AI Hacking & Adversarial AI
Prompt injection, jailbreaks, agentic exploitation, model extraction, and red-teaming LLM applications. The frontier where traditional appsec meets machine learning.
South Shore, Massachusetts
DEF CON 508
Local hackers, shared curiosity.
DEF CON 508 is a monthly meetup for everyone who loves DEF CON — red team, blue team, white hats, reformed black hats, CTF players, researchers, students, and the curious. Beginners welcome. Pros welcome. Neurodivergent thinkers especially welcome. Come lurk, come ask questions, come break something.
Section 01
Next Meetup
Section 02
A local community
for curious hackers.
DEF CON 508 is rooted on the South Shore of Massachusetts and open to the whole 508 area code (and beyond). We meet monthly on Discord to share what we're learning, break things together, and give each other a place to be curious out loud.
If you love DEF CON, you belong here. Red team, blue team, purple team. White hats, reformed black hats. Bug bounty hunters, CTF players, security nerds, researchers, students, career-switchers, and people who don't have a label yet. Experience helps but isn't required. The only prerequisite is showing up ready to learn.
We're intentionally neurodiversity-aware. That means predictable structure, no cold-call pressure, written agendas, and space for different communication styles. It's not a feature we bolted on — it's how the group was built.
Section 03
What we do.
The tracks we come back to. Sometimes we go deep on one, sometimes we mix. You don't need to show up knowing any of them — you just need to show up.
Bug Bounty & Web AppSec
Recon, methodology, real-world writeups, and the unglamorous grind that actually pays. We swap techniques and review disclosed reports together.
Social Engineering & OSINT
Pretexting, vishing, phishing, open-source intel, and the human layer of security. Underrated skillsets, endlessly fun to practice together.
CTFs & Hands-On Challenges
Weekend CTF nights, retrospectives on boxes we solved (or didn't), and collaborative problem-solving. Bring a challenge you're stuck on.
Defense, Detection & Threat Hunting
Blue team craft: detections, log-fu, incident response, and the engineering behind catching attackers. Red teamers welcome — understanding the other side makes both sides sharper.
Hardware, IoT & Physical
Lockpicking, hardware teardowns, IoT reversing, RFID, and the village-culture side of DEF CON. If it has a circuit board or a mechanism, someone here wants to take it apart.
Lightning Talks & Demos
Ten-minute talks, half-baked ideas welcome, tools you built over the weekend, things you wish you'd known a year ago. First talks especially encouraged.
Neurodiversity in Cybersec
The community's through-line. How neurodivergent thinkers build careers in security, what works, what burns people out, and how we make this field better.
Everything Else
The flex slot. Policy, careers, deep dives on weird side quests, and community topics that don't fit a track. If it matters to hackers, it fits here.
Section 04
How we show up for each other.
Short version: be the community member you wish you'd had when you were starting out.
01
Respect over ego
Every question is a good question. Every skill level has something to teach.
02
No gatekeeping. Ever.
"You should already know this" is never an acceptable answer here.
03
Neurodiversity-aware by design
Different brains, different communication styles, all welcome by default.
04
Accessibility is a feature
Captions on recordings, agendas posted ahead, quiet participation is fine. Just let us know ahead of time.
05
Ethics in offense
We teach offensive technique in authorized, legal, disclosure-minded contexts. That's the line.
06
Curiosity is the prerequisite
If you're curious and kind, you're already one of us.
Section 05
Ways to plug in.
Showing up is the whole thing, but if you want to do more than lurk, here's where to start.
Attend a meetupJust show up. Lurking is valid participation.
Give a lightning talk10 minutes, any topic, first-time speakers get priority.
Run a workshopTeach something hands-on. We'll help you scope it.
Share a toolSomething you built, something you use, something you wish existed.
Join CTF nightsTeam up on weekend challenges. Skill level doesn't matter.
Pitch a topicWhat do you want to learn? Drop it in #topic-ideas on Discord.
You belong here.
Discord is home base. That's where meetups happen, where questions get answered, and where the community lives between events. Come in, say hi, or don't — lurking is fine too.