Category: Security

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Building Hardware Flags for WICC 2026

We were delighted to be one of the community organisations supporting the Women’s International Cybersecurity Challenge 2026, held at St Laurence’s on TU Dublin’s Grangegorman Campus on 9 and 10 July.

WICC brought together teams of women cybersecurity competitors from Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas for two days of technical competition, collaboration and international networking.

Fifteen ESP8266 hardware flags

As part of TOG’s contribution to the event, we built 15 hardware flags for use during the Capture the Flag competition.

Each flag was based around an ESP8266 board and housed in a custom 3D-printed case. The finished devices were prepared and tested at TOG before being brought to TU Dublin for the competition.

The different cases featured a range of coloured designs, helping turn the electronics into distinctive physical flags for the competitors to find and interact with.

WICC’s Capture the Flag competition included challenges across areas such as cryptography, reverse engineering, digital forensics, web exploitation, binary exploitation, hardware security and open-source intelligence.

Building physical devices for a cybersecurity competition was a great example of the overlap between making, electronics, programming, 3D printing and cybersecurity that we regularly see at TOG.

Thank you, Ambrose

A huge thank you goes to Ambrose for all their work building, printing, assembling and preparing the flags. Getting 15 devices ready for an international competition takes a significant amount of careful work, and it was fantastic to see them in use at the event.

Thank you also to Zero Days for running WICC and inviting TOG to be part of it. Zero Days runs Capture the Flag competitions and cybersecurity challenges in Ireland, helping participants develop their skills through practical and engaging technical challenges.

Events such as WICC demonstrate how community organisations, universities and industry can work together to create practical and engaging opportunities for people to develop technical skills.

You can learn more about the Women’s International Cybersecurity Challenge at wicc.ie.

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Tog Hackerspace at Security BSides Dublin 2026

We’re delighted to say that Tog Hackerspace is once again a Community Sponsor of Security BSides Dublin, taking place on Saturday, 23rd May 2026, in Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin.

Security BSides Dublin is a community-driven information security conference, bringing together security professionals, researchers, students, hobbyists, and the generally curious for a day of talks, demos, workshops, and great conversations.

It is very much our kind of event: people sharing knowledge, learning by doing, and occasionally asking, “I wonder how that works?”

As part of this year’s event, TOG will be bringing along a lockpicking challenge and a selection of projects from the hackerspace. Drop by our table, have a go, and chat with TOG members about what we get up to.

Lockpicking is a fun hands-on way to explore physical security. It gives a better understanding of how locks work, why good security needs layers, and why curiosity is often the best starting point for learning something new.

We’ll also be showing off some projects from Tog Hackerspace and chatting about the many things that happen in the space, from electronics, radio, 3D printing and laser cutting, to repair cafés, coding, workshops, and all sorts of hardware hacking.

A big thank you to the BSides Dublin team for inviting us back and for putting together another great community event.

Come say hello on the day. We’d love to meet you.

For more information, visit:
https://www.bsidesdub.ie/

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What the Irish Embassy Got Up to at WHY2025 🇮🇪🛠️

Every four years, hackers, makers, and digital mischief-makers descend upon the Netherlands for a one-of-a-kind outdoor hacker camp. WHY2025 – short for What Hackers Yearn 2025 – is the latest in a legendary line of Dutch hacker camps stretching all the way back to the Galactic Hacker Party in 1989. This was the 10th edition, keeping the quadrennial tradition alive with thousands of attendees camping, soldering, coding, and connecting in Geestmerambacht.

The name WHY sparked plenty of jokes — “Why am I here?”, “Why is everything on fire?”, “Why not?” — but the answer, in the end, was always the same: because hacker camp is magic.

Tog was proud to be part of the Irish Embassy, a village formed by members of Irish hackerspaces and our wider community. We pitched tents in the Milliways Cluster, representing Ireland alongside friends old and new. Two Tog members made the trip over — Isabella (Z80Kitty) and Jeffrey Roe, and each has written a short piece about their time at camp below.

🎮 Isabella aka Z80Kitty here :3

My experience at WHY2025 was… chaotic good.

I spent about 99% of my time at the Arcade tent, getting thoroughly destroyed by rhythm games and later by Jeffrey in air hockey. It was brutal, but fun.

That said, I did manage to escape the arcade long enough to give my talk:
🎤 Sega Saturn Architectural Hell – a deep dive into the 90s console with the weirdest architecture I’ve ever worked with. It was stressful, but so rewarding. Big love to the folks who came along and laughed with me (and not just at me).

As a speaker, I discovered the fact I had unlimited club mate, which meant I was coked up on caffeine 24/7, So idk if that was a good thing. There was also golfing, which I sadly never took advantage of. One of the villages had a Cisco tap, which their mix tasted weirdly like mouthwash. They had other stuff on tap but didn’t get a chance to try. They also had a little window with some neat stuff like a boxed copy of OS2 Warped and a pager

But it wasn’t all talks and arcade games. The best part? The people. I had incredible conversations with some of the most interesting, friendly, and weirdly prepared hackers from around the world.

Also, the fog. At night, the camp looked like Silent Hill. Genuinely surreal. Check the gallery and you’ll see what I mean.

🐘 Find me on Mastodon

🛠️ Jeffrey Roe – Delays, Drills & DIY Satellites

WHY2025 kicked off with the most hacker-appropriate challenge: a 6-hour travel delay. I eventually arrived with about 35kg of camping gear and equipment in tow, ready to run three workshops in the Hardware Hacking Area.

The atmosphere? A wonderful blur of fake fog, LED lights, live bands, wild tents, and absolute hacker camp energy. Between sessions, I hit the on-site supermarket (great vegan options!) and caught the nightly chaos of live music and synth beeps.

Over the course of the event, I ran:

Big thanks to the local fablab, Serendiep, for letting me use their drill press before one of the sessions — absolute lifesavers.

Outside of workshops, I also joined in amateur radio fox hunting at the Back to the 80s village, grabbed a tasty breakfast at Hackers @ Tiffany’s, and watched the fog roll in across the camp like some kind of hacker horror movie.

🐘 Find me on Mastodon

📸 Gallery

Relive the fog, the fun, and the flashing LEDs in our full photo gallery:
👉 View the WHY2025 Photo Gallery

🔭 Looking Ahead: 39C3 in Hamburg

The hacker camp may be over, but the hacker calendar rolls on. The next big international event on our radar is 39C3 – the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg this December.

It’s the largest European hacker conference and a brilliant chance to reconnect with the community, share knowledge, and of course, hack the planet.

Will we see you there?

💚 Slán from the field,
Tog Hackerspace

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New Weekly Group Night: Hack and Chill

We’re launching a new regular night at Tog Hackerspace, and if you’re into computer security, hardware hacking, or just the hacker mindset, you’ll want to be there.

Hack and Chill is a space for folks who enjoy exploring systems, poking at protocols, reverse-engineering things, flashing firmware, or just chatting about exploits over a cup of tea.

What’s it all about?

It’s a chill, hacker-friendly night for messing with code, gear, networks, or ideas. No pressure to present or perform — just a place to learn, share, and maybe break a few things (ethically, of course). Think more Hackers (the movie) than hot glue and 3D printing.

Whether you’re a seasoned pentester, a hardware tinkerer with a soldering iron in your backpack, or just curious about the scene, come hang out.

📅 Opening Night: Friday, 22nd August
🕖 Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
📍 Location: Tog Hackerspace, Unit 1B Motor City, Kylemore Road, D12 CF6V, Dublin

Hack and Chill will run every Friday night, except for the first Friday of the month — that’s when we’ll be over at 2600 Dublin.

So grab your laptop, your favourite hack, or just your curiosity — and swing by. We don’t bite (but we might packet-sniff your phone).

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The Irish Embassy at 38C3

This Christmas saw the much-anticipated return of the Chaos Communications Congress, 38C3. The event once again brought hackers and makers from across the globe to Hamburg.

One of the Congress’s standout features is Assemblies—self-organized spaces where individuals with shared interests or projects gather to collaborate, learn, and share. Among these was the Irish Embassy, a collective of hackers and makers with ties to Ireland.

This year’s Irish Embassy crew brought together enthusiasts from across the island, including many from Tog Hackerspace. As space was at a primer we shared with our friends from the Scottish Consulate. We formed a haven for Type G power sockets for those in need.

Our own crew put on a couple of workshops on building satellite ground stations and understanding IoT with Arduino Cloud.

For a glimpse into the action, check out our gallery.

Looking ahead, the Irish Embassy will be reuniting at Why2025 this August. You can stay updated on their plans and activities through their Mastodon account: https://chaos.social/@irishembassy.

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Hack Challenge Redo (part3)

We had a small break with our hacking challenges Redo. The format of the Meetup required a change, to accommodate for less experienced visitors. And as much as I love the SANS Institute Challenges, they tend to be quite a puzzle, especially later one. So for now, we are going to focus on couple other Hacking Challenges that are available online. And hopefully in December, when new 2022 SANS Hack Challenge starts, we will have a group ready to battle it together 🙂

Let’s start from Over the Wire. There are plenty games there, we will start with the Bandit, as most suitable to get used to the platform. Bandit offers 33 levels to play, it teaches Linux commands and tools. In each level your goal is identical, find a password to the next level, but let’s start from the beginning.

Over the Wire artwork

To play Bandit you will need to establish SSH connection to the Over the Wire lab server, all details of connection are given in Level 0.

So, what is SSH?

Secure Shell, sometimes referred to as Secure Socket Shell, is a protocol which allows you to connect securely to a remote computer or a server by using a text-based interface. When a secure SSH connection is established, a shell session will be started, and you will be able to manipulate the server by typing commands within the client on your local computer. System and network administrators use this protocol the most, as well as anyone who needs to manage a computer remotely in a highly secure manner.

How to use SSH on Windows?

Most common ways of using SSH on Windows is by using one of the clients. Most popular clients are: PuTTY, BitwiseSSH and OpenSSH. Windows 10 users have now the option to use build-in OpenSSH client. Just follow the installation details of your choose client.

How to use SSH on Mac?

Mac’s have build-in Terminal feature, that provides SSH client.

How do we do it on Linux?

That shouldn’t be a problem for any regular Linux users, but in case you are just starting with Linux. Go to your terminal and type:

ssh

This should list all ssh details and commands. If that’s not the case, just use the following command to install OpenSSH:

sudo apt-get install openssh-client

Full list of common SSH flags can be found here.

This should get everyone started and ready for this week challenge 🙂

One more thing, you may need to use Vim and couple Linux commands.

See you @ 5-7pm today @ our dedicated Discord channel.