Stream: Virtual Room 9
Time: 16:15 - 17:00
XMIT, IBM's NETDATA transmit format, has been the backbone of mainframe dataset sharing and the CBT Tape community for decades, yet its binary structure remains poorly documented and almost entirely locked behind proprietary tooling. In this talk we'll walk through the open-source Python xmi library, which can parse XMI, AWS, and HET files, browse partitioned and sequential datasets, and extract members without touching z/OS. We'll then introduce our new addition: the ability to generate valid XMIT files from scratch in pure Python, opening the door to automated dataset packaging and XMIT creation baked directly into CI/CD pipelines. Along the way you'll get a ground-up tour of the NETDATA and IEBCOPY record structures so you leave understanding exactly what's inside every byte of those .xmi files you've been passing around for years.
Henri Kuiper is a pre Y2K Mainframe junkie. Started taking apart computers at a very young age (BBC Micro's Anyone?) and never stopped his love for 'taking things apart' (and mostly putting them back together too). He's an 8 year consecutive IBM Champion for z Systems, owner of zDevOps.com pro-deo teacher at 'codeuur.nl' (teaching primary school kids how to program), co-founder and CTO at Mainframe Society and loves all things IT :)
Philip Young, aka Soldier of FORTRAN, Director of Mainframe Penetration Testing Services at NetSPI is an oldschool hacker. He started out on with an Amiga 500 and a modem and never looked back, cutting his teeth on Datapac (the Canadian X.25 network) he eventually grew to searching the internet for interesting things. Later in his career he started taking a serious look at mainframe cybersecurity and realized how far behind mainframes had fallen when compared to their more open system (Windows/Linux). At that point he made it his lifes mission to raise awareness and produce tooling to aid in the testing of these critical resources to help keep them safe. Since then he has given talks around the world at places like BlackHat, DEFCON, RSA, has taught multiple workshops and was even under investigation by the Swedish secret police. In addition he has released countless opensources tools to pentest mainframes.
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