Nashville 2600, an organization with an aim of educating people about cyberculture and technology, held its annual PhreakNIC convention Nov. 6–7.
Located in the Clarion Inn in Murfreesboro, PhreakNIC19 gathered hundreds of attendees and volunteers for Nashville 2600’s biggest convention to date.
According to Nashville 2600 chairperson Elonka Dunin, also a notorious cryptographer and game developer, this year’s convention had some fantastic activities such as workshops with knowledgeable speakers, lock-picking exercises, and this convention’s first-ever kids track, creating an environment where parents could interact with their technology driven children.
“PhreakNIC had changed and matured,” explained Dunin. “When it started it was more of a technology party.”
She reminisces of previous conventions, telling the Murfreesboro Pulse that there used to be music, maybe smoke machines in the hallways and lasers, but now there are a lot of professionals talking about technology.
“I want to encourage young people, especially girls, to love learning about science and technology because that’s the way to get more female leaders in this career field,” says educator Amy Flatt, one of the speakers at the convention.
Some of this year’s significant speakers included:
Elonka Dunin –
Dunin spoke on the topic of Beale Ciphers, three sets of ciphertexts which described the location of a huge treasure hidden in Bedford County, Va., in 1820. One out of three texts were solved, however, the other two are still unsolved.
Dunin also held the Kids Crypto Workshop. Morse Code was distributed to each attendee who participated and practiced to solve the codes. She likes lock-picking exercises, which show people how easy some locks are to pick, and teach them not to buy these locks.
Thomas Flatt –
Author of The 11 Year Old’s Guide to Linux, Flatt teaches people what they need to know about Linux OS and why it’s better than other systems. Flatt says that he started his journey not knowing much about computers. With hopes and aspirations of Thomas becoming a computer programmer or hacker once he grows up, his mother, Amy Flatt, helped contribute to Thomas’s compilation of thoughts and advice on computers and writing. He would like to thank everyone who inspired and aided him with this first book, which was a huge goal and a now-completed dream.
Amy Flatt –
Thomas’s mother, Amy, held a session on ways to bring technology education into schools. She is the founder of EDGE-ucational Consultants, and a public school teacher. She likes teaching robotics, coding, mathematics and other STEM subjects. “Computers are very fast, extremely precise and extremely stupid,” she tells the Murfreesboro Pulse. “Humans are flawed, we make mistakes, we’re slow and we’re brilliant . . . when you pair the two things up you get something very remarkable; we live in a great age.”
Ben Hicks –
Hicks organized the kid’s portion of PhreakNIC.
“I brought a lot of the workshop and gaming equipment, which is mostly repaired and recycled equipment that still has some life in it, especially if running Linux and tweaked for the purposes we use it for.”
“As tech is getting cheaper and smaller, it is putting power into the hands of hackers and makers to come up with neat and interesting ideas,” Hicks said. PhreakNIC is a way that his community stays interested and excited about what they do.
~~~
Nashville 2600 operates with the goal of “educating the public on various aspects of cyberculture and technical literacy,” and meets the first Friday evening of each month at the Cool Springs Galleria food court in Franklin.
Next year PhreakNIC20 will again be located at the Clarion Inn in Murfreesboro, and organizers expect it to be even larger. For more information, visit nashville2600.org.
