would be the type of data that would be running our critical infrastructure
in our country. But, you know, it's great, I think, to see the interest in the public sector
and in the utility sector for adopting AR and VR technology. So while there is a lot of like,
you know, older databases and older technology, you know, sort of running it, clearly they are
thinking about modernizing that and they are thinking about how that can be in the future.
So that's very heartening for me and definitely very exciting to see the interest that's there.
Yeah.
That's great. And I think a little bit of my background, I actually started another life
a long time ago at DHS. So I was very involved with critical infrastructure. I ran a program
called the Comprehensive Review that actually did the very first systems of systems-based
vulnerability assessments on critical infrastructure from nuclear power plants all the way to the
chemical plants, which you're welcome, chemical sector, you now have CSAT because of our stuff.
And it's challenging, and we've been having this problem probably for 15, 30 years, where
the OT versus the IT is really the complication. And when she's talking about thinking about how
visualizing, you know, an old piece of Siemens hardware that, you know, is never going to be
replaced, there's never going to be anything that does exactly what it does, and then how do you
kludge that together with some high-tech stuff that they have in the IT space? And it's really
scary, and I know I'm using that word scary a lot because these things scare me, like legitimately.
When you start thinking about a nuclear power plant, when you start thinking about a water
utility, when you start thinking about those things, and how hard it is to replace parts,
how hard it is to upgrade the things that keep our infrastructure running, that's just
crazy and insane. Do you have any, like, wild use cases of kludging stuff together?
Yeah, I mean, it was really crazy to me. We actually did an installation with a telecom
company where, you know, it's like it was in another country, but it was the largest telecom
in that other country. And just thinking about, like, the sheer number of people
that utilize that service, and that if this, for whatever reason, this telecom would have
interrupted service, like, people literally in the middle, it was in a country, Norway,
like, way out in the middle of nowhere, would be completely cut off from the rest of humanity. And,
like, having that much responsibility in terms of, you know, obviously we're not operating the
company, but we are visualizing data that they are using to make these very critical decisions,
and, you know, just, like, felt really heavy. And it was a very big realization to me,
the importance of critical infrastructure and the impact, the broad scale impact of it,
that I had never really considered before. In terms of fusing together, like, new and old
technology, one of our products, like I was talking about, the command and control center,
can also be used for training. So, we actually had a situation in a sort of, not a smart city,
but an IoT enabled factory floor, where there was this piece, this old machine, that, like,
was literally from, like, the 80s, that they hadn't updated, that, like you said, there's no
other machine made that does that, and they wanted to use one of our products to put in data on how
to do maintenance on this, how to replace pieces of it. So, we were taking, like, these, like,
literally printed documents on paper, and, like, translating them into multiple steps in this
data visualization. So, like, environment, so someone could put on a headset, look at the
machine, see the information about this really, really old machine, and then see information for
how to perform maintenance on it. How to, you know, replace this specific part, when that part was
last replaced, and be able to work with a machine, but enabled with AR and VR technology. So, that
was really cool to me. It was, like, sort of, like, working on a, for example, like, building
dinosaur bones, or assembling a dinosaur, but using AR and VR technology, this really cool
fusion of, like, very, very old and very, very new. So, yeah, there's a lot of, like, really
cool use cases. You know, data is such a broad term. So, you know, I've talked about everything
from visualizing live data feeds to visualizing historical data feeds, non-geospatial, geospatial,
but, you know, speaking to this last scenario, we also do a lot of stuff when it comes to training.
So, taking data about machines, or about different parts or pieces, and putting it into an immersive
space to help people better perform these maintenance, critical maintenance that they
need to perform on these machines. So, I'm totally going to, like, rope her in
to making some kind of commitment on stage, just so everyone sees it.
I like this training idea, the training in AR and VR. That sounds cool, right, cyber folks?
That sounds cool. And I feel like most cyber security people, like, we like to see things
and understand how they work and take them apart and put them back together again. And right now,
a lot of the tools that we use don't necessarily make that easy for us. There's a lot of us who
can only see things this way or can only see things that way, but imagine the power you would
have to understand your network, imagine the power you would have to actually implement things in
your network if you had that level of visualization. So, do you have any, like, training planned for
the future that might include cyber security? Yes, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. So, as I was
talking about our C signal product, which is the product that allows you to put on the headset
and then have, like, x-ray vision for your, you know, RF spectrum or your wireless network,
we are looking to really hone that product and bring it into the cyber security space.
So, we're adding in a bunch of exciting new features. So, for example, one of them being
you're not only able to see your network and see the data flowing through your network, but it'll
be able to pinpoint the location of different items. So, it can say, hey, you know, we think,
or the system thinks something is transmitting from over there behind the wall. And it'll,
as you get closer, will allow you to exactly pinpoint where that thing may be. And obviously
that thing may be something that shouldn't be there, like a bug or some sort of other
security-related concern. So, that is a feature that, you know, we are working on
and integrating into the product. And we have a bunch of other sort of cyber security focused
features as well on our roadmap. But we are very much looking to provide C-Signal as a tool for
cyber security experts to monitor traffic across the RF spectrum and networks, public, private,
all of those things. I love it. You guys heard it first here. It's happening.
So, one of the really interesting things that stood out to me after working with
BadVR last year and after doing Hack the Capital with Susie this year,
as I was looking for companies for folks that had either devices or technology or infrastructure
that fit into the world of XRB, not a lot of them want to really talk about their security
for some reason. Right? Which if you remember the beginning of the talk, which is why I started
this village, is because I found that there wasn't security built into these devices and we kind of
need to have that. So, a lot of the first round of companies I went to were like, oh, that sounds
so cool. Until we got to the, but we want to hack your stuff. Like, we will responsibly disclose
and we will work with you as a company to make sure that those things are taken care of and
provide you assistance and all of these things. But they were like, we need to get the lawyers
involved. And what I absolutely love about BadVR is she didn't skip a beat. They're like, yes,
we definitely want to do this. And one of the reasons is that Susie herself is very
passionate about privacy and data privacy. So, there are device makers out there. There are
companies out there who are putting that first. And I'm going to throw a shout out right now to
Apple with the Vision Pro coming out and saying it's made with security by design. Because that
is what we need to be doing. That's what all of us need to be doing. And at this cusp right now
where XR is suddenly becoming way more interesting with Apple jumping into the game
and things of that nature, it's so important that the collaboration that we do in the XR Village
goes across all types of organizations, schools, goes across the policy piece that I talked about
before and hackathons. And that's not possible without those private companies who come in and
say, yeah, here's our stuff. Let's do something cool with it. Let's make this happen. We'll be
apart. So, I want to talk a little bit about why you're so passionate about privacy. Because I
think that's really important. And this is a view you're not going to hear from
other very large companies that might be sponsoring us.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think one thing to mention before I go into this story is,
my product, BadVR, and our software, a lot of people think of data visualization companies
or data companies as making their money off of somehow saving the data that flows through their
system and then selling it on the back end. We don't do that at all. In fact, all of the data
that comes through our system or that you see in our system, we make a huge, like, we go out
of our way to make sure that we don't save it and that we couldn't save it. The way, I mean,
you would have to ask Jad a little bit more about how we do that technically. But that was a big
thing coming for me. Like, I don't have any desire to store or to any way monetize other people's
data. I think paying for access to my product is enough. And we make more than enough money
doing that that we don't need to then also sell people's, like, data out the back door in this
very shady way. So, the reason that I feel this way is, like I had mentioned earlier, I'd worked
before I founded BadVR back in 2018, I was a UX and product designer for other data visualization
and analytics companies. And I, at the very beginning of my career, did not understand
that there was this, like, huge market for data. Until I started really building interfaces to
visualize that data. And once I started doing that, it became very clear to me that there was
this enormous amount of data out there in the world that could be accessed by anyone about me,
about my family. Like, I remember going through some of the data that I was visualizing and
putting my own name in to see all of the information that came up about me. My home,
you know, like, purchases that I had made. If somebody had a nefarious reason to come after me,
they could very easily access this information. And I just felt so violated and I felt, like,
I just felt really icky. And I was, like, I had no idea that this was a thing. I am now then putting
my family members' names into this, you know, database, seeing what comes up about them. And
it just really blew my mind. And it really made me think, like, well, number one, I think data is
an amazing resource. But number two, if I am going to make a company that visualizes data or that
provides a tool to analyze data, I want to make sure that I am not partaking in that aspect of
the industry because I don't like it. I don't think it's ethical. And quite frankly, I want
nothing to do with it. So, I want to make sure that we're using data and visualizing data and
analyzing data and providing data tools in the service of what I consider to be good. Which is
broadening and democratizing access to the insight that you can draw from that data. And not just
using it and abusing it in terms of, like, how much data can we gather, you know, behind people's
backs and how much data can we then monetize and, you know, line our pockets with. So, you know,
that part was very important to me. And I'm very proud to say that my, you know, my technology,
that's not our business model. It never has been and it never will be. So...
Hell yeah. That's awesome. I love it. So, one of the other interesting things that we're trying
to do with XR Village is research. Because there's not a lot of research out there on devices,
on platforms, on the infrastructure. And now we have big players throwing stuff out like
NVIDIA who just is ruling the world now. After, you know, all the XR fun stuff that's come out.
So, as we move forward and as part of our technology relationship, we're working to do
research partnerships with labs. We're working to do research partnerships with companies who
are interested in trying to understand what is going on kind of there and what the use cases
could be. But most importantly, how we can do that safely with security and privacy.
And that's a hard thing. That's not we're not going to solve this problem this weekend. So,
it's going to be years of coordinating not just the research and the technology and the policy
and the legislation, but also we want to be able to do teaching using these tools. So, going out
to B sides all over the country. Going to schools. Going to universities and giving people
opportunities to do the hackathon like the haptics hackathon we have right over there in the
corner using the meta quest. Which is really fun. You should definitely check it out. And also,
really trying to take to the next level the generation that's coming after us who is already
being grown up on this technology and doesn't necessarily understand the security risks that
go to it. Right? So, by having these hackathons, by bringing the technology out, letting them
touch it, play with it, break it, put it back together, they start to understand all of that
data. All of those things that make them think differently about what they should be doing and
on the internet. Now, that is also hard. It's very, very hard. But XR, more than probably any
of the villages here, and yes, I just said that, it covers all of them. It covers everything. Which
is one of the reasons we wanted to do all the collaborations this year. So, if you want to talk
about what's happening in XR with ICS village, there are power plants. There are things that
are happening in telecom. There are things that are already going on in that space. If you want
to talk about the adversary village who we're partnering with and the red team village, that
bug bounty on the devices themselves, on the software itself, on the infrastructure, that is
absolutely critical. But we also have to start thinking about bringing in, you know, other folks
like the biohacking village. One talk that we were going to have this year, but I think we're
going to do it as a recording, was a collab with biohacking. And I have four titanium vertebrae
because I used to blow up bombs. And so, I have a spinal surgeon and we're kind of in the early
phases of planning my next spinal surgery. And he kind of just lightly dropped into a conversation
not too long ago that he's going to be using VR. And I was like, what? Can we talk about that more?
I would like to know some things. And so, right there, I just started asking him questions that
he had really bad answers to. Like, okay, so you've got me on the table and you've got this
device. Does everybody have access to it? Like, can anybody go in and calibrate it? Can anybody
go do whatever? And he's like, yeah, yeah, anybody, speaking as a, anyone can get in. It's
really easy to get in. It's really easy to use and manipulate. And I'm like, do you hear what
you're saying? I'm pretty sure I'm not going to let you operate on my spine with that. But it
goes so much further than that, too. You know, when you think about the password protections,
when you think about, you know, what is that projecting? I know a lot of hackers and I know
some of them don't like me and I don't want them getting into my little VR spinal surgery
and giving me a couple of extra vertebrae, right? But all of the villages that are here
have an XR component to the world that they're in right now. For example, we also have a
partnership with the aerospace village and TSA where we are working on an event that's coming
up and we're going to have another hackathon there coming up. But the idea is that right now,
like Alaskan Airlines and other airlines are actually using XR to train pilots. Now,
that sounds really cool, right? That sounds like amazing. And so you think about it a little bit
more. So anybody can go in and get this program and teach themselves what the inside of any
cockpit looks like. That is scary. Another scary thing that I've found in this space.
So what's really interesting about our village is that we have the opportunity to cross section
across all of the other villages who have an XR component and do really interesting,
amazing things. That's why we have T-shirts. They're for sale. And bucket hats and really,
you know, cool merch. It says it takes a village. DEF CON, it takes a village. We are one of the
fortunate villages that has the ability to impact so many other sectors. And that's a good thing.
That's a really exciting thing. So I'm really looking forward to what comes next. What are
you looking forward to? I'm looking forward to a great number of things. I'm actually really
excited for our we have released C-Signal, a version of C-Signal, which is the RF visualization
technology. There is a demo version of that available now in the Quest app lab. So if you
have a MetaQuest headset, you can go to the app lab and download a version of that. So I'm really
excited about this. So you can try it out at home. It's a lot more limited than our enterprise
software, but it allows everyone with a MetaQuest headset to, for free, download the technology and
just sort of get a sneak peek of it. So you can look at your home Wi-Fi network. You can play
around with moving the routers and, yeah, reach out and touch your signals. Literally reach out
and touch them. So I'm really excited about that. I'm also really excited about the upcoming
sort of fusion, as I mentioned earlier, of AR and VR technology into one headset. So, you know,
this is sort of happening with the Apple Vision Pro, where you have, like, a headset that is
VR or AR. It can do one or the other, or it can do a little version of both. So you have the
pass-through technology where the headset can be turned on and you can still see the world around
you. I think that evolution of the hardware is very exciting, and I think it's happening a lot
faster than originally anticipated. And lastly, I'm really excited about seeing, as you mentioned,
privacy continue to be and continue to grow as a concern within the XR space. So, you know,
XR hardware has so many more sensors and cameras and things in it than your smartphone does. And
a lot of people are very concerned about, you know, oh, my smartphone, like, is giving away
my location. It's tracking me. The microphone's listening to me. Now, imagine if your smartphone
was on steroids and had video feeds of your irises and, you know, was taking temperature readings of
your skin and perspiration readings and could really anticipate or even know before you knew
how you were feeling or what you would react to. And imagine that along with the microphone,
you know, and instead of having one camera, there's 50 cameras on it and it has all these
other things. That's what an XR headset is, essentially. It is a device that has 50,
like, many, many, many more sensors than even your iPhone. So, I am so excited to partner with
Kenan on this and to really help drive forward the interest in securing the privacy of all of
those sensors in the XR space. So, as people are developing apps like my company does and other
companies do, that they're developed with this idea that security is of tantamount importance.
Especially if, you know, kids are using these devices in classrooms, which I think they should.
I think there are some really amazing use cases for using XR in the classroom or in the workplace
for workplace training, whether that be for pilots or surgeons. But to really do that effectively,
they need to secure the headset. So, I think that's a really exciting thing. And then I also
think there's this idea that I have of when it comes to security with XR, there's, you know,
the digital security, securing all of the, you know, data that's coming out of these sensors.
There's the physical security of actually securing the headset, securing the hardware,
and all of the sensors in the hardware. But I also think that people need to
be aware of a third version, which is the experiential security. So, as you are experiencing
an application in XR, that you are able to remain safe. Both physically safe, so you're not, like,
walking into walls or walking into other people. But also safe from, like, the data that's being
generated from that is not negatively impacting you in the future or not negatively impacting
the experience that you're having. You know, keeping people safe within those experiences.
You know, making sure that, for example, adults in a chat room are not in a chat room with kids
and having, you know, experiences like that that they shouldn't be allowed to have. So,
I think bringing attention to all of these things is a really important part of driving forward.
All of the security or all of the, you know, adoption of XR technology can't happen without
security being front of mind with that. Or it can't happen responsibly. It can happen,
but we don't want it to happen unless it's happening responsibly.
Thank you so much. Like I said before, isn't she a badass? It's okay, you can clap and yell.
She's pretty amazing. What BadVR is doing is really amazing. The technology is amazing. It's
all amazing. So, as we kind of wrap up here, we wanted to give a little time back to some folks,
but first, I'm going to go full-blown XRV pitch on you guys, okay? So, we have the XR village that
is over by the main door. You'll see the balloons, the very big, bright balloons that say XRV.
We have a haptics playground over there where you can go get your hands on some haptics and
see what they feel like and what it looks like and all of that fun jazz. We also have a haptics
hackathon that is happening today and tomorrow, and come participate. We've got representatives
on board from Meta who will actually be sitting there with you, and then we will responsibly
disclose any bugs that we find, and they have told us that they will use that in their bug
bounty program so you can get prizes for it. As a learning experience, as I mentioned before,
we're going to have Dave Maynor live streaming on Sunday. He'll be our last event to do kind
of training for all of the people who go through the event, the hackathon event today and tomorrow,
but take it to the next level and kind of show them what crazy, crazy, crazy looks like.
Like I said, he's going to be doing that using a MetaQuest Pro to hack into a MetaQuest. So it
should be really interesting and exciting. But we have talks going on all day today,
tomorrow, and on Sunday. We have a policy discussion that's really interesting in
collaboration with the policy village where we have Liz Wharton and Britton Heller coming in
as two fiery lawyers to talk about the craziness that is the XR space. Both very, very privacy
tuned in, and Britton is one of the most knowledgeable people about XR, both privacy
and law. So that's going to be a really interesting debate. We also have the history of XR. We have
our executive director, Star Brown, who's going to be leading that kind of fireside chat like this
with Bob Gorley, who knows a tremendous amount of history about XR. It is really fascinating to
talk to him about that. So if you see him around, definitely ask him. And then we have some fun
stuff that's just happening. We have a GLAAD scientist who's doing a VR musical experience,
and I believe that's happening right after us, I think. So it's really cool. And that's kind of
it. If you want to get involved with XR Village, please come over and see us, see me, see Star,
see Ayliff, and talk to us about how you want to get involved or what you want to learn and
how we can work together to do this. Because it takes a village, people.
And I just wanted to say as well, thank you so much for having me. You can find Bad VR right next to
the XR Village booth. We're a big red thing and we're like a little white mask, like a
little bandit mask. So come visit our table, come get a demo of C-Signal, come pick up some shirts,
we have some really badass shirts that I designed myself, stickers, pins, a whole bunch of good
stuff. But we'd love to hear from you, we'd love to give you a demo, and we'd love to have you
stop by. Thank you.
All right, so we're going to kind of wrap up. I do want to give anybody an opportunity to ask a
question if you have a burning question that can't wait. All right, good, we're going to give the
village back some time, the next village, and thank you guys so much for coming to the talk.
We look forward to having you at our events this week.