BSides Bloomington 2026 - Bloomington, IN

Insert Coin to Opt Out

BSides Bloomington returns Friday, October 2nd and Saturday, October 3rd at the Bloomington Convention Center for two days of community-driven cybersecurity talks, workshops, and villages.

This year’s theme — Insert Coin to Opt Out — explores what it means to reclaim agency in a world where convenience often comes at the cost of privacy, autonomy, and control. Modern platforms monetize attention, collect behavioral data, and shape user experience in ways that are difficult to see and even harder to escape. Security isn’t just about protecting systems — it’s about empowering people to make intentional choices about the technology they use.

We’re looking for talks that help attendees level up their understanding, reclaim control, and build alternatives. Whether through deep technical research, practical guidance, or thoughtful exploration of emerging trends, BSides Bloomington is a space for sharing ideas that challenge default assumptions about how technology should work.

Our arcade-inspired aesthetic celebrates the roots of hacker culture — curiosity, experimentation, and play — while confronting the realities of modern computing: AI everywhere, always-on platforms, opaque ecosystems, and shrinking user autonomy. Opting out shouldn’t require extraordinary effort. We want to explore how security, privacy, and open technology can make autonomy accessible.

We welcome submissions across a wide range of topics, including:
• Privacy-preserving technologies and architectures
• AI security, safety, and resistance to unwanted automation
• Self-hosting, decentralization, and alternative platforms
• Offensive and defensive security research
• Supply chain transparency and trust
• Digital rights, surveillance, and data ownership
• Hardware hacking, firmware, and device control
• Open-source security and community resilience
• Human-centered security and usable privacy
• Threat modeling for real people and real risks
• Breaking walled gardens and platform lock-in
• Practical “how to opt out” guides and case studies

BSides Bloomington is a community-first conference. We encourage submissions from first-time speakers, students, independent researchers, industry professionals, and anyone with a perspective to share. Talks can be deeply technical, strategic, experimental, or experiential — if it helps our community better understand and control the systems around them, we want to hear it.

Join us to explore how we can insert coin, take control, and opt out — without giving up the ability to participate in the digital world.

Because autonomy shouldn’t be a premium feature.