Slashdot Mirror
From The Floor At Defcon 8
It appears that ZDtv is doing some fairly major co verage of Defcon. They've got the works - some text reporting, as well as streaming video from the floor and speakers, from what I can see. It's not being there, but heck, you're at least one less degree separated.
I submitted this link to slashdot earlier today, but since they've posted this story they're not likely to post mine. So here it is. The article covers the Black Hat Briefing sub-conference and talks a bit about just how crazy the corporations are about finding decent security people. Definitely a decent article.
noah
That's not the way the english language (any language actually) works. If the media (and the general public) called mechanics "blacksmiths" and no one but the mechanics themselves mechanics, sooner or later the word for people who worked on cars would become "blacksmiths".
It's the same with hackers. The media calls them hackers, the general public calls them hackers; no one but the hackers themselves uses the term crackers. If this continues long enough (and I argue that it has) the word for people that do that sort of thing will become "hacker" whether or not they call themselves hackers. That's the way language evolves. Get over it.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
Defcon 8 was certainly a good conference this year. It was estimated at about 5500 people. Most of which stayed at the lovely Alexis Park Hotel.
I'll try to be somewhat breif on my experiance there.
Pros:
Informative Lectures, speakers who knew what they were talking about
Plenty of neat stuff to buy.
Plenty of people that are well known in the "hacking" scene.
Fed spotting!
Free beer provided by the people at dis.org
From Thursday evening to Sunday morning (when I left) there were constantly people around all 3 pools drinking, talking. People at the LAN (wireless too this year!) to mingle with. It never got boring.
Cons:
Speaker room isn't big enough! You had to get a seat and keep it for hours at a time if you even wanted to be able to sit down.
Immature people doing random acts of lameness. For example: Cement down the toilet, Super smoke bombs in the pool, DoS over the LAN, and other lame things.
Luckily our favorite Hawaiian shirted enforcer Priest was there to take care of some of the kids.
Overall, I had a wonderful time. The Defcon site is usually very quick with bringing tons of information from the con within a couple weeks of it ending, so be sure to check back there.
On a side note, anyone willing to contribute to the "Air condition all of Las Vegas" fund? That place is so damn hot. 114 degrees (F) one day.
Good conf DT and the Goon crew, keep em coming!