Author: Henri Lindberg

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Registration closed

Two weeks until the final t2 and all the tickets are now gone. Thank you to all of you who bought the remaining stock – a full house makes for a better party!

The best things in life typically happen by coincidence – this was also the case (or so we have been carefully made to think) with Thaddeus e. Grugq keynoting t2’24 and having been with us in ’04 during the first t2 ever. The circle of compromise is completed – the long game paid dividends.

Seasoned attendees might appreciate the t2 swag archives, which will be opened on Thursday morning. The best bribes get priority access – a full commitment’s what I’m thinking of.

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Last Dance

For a hacker conference, twenty years is a huge achievement — for a small conference, even more so. Over these years we’ve enjoyed speakers showcasing results from cutting-edge research, seen thought-provoking keynotes and bonded with other like-minded people from all over the world.

If we had to summarize the experience with one word, it would be gratitude. The speakers, repeat speakers, first timers or regular attendees, and friends of t2 — you have made the event and its atmosphere.

This was always a true community event – it’s organized for hackers, by hackers. The Advisory Board’s motivation and main driver was our love for the game. Creating a small event with a curated program, offering a backdrop for lobby bar and coffee break discussions was (and still is) our vision of a perfect infosec con. The chance to network with your industry peers was as integral part of t2, as the high quality content.

It’s rare you get the same level of interaction with current/former speakers and attendees alike at any other conference. 

Tomi has fond memories of pretty much each and every year. Starting from the humble beginnings, when the legendary Phenoelit guys were kind enough to come and present at a conference that back then had no history nor reputation. How the Toolcrypt guys dominated the stage for years with their absolutely amazing research, and how Ivan Krstić (now Apple’s security samurai) shared his ideas on how modern security architectures should be built (iDevices anybody?), how the InversePath crew delivered some of the most enjoyable and hardcore research ever and well, you get the idea – the list just goes on and on – there are simply too many good memories to list here.

Mikko remembers learning from Ludde (during a t2 coffee break) how he works at Spotify. Then Mikko explained how impressed he was with Spotify’s early beta version, especially how you could skip parts of a song and it would still continue streaming instantly. Ludde nodded…and said ‘yeah…I coded that’.

Henri still reminisces how Halvar Flake took the time after his talk in 2010 to have a chat with him and Esa Etelävuori (RIP), despite Halvar feeling slightly under the weather in the midst of what later turned out to be the Zynamics acquisition by Google. In 2017 we enjoyed the late night/very early morning pizza in the hotel lobby bar with Dave Aitel, after proving him wrong.

Instead of dropping a surprise announcement sometime next year, or silently disappearing into the crowd, we wanted to let everyone know before this year’s t2 infosec that 2024 will be our last dance. 

We have truly enjoyed the past two decades of world class cyber in Helsinki – all good things come to an end eventually. From the bottom of our hearts, a big thank you to all of you who made this happen. We are privileged to be able to call many of you out there our friends.

Tomi Tuominen
Mikko Hyppönen
Henri Lindberg

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t2’24 schedule online

This year’s CFP process was one of the hardest in the history of t2. There were enough programworthy talks to fill speaker slots for another event. The stark contrast to historical editions of t2, where AB was hustling for talks in the final moments, couldn’t be more bittersweet.

The headline keynote is from no other than Thaddeus e. Grugq himself. Yes, in person and straight outta Bangkok. He continues the established tradition of having former @stake employees on stage at t2.

The longer you’ve been in the game, the more valuable seemingly outdated knowledge appears – especially when combined with topical trends. From old school to new school, the program should provide enough intellectual stimulation to both seasoned professionals and first timers alike.

Considering both Disobey and OffensiveCon have both sold all their tickets, if you plan on attending a Northern European con in the spring, there are not that many options outside us. Therefore, we warmly recommend early ticket acquisition.

t2 infosec 2024 schedule.

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Call for Papers 2024

t2 infosec has been pushing the boundaries of security research for two decades and it don’t stop. We’re back April 18-19, 2024 – Helsinki, Finland.

CFP and registration are both open

This is an event for newcomers, established merchants of dual use computer code, beginners of vulndev, cyber vagabonds, retired or redacted, and hackers of all sorts. If you have new original security research targeting old, current or future technology, please submit your talk.

Got 99 problems but an 0day ain’t one.

— The Advisory Board

Helsinki offers a Northern European mood, with the resilience built by using Linux on the desktop since 1991, fueled by IRC, demoscene, VHS tapes, invention of modern backpropagation, a lot of memes and sauna. This is the country, which exports Alan Wake 2, quantum computers, and solitude.

As regularly as seasons change, new technology is introduced, vulnerabilities – old and new are discovered, lessons of tradecraft are learned and teachings of the old slowly forgotten. To foster the passion for advancement of (in)security and to keep that fire burning bright for future generations, we gather an intimate crowd of people every year to enjoy the advance of offensive research, share lessons of coming back from the edge, and build those valuable human connections.

Whether your research tackles LLMs, qubits, Azure/AWS/GCP, iOS internals, the market leading or lagging EDR products, access control systems, SoC, BTLE, tipping ChatGPT or something else, which is surprising to either humans or computers, we’d like to hear about it. Security researchers, you know the rules and so do we.

This is an event for the community, by the community. Our focus is on technical excellence, not politics or player hating. Come as you are. The advisory board will be reviewing submissions until 2024-02-04. Slide deck submission final deadline 2024-04-02 for accepted talks.

First come, first served. Submissions will not be returned.

Quick facts for speakers

  • presentation length 60-120 minutes, in English
  • complimentary travel and accommodation for one person[6]
  • decent speaker hospitality benefits
  • no marketing or product propaganda

Still not sure if this is for you? Check out the blast from the past.

[0] hunter2
[6] except literally @nudehaberdasher and @0xcharlie

How to submit
Fill out the form at https://if.t2.fi/action/call_for_papers

How to register
Buy your ticket from https://t2.fi/registration/

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t2’24 dates announced

TL;DR – t2’24 April 18-19, 2024, Helsinki Finland. Mark your calendars and prepare your training & travel budgets for the next season. Watch t2’23 Andy Jones keynote.

The unabridged version:

The information ops run amok on social media platforms, mainstream media, image boards, and state media, by more or less anyone wanting to influence the world politics one way or another make it non-trivial to grasp both the nuances and the broader impact of any affairs having a global impact.

The non-simplicity of the current situation, or the eternal meta, in Europe is not-so-subtly highlighted by the seemingly easy cohabitation of German luxury cars with Russian and Ukrainian plates in Jūrmala, Latvia – known as The Baltic Riviera, a popular destination also for Finns and Estonians. Historically a favorite among Communist officials, the location is considerably more Western after this July.

First-person narratives still hold value, and considering that you are spending the most valuable currency in existence for humans – time – during the interaction, makes it an infinitely more symmetrical experience for all parties involved.

While anecdotal experiences are hardly the whole story, they do give a level of ground truth unattainable by any other means. Just like zealous investigative journalism is practically indistinguishable from intelligence activities, firsthand experiences from those directly involved get you as close to those events as possible, until a heavily dramatized Netflix documentary is released.

This is what t2 aims at – allowing the attendees, both speakers and guests to engage in a meaningful dialogue and exchange of knowledge. Despite what we are told to believe, information still wants to be free. It’s the Sky Room Bar & Lounge view, which costs money. Next year on April 18-19, Clarion Hotel Helsinki.

For your viewing pleasure, the keynote by Andy Jones from t2’23.

Andy Jones keynote at t2’23

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Forgot about t2 | Program beta out now

It’s pretty crazy that even Dr Dre managed to release new music since the last time t2 was organized. The 3.5 years without a conference definitely put a dent on the proverbial ’64 Impala, despite a steady stream of releases from our favorite artists. Even FSMCs performed live!

“They wanna know if AB still got it,
They say confs’ changed, they wanna know how we feel about it”

— Still t2

Coming back from the cold, CFP was one of the hardest ones we’ve had so far. The most brutal reviews and expectations for whether we curated a relevant program consisting of decent content or not comes from within the AB. “Why is that?” you ask sitting on a comfortable lobby bar sofa.

The Advisory Board of t2 has always had an aspirational goal of some day achieving certified status with the prestigious Security Vacation Club, yet we have decided to not submit an application until we can demonstrate a track record of at least twenty successful events.

On practical terms, using random puzzle pieces to put together a sensible picture, isn’t just dependent on the quality of individual pieces. It also depends on other ones on the table at the same time.

Right now we feel there’s a credible set of heavy hitters to warrant publishing our program in beta. Having said that, we are still working on it to make sure there’s the right recipe in the mix to facilitate those lobby bar discussions.

We still have about 25 tickets left. If you plan on attending and have not yet bought a ticket, it’s more or less the perfect moment (and second-to-last chance to do). The closer the event gets, the more likely it is someone comes and just buys 5+ at a time.

And yes, it’s on – with additional small print: a t2 Scarab challenge winner who uses a white ’86 Testarossa for ground transportation during the whole duration of t2’23 receives a free entry to t2’24 and t2’25.

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Call For Papers 2023

Tired of your bosses suspecting conference trips to exotic locations being just a ploy to partake in Security Vacation Club? Prove them wrong by coming to Helsinki, Finland on May 4-5 2023! Guaranteed lack of sunburn, good potential for rain or slush. In case of great spring weather, though, no money back.

CFP and registration both open. Read further if still unsure.

Maui, Miami, Las Vegas, Tel Aviv or Wellington feel so much sunnier once you’ve experienced the lack of infinity pools in Northern Europe. Instead of pools and palms trees, we can offer you actual saunas and a high tech environment, which is a weird combination of demoscene, widespread Linux adoption, mobile Internet with uncapped flat rate data and a long history of IRC and imageboards.

What defines a conference? For t2 it has always been that intimate welcoming atmosphere of a small event, which makes both audience and speakers approachable. There are enough regulars to create the feeling of a community, but not too many that a first-comer would feel being left out. On the content side, we have always been and always will be a technical security conference, emphasizing the cutting edge, world class research. This is an event for the community. Our focus is on technical excellence, not politics or player hating.

t2’23 offers you an audience with a taste for technical security presentations containing original content. This is your chance to showcase the latest research and lessons in EDR simulation and healthcheck spoofing, hardware insecurity, inferring information from interference, cloud-scale forensics or persistance automation, new vulnerability classes, AI exploitation, virtual machines inside parsers, elegant exploitation of old vulnerability classes, modern defense, dropping zero days during presentations, state of the art memory corruption mitigation bypasses, evasions, safe cracking, satellite and space security, remote vehicle access, or whatever research lights up the eyes of seasoned conference visitors. For the hackers by the hackers.

The advisory board will be reviewing submissions until 2023-03-17. Slide deck submission final deadline 2023-04-20 for accepted talks.

First come, first served. Submissions will not be returned.

Quick facts for speakers
+ presentation length 60-120 minutes, in English
+ complimentary travel and accommodation for one person[6]
+ decent speaker hospitality benefits
+ no marketing or product propaganda

Still not sure if this is for you? Check out the blast from the past.

The total amount of attendees, including speakers and organizers is limited to 99. Advisory Board recognize the OG Finnish sauna culture is an acquired taste and can promise the lack of sweaty, partially or fully nude sauna-goers at all conference functions.

[0] hunter2
[6] except literally @nudehaberdasher and @0xcharlie

How to submit
Fill out the form

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t2’22.NUKED.NFO

Third time’s the unlucky charm. It’s been three Nas studio albums since the last t2. While in normal times having frequent releases from a one-time King of New York, and an overall legend, would make our day it does little to ease the situation.

My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.

— John Jurasek, 2017

Just December, when the t2 Advisory Board last met, we were confident in our ability to organize the event this May. In fact, we were so certain we started to contact potential special speakers. The CFP post was updated and polished for 2022 – everything was ready to go. Our mood was celebratory and festive, as expected after having to cancel two years in a row. Unfortunately all the grandiose plans were premature.

The reasons for nuking t2’22 are two-fold – first and foremost, the overall global health situation. Secondly, our desire to avoid irrational exuberance – organizing an event failing financially would be very close to betting the farm, and if nothing else, erasing two decades worth of gradually built safety nets.

We warmly welcome you to join us for t2’23. Clarion Hotel Helsinki, 2023-05-04 – 2023-05-05. The twentieth anniversary edition.

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t2’22

In a normal world this would be the time we release the CFP for the next edition of t2. Unfortunately that is not the case. Our conservative-yet-optimistic-and-hopeful plan is looking less realistic as we step further into the twenties.

Unless someone from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna is looking to sponsor us with 200 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, we have no other choice but to postpone t2 once again. Due to the current uncertainty, we have decided after a long consideration to forgo organizing t2’21.

While the advisory board is heartbroken from missing two t2s in a row, the idea of not being able to organize a full blown t2 experience, which is both fun and safe for all attendees (and their families), is less appealing.

If it takes another year to bring you a roaring con and a lot of jazz, so be it. t2 is, has always been, and will always about the community. 

We will return in 2022.

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t2’21 changelog

For the first time during the history of the event, we’re skipping a year. In our previous post we shared our thoughts on the topic, and in this one, we’re announcing some changes and updates to practicalities.

First and most importantly, starting next May t2 will take place in Clarion Hotel Helsinki. This is something which really excites us. Not only is Clarion one of the newest hotels in Helsinki, they have a spectacular Sky Room offering beautiful views and refreshing (c|m)ocktails for the weary traveler. Located just across the street from the previous hotel, with easy access by boat, we’re confident t2 is able to cater to demands of even the most discerning conference guests. In fact, anyone attending t2 with a Wellcraft Scarab 38′ KV will be treated to a bottle of champagne or dinner on the AB. Terms and conditions apply.

In our effort to push t2 in to the Security Vacation Club Global Top 5000 list, we paid particular attention to Clarion’s rooftop pool and terrace. Open to all hotel guests, two saunas and a heated pool make it almost too easy to enjoy the Helsinki weather. For the seasoned conference guests, we can recommend saunas with unheated pools or easy access to the Baltic sea.

While t2 has always had that welcoming and safe atmosphere of a community-driven event, where many of our attendees have delivered a talk at some point, and/or know organizers, speakers or other long-time attendees personally, we realize it’s time to make the unofficial official by introducing documented incident reporting procedures. Beginning with t2’21 we will be publishing a transparency report documenting any incidents or noteworthy events related to the conference. Previously we’ve had the localhostess supporting attendees during the event, organizers actively keeping everyone entertained and safe, and a conference EULA setting the expectation for polite behavior. Against this historical background we are expecting the transparency report to hopefully be uninteresting and devoid of content.

In the meanwhile, stay safe.

Terms and conditions for the “t2 Scarab challenge”

  • The boat must be in legal possession of the participant (owned or rented) for the duration of the event
  • The participant must arrive to the conference with the boat (subtle flair, and making a grandiose entrance are both expected, but not mandatory)
  • At least one Advisory Board member must be able to perform an off-shore inspection on the boat, at which time the claimant must demonstrate ability to wear shoes without socks.
  • In case multiple attendees co-own or co-rent an applicable Scarab, the offer is valid for the captain only.
  • Challenge limited to the first 15 claims, in order of berthing. Number of lifetime claims limited to five per participant.