Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

Bringing back defcon TV would help a lot. Most of the time I'd rather watch a talk from the comfort of my room than fight the crowds.

i too would support that. can anyone with authority on the matter comment on things there? i mean, i've seen DEFCON content on the TVs in the skyboxes... are they separate from the hotel TV network? we haven't turned on a TV in our hotel room for the past three or four years at DEFCON now, so i'm not sure on things there.

still, someone who has been dealing with the Riv and can tell us exactly what their policies are on the DCTV system would be great to hear from here.

[evel aka matt]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

This was compounded with an estimation that the economy would slow things down, but based on the comments provided by some people who were only attending to see Adam Savage's talk, it is possible that the addition of his presentation brought more attendees than expected.
.

I know a couple people brought this up, but is Savage really such a luminary that he could spike DC's numbers?

I must admit, I'm a little surprised about the whole Savage thing. Granted, I didn't see his talk, so for all I know it was the best presentation ever given at Defcon, but he doesn't seem very "on topic" to me. Kinda a "umm...ok" moment pour moi. Which I guess also makes me a bit surprised about all the fawn'ing - as far as I'm concerned, Defcon has more celebrity status than Savage.

[krux]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

Bringing back defcon TV would help a lot. Most of the time I'd rather watch a talk from the comfort of my room than fight the crowds.

I think that would help relieve congestion a bit.

I agree with this one. That's one of the things I liked about Defcon at the Alexis.

[ShadinessDark]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

Well I do not know if my question is indiscreet but I would see all the videos of the conference DEFCON
Since video conference DEFCON only one I've seen that there are more but I am wrong or greetings

[noid]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

Well I do not know if my question is indiscreet but I would see all the videos of the conference DEFCON
Since video conference DEFCON only one I've seen that there are more but I am wrong or greetings

Video will be up in a few months..

[krux]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

2 additional points.

Many of us remember the days before the Riv over at the AP (and others even earlier hotels). While we had our issues at the AP, The one thing we all seem to miss is DCTV of the talks (not calling for it at the Riv, but hear me out) and the social allowance of room parties and the lawn / pool space

The DCTV thing was great because we did not have to bust our ass (or piss of the fire marshall) to goto talks we may have had a passing interest in and we could chill in a room with others and watch the talk out of the corner of our eye. Might it be possible in the 'top of the riv' and/or chillout areas to provide a simulcast of some of the more popular talks so as to relieve some congestion in the halls and to be an alternative to the music in those rooms and maybe, just maybe, spur some intelligent discussion about the topics being presented by those in the room. The Riv seems to have a no-broadcast policy, but
does that include internal to the hotel? Worth exploring I think.

I wonder if the defcon wireless network would be up to the task of attempting to multicast the defcon talks. Still doesn't get it to the rooms unfortunately.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

I wonder if the defcon wireless network would be up to the task of attempting to multicast the defcon talks. Still doesn't get it to the rooms unfortunately.

We had a discussion about this, and based on the number of video signals that would be required, it would be unfeasible. Several ideas for chopping up the multiple video feeds over different wifi networks, and then use of different channels for overlapping coverage while still maintaining the existing coverage for a data-only unicast network would not allow many people to "watch" the video.

Consider that to effectively multicast, you'd need to throttle down to the slowest speed (for range) that an 802.11* network could support and then multicast at that rate of speed. At 1 to 2 Mbps, you would be looking at speeds similar to what qik users get for live video when using full bandwidth and that is just for one video signal -- not counting each track.

Now. It might be possible to do with highly compressed *audio* for each track, and then make that available from a buffering server for even unicast users, but I think that would cause the 120+ users per access point to drop closer to the suggested 30-40 users per access point with on-going downloads, instead of opportunistic content downloads like what you see when people visit web pages and then read the content before choosing to download another one. On-going downloads and sessions that persist for a large percentage of users change how downloads are passed to users, and how many free "windows" of opportunity to send data which are available to send packets to associated clients.

Video is a difficult problem to solve. A possible solution could be created with a customized Access Point that is "video aware" in such a way that UDP packets are relayed as a base rate per frame to the slowest-connected users, while the fastest get more frame updates for any given live stream, but this would likely mean blending multiple layers from the Iso, OSI 7 layer model (or at least having higher layers control lower layers) and that could get messy if efficiency is desired. (Efficiency would likely be desired because of the weak processors built into many Access Points.)

A similar solution might be possible for audio, but would suffer in the same way as the video system.

If you know of a solution for these, then make a proposal. I'm not a network guy by trade, and don't keep up with the latest, "hotness," in the networking world.

[The Dark Tangent]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

We get one tv channel, but we are working on more. One is not enough for talks..

[DCFluX]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

I couldn't help but notice the Riviera had 3 channels running the same exact content.

[The Dark Tangent]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

For those not aware, one of the problems with the DC Movie channel is because other hotel guests could tune to our channel and see our 'free' movies.

I'm guessing if we end up with three to use, one would be updates, one would be dctv and no idea what the other will be. The other option is have three of the four (or five!) tracks of speaking be assigned.

Ideas?

[TheCotMan]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

For those not aware, one of the problems with the DC Movie channel is because other hotel guests could tune to our channel and see our 'free' movies.

I'm guessing if we end up with three to use, one would be updates, one would be dctv and no idea what the other will be. The other option is have three of the four (or five!) tracks of speaking be assigned.

Ideas?

If we have 3 channels, and the TV and system support "SAP" then 2 of the channels could be quartered with top left being speaker1, top right being speaker1 slides, bottom left being speaker2, and bottom right being speaker2 slides. Then Primary Audio would be speaker 1, and SAP would be speaker 2.

Then the same could be done for the second channel with Speaker 3 and Speaker 4.
The same could be done for DC-TV, and announcements, but I think that would really suck. to not have movies full screen. Of course, if movies were all wide-screen, and letterbox, and announcements could just be text along the bottom as scrolling text, not overwriting the movies, that might work.

[ShadinessDark]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

Video will be up in a few months..

Thank you very much wait while the estare learn more about the forum

[DCFluX]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

We could come up with modulators all day long, the biggest hurdle would be channel mapping the TVs.

[pand0ra]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

There needs to be more room both for walking and for the talks. I think the red goons really need to work on communicating with each other. Before Johnny's talk one goon was telling people that the left side was for his talk and the right side was for a different one. Then another goon was telling people on the right side the same thing. Followed by a lot of shouting and pushing. What if the goons had gone low tech and used ropes (like in the movie theaters)? That could have fixed a ton of problems for getting into talks. I'm not impressed with the Riv staff, they suck, they treat people very poorly and even make checking in painful and difficult.
Loved the talks on the CTF. It would be nice if the general audience could be more involved in seeing what was going on. The goons handled seating in the talks pretty well.

[Kingpin]

Re: Post DEFCON 17: thoughts, ideas, suggestions -- make Defcon 18 better!

BTW: No diss to Kingpin, but the badges sucked this year. It's not that in itself it wasn't cool but to get the secret voltron mode I had to acquire *ALL* of the badges and a secret non existant (except for a solitary one I heard....) Uber badge? LAME

Jeez, thanks for the constructive criticism. It really warms my heart.

Yes, the physical puzzle required all seven pieces. Sorry you didn't like the idea, but lots of people enjoyed the challenge of hooking up with other people to complete the puzzle. There were 2 UBER badges floating around the con, which was intentionally part of the challenge.

However, if you had looked in the source code, talked to others, or attended my talk, you would know that not all the badges are required for the "secret voltron mode." The badges supported a wired badge-to-badge communication and would work with any number of badges (from 2 to 7). The different badge types are also individually addressable, meaning you could attach seven HUMAN badges if you wanted to by just changing the address of each badge. What you decide to do once the badges are connected together was left as an exercise for those who wanted to hack the badges. All I did was merely make some interesting *functionality* available, not hand everything to you on a silver platter. That would defeat the purpose of hacking, eh?

You will never be able to please everyone. Some people like the "real" electronic badge, some people don't give a shit, some people don't want to stand in line all day to get one, some people do. All I can do is design a badge that meets specifications agreed upon by me and the DEFCON staff and hope people enjoy it. Regarding some other people's posts about waiting in line for badges, there are lots of decisions going on behind the scenes as to how to deal with badges, registration, etc. and there's not just an easy answer. Regardless of the badge type (electronic, paper, metal, etc.) dealing with many thousands of people will *always* be a clusterfuck.

As I've said for the past few years, if you don't like the badge, modify it to do something better or come to me and DT with constructive comments and things we could do to make it better. Most people will never know the challenges and design constraints we face on a daily basis to get these things done. It's not like we just throw this thing together at the last minute. Thought is given to every aspect of the badge and I resent people who say anything otherwise.

Anyone who bitches about the badge or design and provides no useful commentary does nothing to help the process other than waste our time.

Joe