Defcon 21 Role Call

blueberries

afrod wrote: »

I see many grown men rocking mohawks.

Coders need a hate crime law to prevent me from telling them they are stuck in the '80's. If they were real men they'd sport mullets.

Iristheangel

JD Murray and I at Defcon. It was a pleasure meeting him as well as other TE members I ran into

docrice

I probably passed right by many of you. By Day 2 of DEF CON, I was sort of burned out. There were good talks with bad speakers, and okay talks with good speakers. And everything in between. Surprisingly, I was able to get into every track that I was interested in this year without having to wait in line for someone to leave the room. I also bought no swag (although I did purchase the Black Hat/DEF CON DVDs so I can stream them for the rest of the employees at my company). There also seemed to be a lot more lock-picking tools at the vendor booths than previous years.

And the loud music kept going outside until 2:30 AM. Next year I'm not staying at the Rio.

Kinet1c

Iris: what sort of work do you have to do as a goon? do you need a security background?

Iristheangel

@Kinet1c - Depends on the team you're on. There are red shirt goons and black shirt goons. Red shirts are security goons and tend to be the ones that lurk the halls. The great number of goons are black shirts and they can belong to any number of groups and duties. I was a production goon this year. I doubt my security background had anything to do with it. It was a great experience and I definitely look forward to being a goon again next year.

paul78

@JD and Iris - great pic.

@doc - I had the similar thoughts about the talks I toyed with idea of purchasing the dvds but I will probably just download what I can find on the conference ftp site and check whatever shows up on youtube.

I enjoyed the villages more than the talks- in particular the social engineering village. Listening to the different phone call techniques was quite entertaining. I also liked learning a bit more about tamper evident techniques and lock-picking. Being on the infosec side, I dont get exposed to those topics very often. I only spent a few hours at the conference overall but it was quite worth it.

Kinet1c

Iristheangel wrote: »

@Kinet1c - Depends on the team you're on. There are red shirt goons and black shirt goons. Red shirts are security goons and tend to be the ones that lurk the halls. The great number of goons are black shirts and they can belong to any number of groups and duties. I was a production goon this year. I doubt my security background had anything to do with it. It was a great experience and I definitely look forward to being a goon again next year.

Thanks for the info. How long ago did you apply? Presumably you're on duty all day and don't get to view any talks? Any cost in applying?

Iristheangel

I didn't apply. My boss runs production at Defcon and asked me to work because he was short workers this year. Generally, you can work whatever hours you want and as long as you have someone fill in for you, you can go to any talks the interrupt your duties. I only worked two days (Wednesday and Thursday) and I had the rest of the time off

whatthehell

Awesome pic!
JD looks a bit Hunter S. Thompson-esque! jking jking

Iristheangel wrote: »

JD Murray and I at Defcon. It was a pleasure meeting him as well as other TE members I ran into

JDMurray

I was a very nice time at DC21. I managed to do the whole con without any alcohol, which is a first for me, but I killed far more buffets than I had anticipated. (The roasted goat at the Wicked Spoon Buffet in the Cosmopolitan is excellent!) I ran into people I hadn't seen in years and weren't expecting to see. There were a few disappointments for me at DC (e.g., no Meet the Feds panel, no Schneier or Kaminsky, I missed the screening of the Defcon documentary), but it was still totally worth it. The drive out to LV and back to SoCal was about four hours each way and without incident. Can't ask for more than that.

Oh--"Iris" is very stunning close up. I had coffee breath, so I didn't want to get too close.

Iristheangel

Thanks for the compliment. You had coffee breath? Didn't notice. It was fun meeting up with you. I'm sorry we didn't see each other again. I ended up running around with my boss most of the con interviewing people for positions at my company. Next time we should do an "official" TE meetup where everyone meets up for dinner on Saturday or something. It'd be awesome to connect with TE members for more than just a few minutes in passing

phoeneous

JDMurray wrote: »

(The roasted goat at the Wicked Spoon Buffet in the Cosmopolitan is excellent!)

Agreed. Cosmo is pretty badass in general. You would've like the buffet at The Wynn and Caesars which is newly remodeled.

vanquish23

Iristheangel wrote: »

Everyone attending: Be on the lookout for this suspicious person:


(Horrible camera bathroom selfie but it was the best I could do in the convention center - I'll be wearing the same kind of shirt all weekend and have the red goon badge on)

"Likes this"

Edit: Not a creepy nerd.

vanquish23

One day I will get out there. I will have to stay away from the casinos though.

JDMurray

Well, you are gonna have a very hard time at Defcon then. As soon as you walk out of the Rio's convention area you are in (one of) the Rio's casinos. It's amusing to see hundreds of hackers streaming by a literal phalanx of empty Black jack tables, each with a lonely dealer staring at the preoccupied Defcon swarm. It reminds me of how a lot of the people who attended Comdex weren't gamblers either, and casinos would end up loosing business when one of the biggest conventions was in town.

docrice

The casinos are a nice physical trap, much like a department store where the exits aren't all that visible if you're passing through the store. But geeks tend to be very aware of this, especially security geeks who are always thinking, "Oh, you're trying to keep me near the card tables? Well, I've already seen the building map, know the ingress and egress points and their GPS coordinates, and the primary, secondary, and tertiary most efficient ways to get to the conference talks."

If the Rio was smart, they would have a dedicated section called "Hack This Card Table!" and put on a contest.

Or maybe not.

JDMurray

I don't remember any presentations on "Hacking Las Vegas" ever at DC. You think there would be one on computerized gaming/gambling equipment. Maybe that's one category of topics not allowed at DC because of the venue.

antielvis

@Iris

Spot me a $50 and I'll dress up as a woman next year to detract the creepy guys.