0x03 Villages & CTF
The half of the conference that is not a stage.
A village is a table, some hardware, and people who know how it works sitting next to people who want to. No slides, no schedule, no qualification to hold. You walk over, sit down, and someone shows you.
The lineup below is what the team is planning for 0x03, not a signed schedule. It depends on volunteers, kit and floor space, and all three are still moving.
- When
- Day two The floor is open on Sunday 4 April, alongside the talks. Day one is the CTF final and the workshops.
- CTF
- Tuned by the team Online on LevelUpCTF, our CTF partner. The final on site is ours.
- Cost
- Included Every village comes with any conference ticket. So does the CTF final, if you qualify for it.
01 What a village is
A workbench, not a workshop.
Talks are one direction. A village is the opposite: it runs for the whole day, nobody presents, and the only thing happening is people doing something with their hands and explaining it to whoever leans in.
This is where a second-year student picks a lock for the first time, where somebody finally sees what is on a UART header, and where the person who wrote the tool is standing right there when it breaks.
You do not need to book, register, arrive on time or stay. Turn up when you want, leave when you want.
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Nobody there is testing you
The people running a village volunteered to spend a whole day explaining the same thing to strangers. Asking the obvious question is the whole point of the format.
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You can break the hardware
Within reason. Village kit exists to be prodded. That is the difference between a village and a demo booth.
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Bring your own if you like
A device you are curious about, a lock you cannot open, a dump you cannot read. Bringing a real problem gets you a better afternoon than watching someone else's.
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Nothing you do there is recorded
Villages are not filmed. Photography on the floor follows the code of conduct. Ask before you point a camera at anyone's screen.
02 Planned for 0x03
Six villages on the floor plan. Provisional
This is the lineup the team is working towards. Some are returning, some are new, and none is confirmed until the volunteers and the kit are both in place.
Confirmed lineup published with the programme
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Hardware
Boards on a bench with their lids off. Probing, dumping firmware, finding the debug interface somebody left enabled, and the soldering iron for anyone who has never held one.
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Car Hacking
CAN bus traffic on a bench rig, key fob and immobiliser theory, and what actually happens on the wire between a modern car's modules.
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Lockpicking
Picks, transparent practice locks and the padlock you brought from home. The fastest route from "I could never do that" to doing it, usually about four minutes.
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OSINT
Finding what an organisation published without meaning to. Sources, method and the discipline of stopping, including where the line sits between research and harassment.
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AI/ML Security
Attacking and defending model-backed systems. Prompt injection against real tool-using agents, data poisoning, and where the actual boundary is once a model can call an API.
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Radio
Software-defined radio, listening to what is already in the air above the valley, and decoding it. Bring headphones and an SDR if you own one.
Why these are marked provisional: every one needs a volunteer for a full day and, in most cases, hardware somebody owns personally. We would rather publish an honest plan than a confirmed lineup we quietly shorten later.
03 Capture the flag
And a CTF, tuned here for this room.
The other half of the hands-on programme has its own page, because it has a registration form on it.
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The online qualifier
Free, open to anyone, on . Entry-level challenges are in it on purpose, so a first-timer solves something on their first attempt.
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The final, on day one
On site, for the top 100 to 120 out of the qualifier.
- Built by
- The BSides Dehradun team Tuned here, on LevelUpCTF, for this edition.
- Entry
- Free online, ticketed on site The qualifier costs nothing. For the final, a conference ticket or a ₹699 competitor pass.
- Teams
- Register on the CTF page One submission per team, solo included. No ticket needed to enter the online round.
- Format and prizes
- TBA Published with the programme. The CTF page carries the detail.
04 Run a village
If you can teach one thing for one day, you can run a village.
This is an open call and it stays open. Villages are the part of the programme most dependent on people volunteering, and the lineup above has room in it.
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Write to us with a paragraph
What the village is, what someone does at the table, and what you would bring. A paragraph is enough to start the conversation. There is no form and no deadline.
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Tell us what you need
Tables, power, floor space, screens, network, storage overnight. Say what the village genuinely needs and we will tell you honestly what the venue can give it.
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Tell us who is helping
A day is long. A village with two or three people rotating works; a village with one person works until they need lunch. If you are on your own, say so and we will find you hands.
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It does not have to be on the list
The six above are a plan, not a menu. A village we have never had, or something specific to how systems work in this region, is the most interesting email we can get.
Open call
Villages, and the kit to run them
We are looking for people to run villages and, separately, for anyone willing to lend hardware for the day. A lockpick set, a bench rig, an SDR, a bag of dev boards: lending kit is as useful as standing behind the table.
Write to the teamEveryone running a village agrees to the code of conduct and is expected to help enforce it at their own table. A village is a position of trust: most of the people at it are new to the subject.
Not a village but still hands-on? A hands-on session with a fixed start time is a workshop, and those go through the call for papers instead.
05 What to bring
Four things, and none of them are optional in April.
- Laptop
- Charged, with a charger Power strips exist but are always oversubscribed.
- Headphones
- For the radio village Wired ones. Anything you can plug straight into an SDR.
- Water
- A refillable bottle April in the valley is warm and dry.
- Patience
- For the queue at the good tables Talk to the person next to you in it.
What not to bring: anything you are not authorised to test, or would be unhappy to have someone else plug into. The villages are a lab, not a licence. The code of conduct covers the conference network and other people's devices, and is enforced.
Floor plan, opening hours and which villages ended up confirmed are published alongside the programme.
06 Questions
What people ask before they walk over.
Do I need to sign up for a village?
No. Nothing about a village is booked. There is no register, no arrival time and no minimum stay: turn up when you want and leave when you want. If a table looks busy, the queue is usually the best conversation at the conference.
Do the villages cost extra?
No. Every village comes with any conference ticket, and so does the CTF final if you qualify for it. There is no add-on and no second checkout for the hands-on floor.
When is the villages floor open?
Day two, Sunday 4 April 2027, alongside the talks. Day one is the CTF final and the workshops. The floor plan and the opening hours are published alongside the programme.
Do I need any experience?
None at all. The people running a village volunteered to spend a whole day explaining the same thing to strangers, so asking the obvious question is the point of the format rather than an interruption to it. Nobody there is testing you, and a second-year student picking a lock for the first time is exactly who the floor is for.
Which villages are confirmed for 0x03?
None of them yet. Six are planned, Hardware, Car Hacking, Lockpicking, OSINT, AI/ML Security and Radio, and every one of them needs a volunteer to run it for a full day and, in most cases, hardware somebody owns personally.
The confirmed lineup goes up with the programme. We would rather show you the plan honestly than publish a confirmed one and quietly shorten it later.
Can I run a village that is not on the list?
Yes, and that is the most interesting email we can get. The six planned are a plan rather than a menu. Write a paragraph saying what the village is, what somebody does at the table, what you would bring and who is helping you. There is no form and no deadline.
Lending kit counts too. A lockpick set, a bench rig, an SDR or a bag of dev boards is as useful as standing behind the table.
What do I need to bring to a village?
A charged laptop and its charger, because power strips exist but are always oversubscribed. Wired headphones if you want the radio village, anything you can plug straight into an SDR. A refillable bottle, because April in the valley is warm and dry. And patience for the queue at the good tables.
What not to bring is anything you are not authorised to test, and anything you would be unhappy to have somebody else plug into. The villages are a lab, not a licence.
Is anything filmed on the villages floor?
Villages are not filmed. Photography on the floor follows the code of conduct, so ask before you point a camera at anyone's screen.
Take part
A village needs one person who cares about one subject enough to explain it forty times.
If that is you, the floor plan has space on it. Tell us what you would run and what you would need to run it.