Washington is a city known for a particular type of geek: the wonk. But this weekend, a very different breed of geek will descend on the city, as computer security enthusiasts from across the country gather at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for three days of talks, hacking, hanging out and merry-making. It’s the second annual ShmooCon, the hacker convention put together by the Shmoo Group, the highest-profile hacker collective associated with our fair city.

The organization was founded in the late nineties by Bruce Potter, and since then has made a name for itself through its tools, discoveries and projects, most of which have a particular focus on wireless security. Potter and fellow Shmoo Beetle Bailey were kind enough to answer some of our questions via email.

NOTE: Except where marked by an asterisk, all hyperlinks have been inserted by DCist in order to assist those of our readers who aren’t fluent in geek.

We know you’ve got a lot of members and can’t speak for all of them, but
we can’t help asking — how did you guys learn all this stuff?

Beetle: I got started in the Army, back in the mid-90s, as one of the
only guys on a military base that knew how to boot a computer. After
figuring out how to bust every military system I was asked to recover
officers’ forgotten passwords from, I got turned on to this “security
thing”.

Bruce: Personally, I was lucky to be involved in some small tech
company in Alaska. We were resource constrained in many ways and had
to make due with very little. It forced me and the folks I worked
with to be very creative in our jobs. I think in general people who
are really good in computer security are actually quite creative, and
that’s more important than “learning” the security stuff you see out
there.