DEF CON Group Chicago

Logo

Homepage of the DEF CON Group Chicago, a community of hackers and security enthusiasts.

6 November 2025

December Meeting 12/2/2025 @ Sulzer Regional Library

by willasaywhat

We’ll be at the Sulzer Regional Library again on 12/2/25 from 6-7:30pm. If you’d like to give a talk, present some research, or just show off a cool project be sure to post in ⁠speakers so we can coordinate on the agenda.

The area around the library has several spots to grab food after the meeting including Small Cheval, Lou Malnatis, Jimmy’s Pizza Cafe, Taqueria El Asadero, and several other solid spots.

The area is accessible via:

  • CTA Brown Train Line - Western station
  • No. 49 Western Ave. & 49B North Western Ave
  • No. 50 Damen Ave.
  • No. 78 Montrose
  • No. 81 Lawrence (connects to red line near Broadway)

Parking: The library has a free parking lot behind the library, enter on Sunnyside Ave. There is also free street parking on some of the side streets (please read signs) and city lots are just north on Lincoln as well.

RSVP here: https://discord.gg/64aGDYcr?event=1436194942945853551

tags: announcement
15 October 2025

November Meeting 11/4/2025 @ Sulzer Regional Library

by willasaywhat

We’ll be at the Sulzer Regional Library on 11/4/25 from 6-7:30pm. If you’d like to give a talk, present some research, or just show off a cool project be sure to post in ⁠speakers so we can coordinate on the agenda.

The area around the library has several spots to grab food after the meeting including Small Cheval, Lou Malnatis, Jimmy’s Pizza Cafe, Taqueria El Asadero, and several other solid spots.

The area is accessible via:

  • CTA Brown Train Line - Western station
  • No. 49 Western Ave. & 49B North Western Ave
  • No. 50 Damen Ave.
  • No. 78 Montrose
  • No. 81 Lawrence (connects to red line near Broadway)

Parking: The library has a free parking lot behind the library, enter on Sunnyside Ave. There is also free street parking on some of the side streets (please read signs) and city lots are just north on Lincoln as well.

RSVP here: https://discord.gg/9aZ95hW7?event=1415063767384985611

tags: announcement
15 October 2025

Agentic Hacking in VS Code and Soldering

by willasaywhat

We had two awesome talks at the October meeting about Agentic Hacking and Soldering. Below is the run down on each for anyone who missed it.

Agentic Hacking in VS Code

amne51ac reprised their talk about agentic hacking in VS Code that they gave at SecretCon this year and walked us all through setting up RooCode to do some realtime hacking with AI as our copilot.

A couple things to remember when following along with the blog post on the HackerSidekick website:

  • Set the temperature to exactly 1.0 by going into RooCode’s advanced settings and setting a Custom Temperature
  • Remember to set the temperature for all modes, not just Architect
  • Failure to set the temperature to exactly 1.0 will cause a 4XX error

Soldering

bran gave us a deep dive on soldering and how it works, why it works, and how to do it right. Their slides are available in ODP format here.

They also shared some cool videos on how soldering works and how modern fabrication facilities function:

tags: talks
15 September 2025

October Meeting 10/14/2025 @ Albany Park Library

by willasaywhat

We’ll be at the Albany Park Library on 10/14/25 from 6-7:30pm. If you’d like to give a talk, present some research, or just show off a cool project be sure to post in the ⁠speakers channel on Discord so we can coordinate on the agenda.

The area is accessible via:

  • CTA Brown Train Line - Kimball station
  • No. 82 at Kimball & Foster
  • No. 92 at Foster & Kimball
  • No. 93 at Kimball & Foster
  • Metra MD-N via No. 92
  • Metra UP-N via No. 92

Parking: A parking lot with one accessible parking space is available in the alley behind the building. Access the parking lot from Bernard Street or Kimball Avenue.

RSVP here: https://discord.gg/9aZ95hW7?event=1415063555195015259

tags: announcement
5 September 2025

Local LLMs & MCP

by willasaywhat

Slides and demo video for the Local LLMs & MCP talk given at the September 2025 meeting are below.

Slides


Demo Video


tags: talks
19 August 2025

September Meeting 9/2/2025 @ Sulzer Regional Library

by willasaywhat

Hey everyone! We have a date and time for our first meeting post DEF CON 33. We’ll be at the Sulzer Regional Library on 9/2/25 from 6-7:30pm. If you’d like to give a talk, present some research, or just show off a cool project be sure to post in ⁠speakers so we can coordinate on the agenda.

The area around the library has several spots to grab food after the meeting including Small Cheval, Lou Malnatis, Jimmy’s Pizza Cafe, Taqueria El Asadero, and several other solid spots.

The area is accessible via:

  • CTA Brown Train Line - Western station
  • No. 49 Western Ave. & 49B North Western Ave
  • No. 50 Damen Ave.
  • No. 78 Montrose
  • No. 81 Lawrence (connects to red line near Broadway)

Parking: The library has a free parking lot behind the library, enter on Sunnyside Ave. There is also free street parking on some of the side streets (please read signs) and city lots are just north on Lincoln as well.

RSVP here: https://discord.gg/nMc2DY8V?event=1407092970217275443

tags: announcement
5 August 2025

Let's do this.

by willasaywhat

We’re just getting started with Chicago’s DEF CON group. Join us at DEF CON on August 9th from 12:00 - 2:00pm Vegas time in LVCC - L2 - W237 (DEF CON Groups) to meet fellow Chicagoans, discuss upcoming meetups, and help grow the DEF CON love in the Windy City.

Join us on Discord to keep the conversation going after summercamp: https://discord.gg/Qm25ESWx8T

tags: announcement