Hacker Conference Installed a Literal Antivirus Monitoring System (wired.com) 49
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Hacker conferences -- like all conventions -- are notorious for giving attendees a parting gift of mystery illness. To combat "con crud," New Zealand's premier hacker conference, Kawaiicon, quietly launched a real-time, room-by-room carbon dioxide monitoring system for attendees. To get the system up and running, event organizers installed DIY CO2 monitors throughout the Michael Fowler Centre venue before conference doors opened on November 6. Attendees were able to check a public online dashboard for clean air readings for session rooms, kids' areas, the front desk, and more, all before even showing up. "It's ALMOST like we are all nerds in a risk-based industry," the organizers wrote on the convention's website. "What they did is fantastic," Jeff Moss, founder of the Defcon and Black Hat security conferences, told WIRED. "CO2 is being used as an approximation for so many things, but there are no easy, inexpensive network monitoring solutions available. Kawaiicon building something to do this is the true spirit of hacking." [...]
Kawaiicon's work began one month before the conference. In early October, organizers deployed a small fleet of 13 RGB Matrix Portal Room CO2 Monitors, an ambient carbon dioxide monitor DIY project adapted from US electronics and kit company Adafruit Industries. The monitors were connected to an Internet-accessible dashboard with live readings, daily highs and lows, and data history that showed attendees in-room CO2 trends. Kawaiicon tested its CO2 monitors in collaboration with researchers from the University of Otago's public health department. The Michael Fowler Centre is a spectacular blend of Scandinavian brutalism and interior woodwork designed to enhance sound and air, including two grand pou -- carved Mori totems -- next to the main entrance that rise through to the upper foyers. Its cathedral-like acoustics posed a challenge to Kawaiicon's air-hacking crew, which they solved by placing the RGB monitors in stereo. There were two on each level of the Main Auditorium (four total), two in the Renouf session space on level 1, plus monitors in the daycare and Kuracon (kids' hacker conference) areas. To top it off, monitors were placed in the Quiet Room, at the Registration Desk, and in the Green Room.
Kawaiicon's attendees could quickly check the conditions before they arrived and decide how to protect themselves accordingly. At the event, WIRED observed attendees checking CO2 levels on their phones, masking and unmasking in different conference areas, and watching a display of all room readings on a dashboard at the registration desk. In each conference session room, small wall-mounted monitors displayed stoplight colors showing immediate conditions: green for safe, orange for risky, and red to show the room had high CO2 levels, the top level for risk. Colorful custom-made Kawaiicon posters by New Zealand artist Pepper Raccoon placed throughout the Michael Fowler Centre displayed a QR code, making the CO2 dashboard a tap away, no matter where they were at the conference. Resources, parts lists, and assembly guides can be found here.
Kawaiicon's work began one month before the conference. In early October, organizers deployed a small fleet of 13 RGB Matrix Portal Room CO2 Monitors, an ambient carbon dioxide monitor DIY project adapted from US electronics and kit company Adafruit Industries. The monitors were connected to an Internet-accessible dashboard with live readings, daily highs and lows, and data history that showed attendees in-room CO2 trends. Kawaiicon tested its CO2 monitors in collaboration with researchers from the University of Otago's public health department. The Michael Fowler Centre is a spectacular blend of Scandinavian brutalism and interior woodwork designed to enhance sound and air, including two grand pou -- carved Mori totems -- next to the main entrance that rise through to the upper foyers. Its cathedral-like acoustics posed a challenge to Kawaiicon's air-hacking crew, which they solved by placing the RGB monitors in stereo. There were two on each level of the Main Auditorium (four total), two in the Renouf session space on level 1, plus monitors in the daycare and Kuracon (kids' hacker conference) areas. To top it off, monitors were placed in the Quiet Room, at the Registration Desk, and in the Green Room.
Kawaiicon's attendees could quickly check the conditions before they arrived and decide how to protect themselves accordingly. At the event, WIRED observed attendees checking CO2 levels on their phones, masking and unmasking in different conference areas, and watching a display of all room readings on a dashboard at the registration desk. In each conference session room, small wall-mounted monitors displayed stoplight colors showing immediate conditions: green for safe, orange for risky, and red to show the room had high CO2 levels, the top level for risk. Colorful custom-made Kawaiicon posters by New Zealand artist Pepper Raccoon placed throughout the Michael Fowler Centre displayed a QR code, making the CO2 dashboard a tap away, no matter where they were at the conference. Resources, parts lists, and assembly guides can be found here.
Missing one key piece of information: (Score:1)
Did it actually work though? Did notably fewer people get sick this time?
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If the server logged a decent amount of data, then this is potentially a useful ad hoc experiment.
Re: Missing one key piece of information: (Score:1)
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They could still theoretically get a fair idea of whether it worked by simply polling participants later and comparing the results with other years.
This should have been a thing during the pandemic (Score:2)
For ages, we have had thermostats to tell us the ambient room temperature, and to adjust HVAC settings accordingly. And more recently, they've gone smart--letting us see and control it automatically, or manually with a smartphone interface.
Why not also have this technology for measuring CO2? The sensors are not expensive, they don't need a lot of power, and they are low maintenance. CO2 is a reasonably good proxy for indoor air quality with respect to environments occupied by humans. And you don't need
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True, but measurement is the first step to understanding. Moreover, it is not a foregone conclusion that a building is poorly ventilated or requires costly modification. Quantification is evidence, and evidence is empowerment, and empowerment leads to change. This is how modern epidemiology came into existence, and modern architecture ought to consider CO2 measurement as an integral component of indoor air quality and occupant comfort.
In the past, we did not have a germ theory of disease. People lived a
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Some people have been doing that for themselves with Home Assistant and similar tech. Qingping make some very good and affordable CO2 monitors that integrate well with HA.
Re:This should have been a thing during the pandem (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not also have this technology for measuring CO2?
Errr .... we do. It's been a long time since I've been in a building without CO2 monitoring. Is that just a European thing? It's literally a standard monitoring component of every heat-recovery ventilation system in all new houses and has been from before people even knew how to spell COVID. My friend doesn't even have a new house (early 90s) and she also has a CO2 monitor in the living room which controls the ventilation system.
I retrofitted such a system to my house but I used VOCs instead of CO2 as it is a better proxy for stale air and cleanliness, and CO2 gets picked up on VOC sensors along with outgassing, farts, etc. The only problem is if I walk into the study with a glass of Whiskey it triggers the ventilation system.
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It isn't a thing in the US, unfortunately.
New buildings might have it integrated into their HVAC systems, and older construction might have it retrofitted, but the vast, vast majority of buildings in the US do not have CO2 monitoring. We have CO (monoxide) detectors, but that's an entirely different issue.
Another consideration is that for assessment of infectious disease risk, measurement of CO2 in indoor communal spaces needs to be distributed throughout, as opposed to having a single point of measurement
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New buildings might have it integrated into their HVAC systems, and older construction might have it retrofitted, but the vast, vast majority of buildings in the US do not have CO2 monitoring. We have CO (monoxide) detectors, but that's an entirely different issue.
Active monitoring is for energy savings. A buildings HVAC is designed to meet air exchange requirements given designed occupancy levels regardless.
Another consideration is that for assessment of infectious disease risk, measurement of CO2 in indoor communal spaces needs to be distributed throughout, as opposed to having a single point of measurement that might only reflect the average air quality for HVAC control purposes.
No, this is handled by HVAC system design to accommodate expected occupancy.
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Do you have a source for the VOC sensor?
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No it was just a feature in the ventilation I selected. But there are many air quality meters on the market including zigbee devices which measure VOC and formaldehyde, and use those as a proxy for CO2. Heck even the IKEA VINDSTYRKA measures tVOC. They are really common these days.
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Thanks, I ordered a device from AirGradient which looks to do what I want and is open source.
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Funny about page (Score:2)
Kiwicon came first. Kiwicon started decades ago with a couple of hundred nerds down at Pipitea campus with a sense of bewilderment that anyone showed up at all, and the cleaners refusing to do the men’s bathroom overnight.
...
We’ve grown up since then. Not too much.
We’ll always have black t-shirts and lasers, but we’ll also have glitter fountains. Maybe a petting zoo.
CO2 is a virus? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: CO2 is a virus? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a logical question, I was wondering exactly the same thing.
From TFA:
"Elevated levels of CO2 lead to reduced cognitive ability and facilitate transmission of airborne viruses, which can linger in poorly ventilated spaces for hours. The more CO2 in the air, the more virus-friendly the air becomes, making CO2 data a handy proxy for tracing pathogens."
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CO2 as an indicator of air quality. (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. My thought was that CO2 levels could roughly correspond to the number of people in the specific room, offset by actual ventilation levels.
IE more CO2 = more risk because it means more people with inadequate ventilation.
Conference crud is really simple. Hacker or not. You bring in hundreds/thousands of people from around the country and world, exposing most of them to even more potential disease carriers on airplanes, trains, busses, and more, then disrupt people's sleep and disgestive tracts with unfamiliar locations, schedules and food and you have the perfect melting pot to get people sick.
What can be done to help prevent it? Mask wearing might help some, along with sanitary other stuff - improve the ventilation in such buildings, including good filters, UV lights and such helping to sterilize the air. At the same time, improve air quality otherwise, because harsh cleaning chemicals can also make people sick.
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>"What can be done to help prevent it? Mask wearing might help some"
Barely.
>"along with sanitary other stuff - improve the ventilation in such buildings, including good filters, UV lights and such helping to sterilize the air."
This is what I have been saying for ages. Central HVAC systems need to run the fans full time and contain HEPA filters and UV lights. That could be a HUGE winner for airborne infection reduction. And it is completely passive. Couple that with air exchangers to reduce VOCs.
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My HVAC inspector wanted to sell me a UV light air disinfector. It's hideously expensive for what it does. I declined.
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>"My HVAC inspector wanted to sell me a UV light air disinfector. It's hideously expensive for what it does. I declined."
Yeah, unfortunately, much of the stuff is WAY overpriced. It doesn't NEED to be, but they know they can charge it and get it because it isn't "mainstream". If there were a lot more demand, the prices would drop a lot.
At home, I use an AprilAire system with a large MERV 13 filter. It is not HEPA, but it is affordable and effective against tons of allergens and helps with other stuff.
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It's probably overkill in most people's homes. However, it may be more valuable in a commercial setting, such as a convention center or hospital. Cutting down on the crud even by a small fraction could be worth quite a bit.
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CO2 levels are a good proxy for how much fresh airflow there is. If there is a lot of CO2, it's because people are exhaling it and the air in the room isn't being replaced with fresh air from outside.
It's why you often feel sleepy when you board a plane - the ventilation system used air bled off from the engines, so until they start the CO2 in the confined space of the cabin with hundreds of people in it builds up fast.
Stale air is known to put you at much greater risk from airborne viruses. That's why duri
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It's why you often feel sleepy when you board a plane - the ventilation system used air bled off from the engines, so until they start the CO2 in the confined space of the cabin with hundreds of people in it builds up fast.
This has nothing to do with CO2 levels. You are just making shit up.
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They did allude to it but they did a poor job of it. "CO2 is an approximation of many things" In this case they are talking about air quality and lack of ventilation in an occupied space.
If you're sitting in a room with others and the CO2 level is rising you're rebreathing their stale exhaust. It's a pretty good proxy for when you should open a window.
That said VOCs is a better proxy. With VOCs you can approximate CO2 as well, but also pick up other things such as someone's farts, though I suspect you don't
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The problem is VOCs are a poor proxy for ventilation. By VOCs, most people mean benzene based substances (6C rings) - which are things like paints and plastics and polymers. And in smaller quantities as perfumes and such. Flatus, is mostly stuff like methane and hydrogen sulfide, which doesn't usual
Hack in better ventilation. (Score:3)
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Ventilation and filtration really help. UV light is effective too, but can be dangerous for humans. It gives your retina sunburn if you aren't careful. Either place it high up shining sideways, or use 222nm lamps that are safe for humans.
It's weird that we just accept seasonal viruses as something we can't do much about, when clearly we can. Offices with all the windows shut and poor ventilation - are those companies just trying to waste money by making their employees sick? And then they only want to give
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With the username "Fly Swatter" of course you'd want the windows open.
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You do realize that masking is mainly to prevent you, a sainted prole, from spreading your germs, yes?
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Putting aside COVID alarmists nonsense
Congrats, you're literally the first one to mention COVID and your post complains about others mentioning COVID. You've won the dumb comment of the year award. Shame you led with this because the second part of your post is actually quite insightful.
Yes CO2 levels above 1000ppm can make you feel hazy. It's a good idea to open the window if you get to that level, which is quite easy to reach in a closed meeting room.
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Yes CO2 levels above 1000ppm can make you feel hazy.
This is off by an order of magnitude.
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No. At an order of magnitude you're running into serious health risks. 1000ppm actively affects you. There are plenty of studies to back this up. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov] there, note the decline in cognitive performance at 945ppm. Here's another one looking at performance at 1000-1500ppm https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com] In fact a CDC study during COVID found a weak link between performance and CO2 in as little as 650ppm https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cd... [cdc.gov] So no, even the "we're not sure vaccines don
Antivirus? (Score:2)
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It isn't, and the title was not clickbait. It merely indicated an antivirus system. Actually, it should have said a "virus monitoring system". CO2 is merely a convenient canary.
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I didn't know CO2 was considered a virus. Clickbait title.
Are you one of the people who says smoke burns your house down? Is a fire alarm not a fire alarm because it is triggered by smoke?
This is an anti-virus system not a primary virus identification system. CO2 is a proxy for air quality and ventilation, good ventilation and air quality objectively prevents the spread of viruses. Just because you don't understand a title, doesn't make it clickbait.
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A "literal antivirus monitoring system" should literally monitor antiviruses, shouldn't it? Ok, there's an alternative parse where it should monitor literal antiviruses. Either way, CO2 isn't an antivirus.
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A "literal antivirus monitoring system" should literally monitor antiviruses, shouldn't it? Ok, there's an alternative parse where it should monitor literal antiviruses. Either way, CO2 isn't an antivirus.
Thanks, Captain Pedantic. It was a hacker conference, so the use of "literal antivirus" was just a bit of computer related humor with respect to antivirus software. And as numerous slashdotters mentioned, CO2 levels are a fairly good proxy for airborne pathogens.
Carved what now? (Score:2)
a spectacular blend of Scandinavian brutalism and interior woodwork designed to enhance sound and air, including two grand pou -- carved Mori totems -- next to the main entrance that rise through to the upper foyers
Mori? What the hell is that? Oh, Maori [wikipedia.org] - the native peoples of New Zealand. Why the hell didn't you say so?
My first reaction would be to gripe about the author's cultural ignorance. Except the original Wired article has the correct spelling - complete with a line over the 'a' (U+0101). But Slashdot can't handle Unicode, and either the submitter or the editor stripped the character out entirely, not even leaving the half-correct 'a' behind, and also didn't notice that it was just plain wrong. So,
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Hey, asshole, "feminazi" is *so* 2010. Can't you keep up with your slurs?
Oh, that's right, you're an incel who is terrified to actually talk *with* women.
Mask in crowded rooms when you can (Score:2)
Let's see, in the last four months, I've been to Worldcon (large), Capclave ( 300), Windycon (major regional) and weekend before this past, Philcon. We wear masks in panel rooms (well, I don't when I'm on a panel, so they audience can hear me), and the consuite (usually eating or drinking).
No COVID, or anything else. We are, of course absolutely current on our COVID updates.