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Fifth HOPE Conference Underway

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hoping-for-a-new-name-next-year dept.

The Fifth HOPE conference is starting today at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. If you haven't heard of it, read through their website or see our report on the last conference to get some idea. The lockpicking talk is scheduled for Saturday morning, and Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak, and Jello Biafra will all be speaking. Well worth your time and the $50 admission fee, so if you're in the Big Apple, come on down.

8 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. These conferences need to be in cheaper venues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car ?

    If I were holding a conference like this, I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city that is cheap as shit and as easy as possible to get to. A small college town might do; it would have to be close enough to an airport serviced by Southwestern for cheap flights, that you could run a shuttle van back and forth to get people to it.

    For the venue, I would find an empty department store or closed factory that could be rented for a month or a couple of weeks.

    Finally, you have to be close to a Motel 6 and within driving distance of cheap-ass RV parks.

    With that setup, you could run a slightly longer conference and do some more interesting things. Like a "best mod to bzFlag written in 48 hours" contest. Or whatever.

    I guess elite pretenious snobs wouldn't show up, though. Probably no Mitnick or Jello. I wouldn't miss them.

    1. Re:These conferences need to be in cheaper venues by JavaLord · · Score: 2, Interesting

      *sigh* Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car ?

      I work in NYC, and I ride 3 different subways to get to and from work. I have never been harassed or seen anyone harassed on the subway. If anything the security on the subway systems in NYC is lax. I'm fairly dark skinned, with a buzz cut in my 20's, etc. If you think the police in NYC are 'facist' you are living in a fantasy world. They are way to busy fighting REAL crime in NYC to harass innocent people. It isn't like a small country town where roscoe has nothing to do so he's going to bust your balls/boobs.

      If I were holding a conference like this, I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city that is cheap as shit and as easy as possible to get to.

      Oh yeah, because cheap mid-western cities are easy to get to. Did you ever think large events are held in major cities because most people live near them? Why make EVERYONE travel? If you live near any state bordering NYC, NYC is very accessable and cheap to get to.

      Finally, you have to be close to a Motel 6 and within driving distance of cheap-ass RV parks.

      We can call it WHAT, "Whitetrash Hackers Avoiding Terrorists" that will rock.

      With that setup, you could run a slightly longer conference and do some more interesting things. Like a "best mod to bzFlag written in 48 hours" contest. Or whatever.

      Yeah, and when 1000 people want to take a break to go eat, and the local dennies has only 2 waitresses staffed and isn't equipped for that sort of thing you can watch everyone be pissed off. Or how about the nightlife in those midwestern towns? I'm sure going to club cattle must be a lot more interesting than the variety of clubs in NYC.

  2. cDc and 2600 by trifakir · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Cool, all the old geeks. I shall admit that I've always been sympathetic to the cause of the "good" hackers who fight for freedom of speach and all these liberties, many of your ancestors had died for...

    But on the other side, I wonder where is now and for them the border of what is allowed and what is not. Is this "hackers" ethics they define something too murky or it is non-existing at all? How do we prevent the "proceedings" about the "Distributed Password Cracking API" from their conference not going to the hands of terrorists whose next attempt will be to log-on to an airtraffic server? So, where is the balance?

    And last, I had a look at their schedule - they have a talk "How to talk to the press". Isn't this is the same old rotten smell of socialism (greenpeace)? Next is to teach them how to lay in front of trains...

  3. Re:Jello Biafra? by GAMMAH_DJ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Jello's talks usually focus on 'media hacking,' meaning that one becomes a source of media to introduce non-mainstream ideas to the public. His ideas on this topic are still releevant, especially today when US media consumers are all being fed from the same spoon.

  4. Re:For those who don't know who the great Jello is by Chairboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't forget that he also stated many times that he was glad the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. He said it was a good thing and that their deaths were worth it because he was convinced that the Cassini space probe (now orbiting Saturn) might have released plutonium into the atmosphere if it had been on board.

    Too bad for the families of the astronauts that he was able to seperate his politics from his humanity

  5. The real 2600 crew by pneuma_66 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have had the misfortune of working with several members of 2600, including their leader Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley). From my experience with them, they are full of self importance, and, a lot of the times ignorance. For the most part, you do not want to argue with them, because they are so stubborn, and, they feel they are the pinnacle of technical knowlege. Even if you tried arguing that 1+1=2, when they say 1+1=3, there is no way to win.
    I could go on and on, however, this probably will be modded into oblivion, so, there really is no point.

  6. Re:Jello Biafra? by bob+dobalina · · Score: 2, Interesting

    His ideas on this topic are still releevant, especially today when US media consumers are all being fed from the same spoon.

    So as an alternative, we feed everyone else from another spoon, on the Michael Moore conspiracy theorist axis?

    Someone else here wrote up a good analysis of the last HOPE, and I agree; he doesn't teach anyone to "think for themselves" unless that means thinking the same as him. He has a view that anyone opposed to him is a "Bush lackey" or "henchman of the right" or whatever (implying that everyone on the right is evil, which holds about as much water as saying every liberal is a communist).

    Like that guy said, when you start reflexively protesting every movement by the government, you've got issues. Biafra doesn't do anything to open a dialogue with the people across the aisle, to try to convince them of his views; instead he spits venom at them, labels them as categorically evil, turns his back and lets the exhortations of the choir to whom he preaches refuel his low self-esteem.

    --

    B

    "I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown

  7. Re:Jello Biafra? by Errorism · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I agree with GAMMAH DJ. People like Jello Biafra and Michael Moore aren't trying to impose their beliefs on you but make you think about ideas. They at least have the balls to stand up for what they believe in - something that a lot of people can't do. You could always be like Britney Spears (and sadly a lot of americans I would assume) and blindly follow and trust your president no matter what he does...hmmm, I believe the Nazis blindly followed and trusted their leader during WWII...