Launch Announcement
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The Water Watch Center is Live
DEF CON Franklin and the National Rural Water Association (NRWA) launched the Water Watch Center (WWC) on August 7, 2026, at DEF CON 34 in Las Vegas, NV USA.
WWC is building a national cyber threat intelligence-sharing architecture for water utilities — turning hard-won hacker-community expertise into real-time, actionable intelligence so utilities can see and respond to threats together. We invite community water systems nationwide to join the pilot and help shape this shared defense network.
Not a water utility? Explore waterwatchcenter.org to learn more, or contact us with questions.
Updates
- August 7, 2026: DEF CON Franklin and the National Rural Water Association (NRWA) launched the Water Watch Center (WWC) at DEF CON 34 in Las Vegas, NV — a national cyber threat intelligence-sharing architecture for water utilities. The pilot is now live and accepting applications. Apply to join here!
- February 12, 2026: DEF CON 33 Hackers' Almanack Published! Hacker Research Illuminates Solutions to Threats from Offensive AI, Cyber Crime and Despots. Read the press release here.
- August 7, 2025: Hackers and Industry Mobilize to Defend U.S. Water Systems. DEF CON’s Franklin launches new scalable cybersecurity solution. Read the press release here!
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August 1, 2025: Team Franklin is headed to DEF CON 33 and we want to make sure we cover your favorites! Do you know of any talks, villages, communities and events that have policy implications? Let us know!
- Feb 6, 2025: The Hackers' Almanack is now live! Read the press release here! Read the Almanack Here!
- Jan 31, 2024: The Hackers' Almanack contains the most innovative and impactful findings from DEF CON 32. RSVP here for the inaugural release!
- Nov 20, 2024: Six water utilties across Utah, Vermont, Indiana and Oregon sign on to the Franklin pilot program. More information can be found at our press release here.
- Oct 1, 2024: Due of overwhelming support, sign ups to the Franklin Cyber Volunteer Task Force are now closed. We'll keep this space updated on more ways to get involved in the future. Thank you for your interest!
Mission Statement
DEF CON Franklin will infuse research from the hacker community into national security and foreign policy debates. We aim to lift up groundbreaking work happening across villages and deliver this critical research to key policymakers across the globe. Furthermore, Franklin will enhance DEF CON community impact to actively promote democracy, justice, and human rights. Aside from policy work, Franklin will establish a mechanism that empowers individual members of the DEF CON community to volunteer at under-resourced organizations supporting our critical infrastructure.
Key Tasks:
The Hackers’ Almanack. Franklin will lift up the work of participating villages across DEF CON and produce an overview of pressing cyber policy gaps that are identified. In conjunction with the villages, Franklin will then propose cutting-edge policy interventions that take hackers and other technologists’ expertise into account.
Franklin Cyber Volunteer Task Force. Franklin will mobilize the DEF CON community to solve real world problems. Just as the Voting Village helped connect technologists to election officials, volunteers will connect with and support communities that are at gravest risk and least protected from growing attacks, such as water utilities and K-12 school districts.