DEF CON 22 - Gene Bransfield - Weaponizing Your Pets: The War Kitteh and the Denial of Service Dog

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Published 2014-08-19

WarKitteh: In my job I have to deliver frequent Information Security briefings to both technical and non-technical professionals. I noticed that as the material got more technical, I began to lose the non-technical crowd. Therefore, I started including humorous pictures of cats and made the briefings include stories about those cats. This worked, and I soon became notorious for my presentation style. After delivering one of those presentations, an audience member offered to lend me their cat tracking collar. The collar contained a GPS device and a cellular component and would track your cats movements throughout the neighborhood. Me being the guy I am, I thought “All you need now is a WiFi sniffing device and you'd have a War Kitteh.” I laughed, and started working on it.

DoS Dog: With apologies to LadyMerlin (who has since blessed the project) I attended Outerz0ne one year and LadyMerlin brought her dog. They had labeled the puppy the “Denial of Service Dog” as the pooch demanded so much attention that it was impossible to complete any task other than petting the dog. I thought that if you loaded a doggie backpack with different equipment (e.g. a Pineapple) you could create a Denial of Service Dog of a different kind.

All Comments (21)

@carrotman 7 years ago

"If the compiler screams at you and you scream back you only really succeed at is scaring your wife" - Gene Bransfield 2014 I need that on a motivational poster sometimes.
@thegardenofeatin5965 4 years ago

How to weaponize a cat: 1. Pick up cat. 2. Identify target. 3. Throw cat. 4. Detonation on impact.
@aaa-vu5iw 9 years ago

Holy shit, this guy is smooth. He's like the perfect speaker everyone wishes they could be.
@surlyogre1476 5 years ago

"Dogs have owners, cats have staff."
@darkkaioken 5 years ago

"There is still no patch for human stupidity." I need that on a shirt!!!
@lisdmon6538 4 years ago

34:21 wow he's so quick witted, he noticed nobody was clapping/cheering so he said something more to avoid an awkward silence. this guys got crazy good charisma
@indecentseas- 5 years ago

its funny watching this in 2018, literally a raspberry pi zero w + small gps module, would not only allow for war driving, but also supports packet injection, so you could perform deauth and get WPA information for later cracking.
@hyrdocomputing 9 years ago

by far and away one of the funniest talks at defcon ever!
@simonisenberg4516 7 years ago

Fantastic talk. Funny but more importantly taking us through all the steps that were hard, annoying or just didn't work out. Many speakers go from idea to "hey it works" in a flash and you don't really feel like you learned anything or if it's something you might want to try too.
@shpluk 4 years ago

The interruption was way out of place
@OwlexMyth 4 years ago

Thanks for bringing to light the TV B Gone product. It would be a pleasure to turn off sports games at the most inopportune times, repeatedly and with utmost contempt.
@Reman1975 5 years ago

I've watched a fare few of these DEF CON talks online. Most have been very informative, and interesting on a technical level. But I have to say this ones been the most entertaining so far. Interesting, Informative AND this Gene Bransfield is FUNNY AS F**K !!!! :)
@TrulyOutragious 9 years ago

War kitteh is amazing, but ii have to say my favorite part is messing with the soccer game XD
@wege8409 3 years ago

I love that this tech talk reminds me of stand-up comedy a little bit, it's nice to see a tech speaker that tries to engage people on a more natural level.
@KommaAchtKommaEins 5 years ago

Years later but this is the most entertaining and awesome talk in a years. Thank you so much.
@999hmartin 9 years ago

Very cool Gene; sorry I had to bugout too early to catch this... Nice to see you have that same vibrant, energetic, bright mind and sense of humor. Never stray from the Way ;-)
@pex1111 5 years ago

Jesus christ. This is the single LONGEST video I have ever watched on YouTube from start to finish. This guy is awesome! Thanks for the great information AND keeping me interested the ENTIRE TIME :D
@ViezeVingertjes 5 years ago

You need farm born cats for this, those are proven to wander much further. Fun project though. ^^
@Allegheny500 5 years ago

A friend showed this to me, I think with a little tweaking Gene's denial of service dog pack would be the perfect augmentation to actual Bomb sniffing dogs as it would keep terrorists from triggering the bomb by cell phone, radio or other device.
@icarusswitkes6833 1 year ago

This is the most entertaining defcon talk I've seen