Beaches (@__Beaches__) was first introduced to the computer as a small child. A couple of decades later, he went to HOPE Number Nine, where he worked on Radio Statler doing the audio archiving. For some reason he was asked to stick around. He is currently tasked with directing the production of content for Radio Statler.
Nikgod is a reformed network engineer who occasionally pretends to know how radio works. Once he figured out how to hack AOL 2.0 parental controls, the Internet scarred him for life. Nikgod functions as the chief engineer of Radio Statler, coming up with solutions to the hard technical problems, and running up a tab on his credit cards in the process.
TechDarko (@techdarko) is an information security engineer in San Francisco and technology polymath. Created in the lab of a mad scientist in New Jersey, he craves pizza, bagels, diners, and people with brains. He dabbles in emergency medicine, amateur radio, professional audio and lighting, electronics, broadcast radio, and helping nonprofits adopt new technology. A man of uncommon tastes, he is best bribed/thanked with good ciders and mead. You can often find him at HOPE by hurting yourself (seriously - don’t interrupt his drinking time). TechDarko is a founding member of Radio Statler.
Bunni3Burn is a homegrown Midwesterner hailing from a cornfield in Illinois who ran away to a real city. She rarely sleeps, hardly leaves the house, and often forgets to eat. She enjoys pixel art, social engineering, and collecting bouncy balls. In kindergarten, she played Ms. Pacman on a computer... and that’s all it took. She fell in love with technology. Bunni3 has been around since the birth of Radio Statler at The Last Hope in 2008. She spent three years as the program director and producer. Now she hangs around Radio Statler so she can take over the microphone after midnight.
Johnny Xmas (@j0hnnyXm4s) is a security researcher for the U.S.-based ICS cybersecurity and predictive analytics firm Uptake Technologies, and is most famous for his work on the 2015-16 TSA master key leaks presented at past HOPE conferences. He’s been speaking internationally on the topics of hacking, privacy, information security, and career advancement for nearly 20 years, both in and very far outside of the information security community - and attending HOPE since H2K! His infamous mixture of humor, raw sincerity, and honest love of people often leads to lighthearted but, at their cores, serious discussions revolving around our innate desires to get in our own way.
Nite 0wl (@nite0wl) is a lockpicker, a locksmith, a whisky aficionado, and he has secretly been carrying the Hope Diamond in his beard since he stole it in 1987. (The one now on display in Washington’s National Museum of Natural History is a copy that he made by hand-filing leaded glass.)
Sidepocket (@sidepock_) is a co-founder of Defcon 201, an open group for hacker workshop projects in northeast New Jersey. He loves to help people get better at whatever they want to do and learn.
Stoppay (@stoppay) joined Radio Statler during The Next HOPE and manages the website. He works best under pressure and little sleep while creating the site and content on the fly. He is known to do on-air interviews from time to time and plays the devil’s advocate regardless of his opinion on the subject.
Interdisciplinary autodidacts always look bad on paper. Good hackers know they know not, and xio (@XioNYC) is of that rare breed which knows not that they know. He has experienced eight years of digital talking books from pre-production to shipped product, 12 years as an accessibility specialist, 16 years of video editing and DVD authoring, and over 24 years of broadcast radio, as well as a lifetime at the QWERTY and in deep thought.