Irvine Underground’s February meeting was held at our new location Zanzibar, a small coffee shop that was closed to the public specifically for our meeting. We will continue to occupy this Irvine coffee shop for our meetings and are also working on an Internet solution for the location.

Over the past eight months the IVU meetings have continuously grown, February’s meeting had 22 people marking it as our most attended meeting ever! We had attendees come out from Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, and San Diego Counties.

Everyone started gathering outside Zanzibar Coffee Shop around 7.00 o’clock and continued to populate until 8PM where we moved inside, reorganized tables and brought in more chairs so everyone could get situated. As people came together everyone was introducing their selves and sharing in discussion. This coffee shop carries Bawls that ended up being the drink of choice for everyone along with the cup after cup of coffee all night long.

After introductions of everyone simple question and answer proceeded to give the crowd an idea of their experiences, their choice systems and their backgrounds. Many sub-topics spun off of these questions. Talk was not an issue at this meeting, everyone was actively talking with each other, and even the new people who attended for the first time were warmly welcomed and brought into conversation.

The IrvineUnderground flyers were not present at this meeting; they should have been delivered earlier but was delayed so they will be at the next meeting. We now have them in our hands ready to distribute and they look pretty sharp. These are replacing our current flyers, the ones made from cut quarter sheets of paper with details.

During discussion Freaky started passing around materials, first ‘Hacker Japan’ a 200-page magazine published in Japan filled with information, reviews, and stories. Although the magazine is in Japanese, the reviews and programs were still legible as the screenshots were mostly in English. Many of the articles are written by well-known hackers in Japan, the featured article in this magazine was on Rain Forest Puppy, included a three page, spread of photos and interview materials.

Of course the new 2600 was just published, copies were passed around giving people a chance to check out the magazine and also there was a copy of the latest Phrack 60 floating around, it took forever to print out this one! And astcell brought the Homeland Defense Journal. The topics and articles within all of these magazines fueled discussion throughout the night.

Pyrophite gave a demonstration and talked about phones, everyone took interest and it was well presented. His presentation made everyone start thinking and discussing the topic, how things worked and why things happened the way they did.

Our main goal of this meeting was to get feedback on the projects that Irvine Underground would be interested in. Printouts of possible projects were passed around having people circle the ones they were most interested in. With this information we will go shopping and buy the components needed and build them at our upcoming meeting. We’re currently going over the choices that were selected, these projects will be a fun educational learning experience for everyone.

Pizza was ordered from the pizza place behind the coffee shop it was ready half way through the meeting.. Six pizza boxes lined the counters and there was more than enough. After the food came everyone was even more active with discussion, it could have been that they were starving or that cases and cases of bawls were drank caffeinating everyone making people extra active.

Throughout the night people did show and tell on their equipment and toys they brought, for instance KeLvin brought a Sony Magic Link (oldschool). More of the topics discussed were on: wireless security, macintosh security, news, the location, flyers, defcon, blackhat, hardware, day jobs.. and more.

We evacuated and loitered outside Zanzibar until about 12.30 where donated BAWLS were distributed to those still around then we each parted our ways. Theres a group shot of people holding their bawls on the right hand side of the page for your viewing enjoyment. The feedback of the meeting was positive, and we had many more suggestions that will be incorporated into upcoming meetings. We hope to see you all at the next Irvine Underground meeting, February was another successful meeting.