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PODCAST · technology

Hackers IRL

by Hackers IRL

Most Hacker podcasts make us seem like wizards. We're not. We fight with our printer, forget plans with friends, and spend weeks rewriting the same exploit. We are regular people doing extraordinary things every day, and all it takes to join us is curiosity.

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Episodes

  1. Forensics between long weekends

    Panda unwinds from DEF CON and a scramble through SFO, then settles in for hours of write-blocked drive imaging on a financial incident. Plus a fun fact about airports where the screeners are not federal employees. Shoutouts: Kataze

  2. Life as part of the Embarrassment

    Panda explains how he enters a panda emoji instead of his name in badge and order systems to see where it breaks, why edge cases reveal a system's gaps, and the crew of pandas he keeps getting mixed up with at DEF CON. Shoutouts: PandaNamedPanda and all the other amazing Pandas in our community ❤️🐼

  3. Panda Closes out Hacker Summer Camp with Friends

    Panda recaps a DEF CON spent dialing into old-school BBSs for the TeleChallenge, getting spotted in fursuit by the big LED array, a no-winner finish, thanks to friends, and finally doing the fursuit parade at closing. Shoutouts: TeleChallenge, TelePhreak, MentalPageFault, Chris Glanden, Len Noe…

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  4. Dialing old-school BBSs in the DEF CON Telechallenge

    Panda checks in from DEF CON, deep in the Telechallenge cracking old-school BBS and modem puzzles with the team, after dropping off Data Duplication Village drives and roaming the Ham Radio, Lockpick, and Packet Hacking villages. Shoutouts: Gray Wolf, Data Duplication Village (DDV)

  5. Safety ops at BSides, the calm before Black Hat's storm

    Panda checks in mid safety-ops shift at BSides in Vegas, keeping sessions secure at The Tuscany, then relaxes poolside in the calm before Black Hat's trade-show chaos and the week's smaller, more community cons.

  6. Poolside at BSides, and why the smaller cons matter

    Panda checks in poolside from BSides, excited to soak up the talks, sticker swaps, and pool parties, and champions the smaller cons and supporting your local BSides.

  7. Panda heads to Hacker Summer Camp

    Panda talks through travel day to Hacker Summer Camp: wrapping pentest reports, Black Hat, volunteering at BSides Las Vegas, DEF CON phreaking with team Foxbox Dialing Services, and a mini sticker factory for their side projects. Shoutouts: Foxbox Dialing Services Links: https://facebrief.com ·...

  8. Snack Space Con is back for Summer Camp

    Spicy Chicken beams in a playful numbers-station voicemail, hiding a long snack-emoji cipher that confirms Snack Space Con season 2: August 2 to 9 in Las Vegas, with a bonus flag tucked in for Hackers IRL listeners. Shoutouts: Panda, Hackers IRL

  9. Panda's Hacker Summer Camp Plans

    Panda from Assura maps out a packed Hacker Summer Camp: Black Hat business, B-Sides volunteering, DEF CON contests, and keeping an eye on the puppy back home via a webcam at the boarding suite. Shoutouts: DEFCON furs, Darknet-NG

  10. The vibe-coded furry app that got shamed offline

    Panda unpacks how TailTag, a vibe-coded furry con game, leaked user emails at Anthrocon and then got scrapped, and why walking away from fixable bugs instead of learning from them feels sad. Shoutouts: Anthrocon, Finn, TailTag

  11. Panda on AI models gatekeeping cybersecurity work

    Panda from Assura on AI models gating cybersecurity work: fighting Anthropic's guardrails on offensive tasks, GPT-5.5-Cyber, and why they think these models shouldn't be restricted at all. Shoutouts: Trail of Bits

  12. Panda's honeypot eats 20,000 attacks from China

    Panda from Assura gets slammed with 20,000 hits from China across multiple sites, pulls the secret-rotation lever, and watches attackers waste their time on fake credentials in a honeypot.

  13. Panda's tip: start fresh sessions to really try the Fable model

    Panda with Assura shares a quick tip for trying Anthropic's new Fable model before it leaves plan usage: drop your old context, skip the hacker jargon, and start a completely fresh session.

  14. Panda tinkers with Fable and braces for the age-verification internet

    Panda from Assura vents about a nerfed Fable that keeps flagging work and dropping to Opus, wishes for Mythos access, and jokes about the age-verification internet. Plus a chill 4th with a fireworks-shy dog.

  15. A GTE payphone, eight drill bits, and an Olympic vault door

    Panda walks through restoring a GTE Fortress payphone from Atlanta's streets, fitting a 96 Olympics vault door, drilling out the locks, and wiring it up next to his living room chair alongside the B-Sides phone challenge PBX.

  16. Breaking the matrix in an escape room

    Panda visits an Atlantis-themed escape room with friends, then solves a puzzle in a way the room never anticipated, forcing the game host to walk him around the building to continue.

  17. Panda on building resilient, multi-model AI workflows

    Panda from Assura talks about the day Claude went down, why he builds across multiple frontier models with human interfaces, and the projects he's dogfooding: LeetPage, and ConventionBase. Links: LeetPage.com ConventionBase.com

  18. Panda on the Mythos shutdown and the Claude -p rollback

    Panda from Assura walks through a wild AI week: Mythos and Fable 5 pulled after a jailbreak prompted government intervention, Claude -p usage charges rolled back, and what it all signals about the race.

  19. Panda at PickJax, talking Lishi tools and the kryptonite lock saga

    Panda checks in from SecureIdeas at the PickJax Locksport meetup, riffing on Lishi tools, Schuyler Towne‘s DEFCON 19 talk on the BIC-pen kryptonite fiasco, and how cost-cutting cost tubular locks their reputation. Links: https://youtu.be/ChbyaXBKNY8?is=aMqEmrF_SZFGZ1JU Shoutouts: Schuyler Towne,...

  20. Panda wins the Skillbit CTF at RVASec

    Panda from Assura calls in from the Richmond Marriott after a wild day at RVASec, where their team took first in Roman Bohuk’s MetaCTF (now Skillbit) and talks about why CTFs are really about learning, not winning. Shoutouts: SSHad0w, Errant Packet, Matt Brown, Roman Bohuk, Skillbit, Kataze…

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  21. Panda checks in from RVASec, ready for the CTF

    Panda from Assura calls in from outside the Marriott at RVASec in downtown Richmond, tired but having a blast, prepping the Curious Corvids for tomorrow's CTF. Shoutouts: Errant Packet, Curious Corvids, RVASec, Skillbit (Formerly MetaCTF)

  22. Panda preps for RVAsec, talks DEF CON's DDV and our Culture

    Panda calls in from a Florida beach walk with the puppy, getting ready for the long drive up to RVAsec. He riffs on the DEF CON data duplication village, the InfoCon.org talk archive, and a weekend project using AI to sort old con talks into Plex. Links: InfoCon.org

  23. Panda checks in from JAX2600 / DC904 meetup

    Panda phones in from the monthly JAX2600 / DC904 meetup, talks about AI controls at work, homemade antennas, cognitive security, and what is coming next for Hackers IRL. Shoutouts: Bruno, Cognitive Security Institute, JAX2600, DC904, RVASec

  24. Panda on travel jitters and why caring feels like stress

    Panda from Assura talks through the pre-trip anxiety that hits before every con or vacation, how he reframes nerves as a sign he cares, and learning to ship early over chasing perfect.

  25. The first person Panda ever talked Linux with was a therapist

    Panda from Assura unwinds at the Jacksonville Linux User Group, catches Champ Clark demo JSONAir, and shares how a childhood therapist became the first person to ever listen to them nerd out about Linux. Shoutouts: Champ Clark, Key9 Security

  26. Panda on AI shifting the software moat

    Panda from Assura walks his dog and riffs on how AI has tanked the value of secret-sauce IP, why the real moat is just doing, and why vibe-coded apps still need real security testing.

  27. her0x0ftime on vulnerability management and the feeling of insanity

    her0x0ftime calls in on his morning drive to share how early vulnerability management work mirrored his recovery journey, and how the endless scan-and-patch cycle pushed him to rethink what security really means. Shoutouts: Panda

  28. Panda on AI gatekeeping, jailbreaks, and Evil Voice Agents

    Panda talks about frontier models quietly profiling who you are before answering, the lockpick-letterhead parallel, debug-mode jailbreaks, and worries about who gets gated out of learning infosec.

  29. Panda nerds out on Cloudflare's Bot Detection

    Panda shares a Sunday note about handling a quarter million daily bot requests on his sites, the limits of Cloudflare's verified-bot signal, and how GEO is the new SEO. Shoutouts: BSidesTampa

  30. Hacking Playbooks for the Community

    Panda introduces hackingplaybook.com and the new awesomeplaybooks.com format for open source courseware for operators going out of their comfort zone. Contribute today on GitHub! Shoutouts: MeshTastic, Awesomelists Links: hackingplaybook.com · awesomeplaybooks.com · JaxMesh.com

  31. Be okay with losing, prizes aren't the point

    Panda recounts an uncomfortable moment at HackSpaceCon, where second-place finishers argued for a black badge they hadn't earned, and reflects on why you should play the game for the game. Shoutouts: TeleChallenge, PhreakMe, DEFCON

  32. Panda on HackSpaceCon, satellite hacking, and 66 blocks

    Panda calls in driving home through Florida storms after HackSpaceCon, recapping Tim Fowler's satellite hacking class and the analog telephone game he ran, which the Manta Rays swept for 900 points. Shoutouts: Christian, Tim Fowler, The Manta Rays

  33. her0x0ftime on the in-between space after a con

    her0x0ftime, also known as Cameron, calls in from a hotel room post-HackspaceCon. He sits with the exhaustion, the goodbyes, and what it means to be vulnerable by design. Shoutouts: Panda

  34. Panda checks in from HackSpaceCon day one

    Panda calls in from Kennedy Space Center on day one of HackSpaceCon, sharing shoutouts to speakers, a freeze-dried ice cream break, and an invitation for more listeners to call in. Shoutouts: Karen Gibson, Anubis, Kevin Tackett, Tim Fowler, David Girvin

  35. Panda hijacks CubeSats at HackSpaceCon

    Panda calls in from HackSpaceCon near Kennedy Space Center, recapping Tim Fowler's satellite hacking class where students intercepted telemetry and took over CubeSats with software-defined radios. Shoutouts: Tim Fowler, Ethos Labs

  36. Panda's first day at HackSpaceCon, with hard hats and Wi-Fi

    Panda from Assura Incorporated checks in from day one of HackSpaceCon, running wiring through a construction site in AT&T gear, prepping training classes, and looking forward to satellite hacking and the pool. Shoutouts: SnackSpaceCon.com HackSpaceCon.com

  37. HackSpaceCon Network and the rise of JaxMesh

    Panda checks in the Monday before HackSpaceCon, prepping access points in their living room and driving to JaxMesh.com #MeshMonday. Plus how Meshtastic went from barely working to badass at DEF CON and in Jacksonville. Shoutouts: Darknet NG, Gatorbyte, TelePhreak Links: jaxmesh.com

  38. Doom scrolling is becoming doom chatting

    Nothingness vents about how chat-based AI is starting to feel as addictive and predatory as social media, with people-pleasing replies pulling users back for more.

  39. Panda's Sunday brain dump before HackSpaceCon

    Panda wakes up the Sunday before HackSpaceCon, walks his puppy, and rambles through the week ahead: running the con network, a phone CTF he built for BSides Jax, satellite hacking with ETHOSLabs, and why he's starting this show. Shoutouts: Matt Brown, ETHOSLabs, JAXLUG Links: hackingplaybook.com…

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ABOUT THIS SHOW

Most Hacker podcasts make us seem like wizards. We're not. We fight with our printer, forget plans with friends, and spend weeks rewriting the same exploit. We are regular people doing extraordinary things every day, and all it takes to join us is curiosity.

HOSTED BY

Hackers IRL

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Hackers IRL have?

Hackers IRL currently has 39 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is Hackers IRL about?

Most Hacker podcasts make us seem like wizards. We're not. We fight with our printer, forget plans with friends, and spend weeks rewriting the same exploit. We are regular people doing extraordinary things every day, and all it takes to join us is curiosity.

How often does Hackers IRL release new episodes?

Hackers IRL has 39 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.

Where can I listen to Hackers IRL?

You can listen to Hackers IRL on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.

Who hosts Hackers IRL?

Hackers IRL is created and hosted by Hackers IRL.
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