Saturday September 19th is your DC404 hybrid meeting
All ages/skill levels welcome. No dues, feel free to bring new friends.
DC404 is experimenting with running hybrid meetings, so like all hacking, we expect issues, but we will improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Our in person meeting is at Manual’s Tavern and our online meeting is via Big Blue Button.
The meeting speaker (when we have one) will be streamed to both the in person and online meetings.
Bryant Renfroe will be presenting: Will the Real Imposter Please Stand Up? Why Deepfake Detectors Fail in the Wild
Deepfake detectors routinely report impressive benchmark accuracy, but those benchmarks assume the images never leave the lab. In the real world, images are compressed, resized, cropped, filtered, and repeatedly re-encoded as they move across messaging apps and social media platforms, creating a gap between laboratory performance and operational reliability.
This talk presents Imposter, an open-source framework developed to evaluate how common “in-the-wild” image transformations affect modern deepfake detection systems. By comparing two state-of-the-art detection approaches under realistic distortions, the research demonstrates that seemingly insignificant processing can dramatically reduce detection performance for some models, while others remain comparatively resilient. Results show that models relying on local artifact-based features degrade rapidly under even minor compression and resizing, while models leveraging global semantic representations remain substantially more robust.
Rather than focusing on sophisticated adversarial attacks, this session examines the ordinary image processing that every security practitioner encounters every day—and why it represents an overlooked failure mode for AI-powered media forensics. Attendees will see where current detection systems break, why benchmark performance often overestimates operational reliability, and what defenders should consider before trusting deepfake detection in production environments.
Bryant Renfroe is a risk and intelligence professional, Navy veteran, and Georgia Tech M.S. Cybersecurity graduate with experience in open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigations, fraud detection, blockchain analysis, and compliance-driven security operations. His human-centered approach focuses on protecting vulnerable communities and disrupting criminal networks, motivated by a personal faith.
Bryant currently works for Regions Bank as a fraud data and analytics analyst. His previous roles included cyber threat intelligence for Intercontinental Exchange, GRC and blue team operations for various government contractors, and a surface warfare officer in the Navy managing various departments onboard a destroyer and littoral combat ships.
The inspiration for his GA Tech practicum project, “Will the Real Imposter Please Stand Up? Why Deepfake Detectors Fail in the Wild,” arose out of his volunteer work combating sex trafficking with a non-profit supporting law enforcement operations. Better understanding the strengths and weaknesses of current deepfake detection tools supports both the identification of scams and more robust OPSEC strategies during investigations.
Bryant lives in the Atlanta area with his wife, two children (a third on the way), and their golden retriever.
We will have time after the presentation for people to share what they are working on. Your project doesn’t have to be complete and slides are not required (like show-n-tell).
The in person meeting and online meeting spaces will open at 13:00 on Saturday so that people will have time to connect and work out any technical issues.
The meeting will start at 14:00.
DC404 meets in person at Manuel’s Tavern in either the First Level room or The Eagle’s Nest. Free parking is behind Manuel’s and across North Highland, next to the laundromat.
Manuel’s Tavern
602 North Highland Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
https://www.manuelstavern.com/
To get to the First Level Room:
From the front entrance on North Highland, immediately turn right, go past the bathrooms to the First Level room.
From the back parking lot entrance, go all the way to the front doors, turn left, go past the bathrooms to the First Level room.
To get to The Eagle’s Nest:
From the front entrance on North Highland, immediately turn left, go all the way to the back, to the room with the big curtains.
From the back parking lot entrance, immediately turn right, go past the bathroom to the curtains on your right which is The Eagle’s Nest.
To attend online use the DC404 Big Blue Button server graciously hosted by DC404 member npcomp.
Big Blue Button is a WebRTC based open source video teleconferencing platform supported by all major browsers, including Chrome, FireFox, Safari, and Safari Mobile. For best results on desktop and laptops, Chrome or Firefox is recommended. For Chromebooks the built-in Chrome browser is recommended.
No registration or email address is required, just enter your preferred handle. To join the meeting from your browser use this link:
https://rsvz.userserviceable.com/b/adm-6j7-gvt
We will be running the NetKotH CTF.
If you would like to play along in the CTF follow these instructions (http://koth.userserviceable.com/netkoth.html) and hack away with your favorite tools such as Kali Linux, Parrot Linux, or ArchStrike Linux.
https://parrotlinux.org/download.php
More information about NetKotH can be found here:
Atlanta LockSport will be meeting conjointly with DC404 and is the official sponsor of our lock pick village.
To find out more about Atlanta LockSport visit their web site at https://atlantalocksport.org/
You can sign up for the Atlanta LockSport email list and discord channel at https://atlantalocksport.org/contact.html
Where to find DC404 on the web:
Our Home page: https://DC404.org
DC404 Atlanta Cybersecurity Engineers Discord Server Channel
GENERAL -> DC404
Discord Invite Code: https://discord.gg/cWkCxrMNE9
Sign up for the chat/discussion email list – it’s low traffic, keeps you in the loop, and enables you to communicate with the other DC404 folks:
http://lists.kaos.to/listinfo.cgi/DC404-chat-kaos.to
IRC Channel: #DC404 irc.libera.chat
Web IRC: https://web.libera.chat/#DC404
Our calendar: https://DC404.org/calendar/