Monthly Security Meetup — Des Moines, Iowa

Security talks.

Vendor-neutral, practical, open to the curious. Bring a laptop, bring a question. All types welcome.

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Next Run

2026-06-04

Doors 6:00 PM

Venue Foundry Distilling Co.

City West Des Moines, IA

See the lineup →

The Room

Practical security. No vendor fog.

SecDSM is a monthly meetup where local security folks trade notes, demo tools, talk through failures, and compare scars. No registration required. Bring curiosity, a laptop if you want, and enough manners to keep the room good.

01 Talks

Short demos, primary talks, tool notes, and field stories.

02 Community

Local security people, students, builders, breakers, and defenders.

03 Venue

First Thursday at 6PM, Foundry Distilling Company.

04 Signal

Free, vendor-neutral, and open to the curious.

cron.d

Schedule

0 18 * * 4 · first thursday monthly · foundry distilling

Submit a Talk

● Next Run 2026-06-04

7:00 PM

Feature

Nicholas Starke Introducing Embedded Linux Audit: A Toolkit for Performing Security Analysis of Embedded Devices

Anyone who has done an embedded device security audit can attest to some of the struggles with doing these types of evaluations: libraries are missing, code has to be statically compiled to run usually - and cross compiled for another CPU architecture. Trying to debug a process is usually a non starter due to these problems and others.

I developed a tool, dubbed "Embedded Linux Audit" (https://github.com/nstarke/embedded_linux_audit) to help alleviate some of these troubles, plus also make it possible to "remotely" audit an embedded device. This talk will cover what the tool is, how it works, and some of my motivations for developing such a tool.

The second part of the talk will focus on how this project was developed using the latest in AI assisted development tools, which allowed me to "punch above my weight" in terms of writing code I probably could have never written myself.

Nick Starke is an embedded device and firmware security researcher. When he isn't hacking, he likes playing with synthesizers

○ Queued 2026-07-02

TBA

Talk schedule pending

Check Discord for updates as the agenda fills in. All are welcome.

○ Queued 2026-08-06

TBA

Talk schedule pending

Check Discord for updates as the agenda fills in. All are welcome.

○ Queued 2026-09-03

TBA

Talk schedule pending

Check Discord for updates as the agenda fills in. All are welcome.

○ Queued 2026-10-01

Get ready to crank up the party vibes and kick off the Halloween fun with a bang! Picture this: a Hacker Costume Contest, an electrifying Scavenger Hunt, a spooky CTF and a brain-teasing Trivia Night! Prizes will be on hand for winning teams. No presentations this meeting, just pure excitement and energy! Get your costumes ready and join us for an unforgettable pre-Halloween bash! 🎉👻🎃.

TBA

Talk schedule pending

Check Discord for updates as the agenda fills in. All are welcome.

Live console

$ secdsm --interactive

A real shell. Try help to see commands — next, uptime, dig venue.secdsm.org, or set a custom prompt with hostname <your-name>. Session persists per-browser.

dig venue.secdsm.org // real records, captured at build time

$ dig +noall +answer +comments venue.secdsm.org TXT venue.secdsm.org LOC venue.secdsm.org URI

;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 49540
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 65494
;; ANSWER SECTION:
venue.secdsm.org.	1800	IN	TXT	"addr=111 S 11th St, Ste 100, West Des Moines, IA 50265"
venue.secdsm.org.	1800	IN	TXT	"doors=18:00"
venue.secdsm.org.	1800	IN	TXT	"parking=Parking to the south of the building"
venue.secdsm.org.	1800	IN	TXT	"v=foundry-distilling-company"

;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 12058
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 65494
;; ANSWER SECTION:
venue.secdsm.org.	1800	IN	LOC	41 34 8.488 N 93 42 56.653 W 0.00m 1m 10000m 10m

;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 26321
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 65494
;; ANSWER SECTION:
venue.secdsm.org.	1800	IN	URI	10 1 "https://maps.app.goo.gl/6PkyXeeGZvLL6ugh9"

Foundry Distilling Company hosts us monthly. They make great whiskey — buy some. Silver-tier+ sponsors can produce a custom-labeled barrel via the Private Barrel Club. Map: google · osm

whoami // what is this

SecDSM is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit running a monthly information security meetup in Des Moines, Iowa, since February 2016. Founded by people who got tired of vendor-driven “community” events. Run by volunteers. Funded by sponsors who agree to the terms: banner space, brochures, a shoutout — no pitch, no list.

Show up. Bring a question. Give a talk if you’ve built or broken something cool.

read /about read /coc read /bylaws read /colophon

$ man secdsm

NAME
       secdsm — des moines security meetup

SYNOPSIS
       1st thursday, 18:00 CDT, foundry

DESCRIPTION
       monthly. vendor-neutral. free.
       attendee-driven talks.
       no sales. no registration.

FILES
       /coc          code of conduct
       /bylaws       501(c)(3) bylaws
       /sponsor      tiers & terms
       /pgp-key.txt  board pgp key
       /security.txt rfc 9116

SEE ALSO
       discord(7), opencollective(7)