New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

[sk00t]

Okay, as was stated by many commenters, my last post / poll on the con CD's was very much a binary question of "CD or no CD".

So here's a more open question, folks. It's very clear that folks would like some way to get preview DefCon talk / contest / puzzle / karaoke when they arrive at Con.

On the other hand, a number of people seemed to feel that meatspace media is not necessarily how they'd like to see it.

So, how would you like to see your DefCon served up at reg time?

[sintax_error]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

I'm all for .iso hosted on the tubes. Easy to update last minute, cheap (by comparison) and available to anyone who wants it, not just those physically at con, and no running out of them. It's a home run in my opinion.

[Metatron]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

I went for Flash / thumb drive sponsored by some energy drink company, as you have the content there and then and there is no hunting around or waiting around when the servers are getting hit hard/raped by someone. You also have another Defcon souvenir, which is always a winner.

[HighWiz]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

"Flash / thumb drive sponsored by some energy drink company"

I thought DefCon itself wouldn't have corporate sponsors... So if you did this, that could very quickly become a slippery slope.

[Metatron]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

"Flash / thumb drive sponsored by some energy drink company"

I thought DefCon itself wouldn't have corporate sponsors... So if you did this, that could very quickly become a slippery slope.

Out of curiosity, I can see the issue with having sponsors in the technology industries as they could try to pressure and/or set the tone for a conference, but drinks and food vendors would surely have no issues or want to control anything, as all they care about is selling massive quantities of their fairly low cost products?

I guess there might be an issue if someone did a chemical/quantitative analysis of a product, but would someone put such a talk together or have they in the past?

[HighWiz]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

Out of curiosity, I can see the issue with having sponsors in the technology industries as they could try to pressure and/or set the tone for a conference, but drinks and food vendors would surely have no issues or want to control anything, as all they care about is selling massive quantities of their fairly low cost products?

I guess there might be an issue if someone did a chemical/quantitative analysis of a product, but would someone put such a talk together or have they in the past?

I guess I may be too overly cautious, but what happens when/if they ask DefCon not to let a talk happen because they don't want to be involved in the controversy that may arise around it and don't want it to hurt their brand.

[Xeon]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

I voted ISO because frankly, my laptop does not have a CD drive (and as of yet, I have not missed it). Now digital media and compression are not my expertise, but I would think a tar would be a smaller download than the ISO and I'd be all for that.

It would be nice to have an internet copy and a local DC net copy to address congestion concerns.

I did not vote for the USB drive option because of the whole corporate sponsor thing. HighWiz adequately stated the concerns regarding this.

[hexjunkie]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

I guess I may be too overly cautious, but what happens when/if they ask DefCon not to let a talk happen because they don't want to be involved in the controversy that may arise around it and don't want it to hurt their brand.

So what happens when a company doesn't want their employee to do a talk because it may tarnish the reputation of the company :) (sorry just playing devil's advocate)

[eris]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

Why does the usb drive option need to have a corporate sponsor anyway? Those things are cheap as heck and available to buy in gross with the DC logo itself, by and for DC.

[Thorn]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

I voted ISO because frankly, my laptop does not have a CD drive (and as of yet, I have not missed it). Now digital media and compression are not my expertise, but I would think a tar would be a smaller download than the ISO and I'd be all for that.

It would be nice to have an internet copy and a local DC net copy to address congestion concerns.

I did not vote for the USB drive option because of the whole corporate sponsor thing. HighWiz adequately stated the concerns regarding this.

Jeez, people over-think this stuff way too much. I ignored the "sponsored by some energy drink company" although, I must say, I'm not sure why sk00t put that on there in the first place. It just confuses the issue. Anyway, I voted based solely on the media type.

A tar isn't smaller than a ISO. TAR is an archive (Tape ARchive) for ease in retaining a group of files, and ISO is an image of a disk. A tar might be smaller, if it is compressed, but then the decompression is one more hoop that's required for people to go through. Not that it's a big deal, but it may also require downloading more software depending on the OS/distro the user has, and then a possibly a configure; make; make install cycle.

USB Flash has all of the advantages of the CD (instantly available individual copy, portable) with none of the disadvantages of CD (an old format that new machines don't support, large physical size), nor the disadvantages of an ISO (fighting other people for server and connection bandwidth, slow downloads, needing to be online on a potentially hostile network), and aside from the same mounting issue a CD might have, a flash drive doesn't require any special software to be read at the directory and file level.

[xor]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

While I voted for the flash drive, I would just as easily accept a downloadable iso. While I'm sure the merits of the energy expended to host the iso, vs the environmental impact of a cd/flash drive, can be debated here, the less plastic in the world, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

xor

[Jarett]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

I voted iso on the net but would prefer tar. i would not trust a USB... This is defcon after all. Same with a cd. It would instantly hit the trash.

Also, when traveling, I am usually working off a tablet or phone w/o cdrom or usb, but with 3g/4g and a shell.

[Nikita]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

I voted iso on the net but would prefer tar. i would not trust a USB... This is defcon after all. Same with a cd. It would instantly hit the trash.

Also, when traveling, I am usually working off a tablet or phone w/o cdrom or usb, but with 3g/4g and a shell.

That makes me sad that you throw away the CD. It's safe you know, we make it, we test it, we hand it out at registration when you get your badge.

[HighWiz]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

So what happens when a company doesn't want their employee to do a talk because it may tarnish the reputation of the company :) (sorry just playing devil's advocate)

I don't understand how that's playing devils advocate? You're comparing oranges and chairs.

If a company doesn't want their employee to talk at DefCon they ask them not to speak. I believe a few have done this before.

And an employee talking at DefCon is a very different thing then a company being an active sponsor of an event.

I don't know how old you are, but this is some pretty basic shit. An entry level marketing or business class in college should have told you all about this.

You're free to PM me if you like and I can further explain the situation to you, since I don't want to hijack skoot's thread.

[Xeon]

Re: New poll: What format would you like for your DefCon media?

Jeez, people over-think this stuff way too much. I ignored the "sponsored by some energy drink company" although, I must say, I'm not sure why sk00t put that on there in the first place. It just confuses the issue. Anyway, I voted based solely on the media type.

Ok, maybe anticipating possible sponsorship pitfalls is over-thinking this. However, the USB drives will be an equal or greater challenge to using a CD. They will still need to be purchased, and a final image of the data made. Is programming a USB drive more difficult than stamping a CD? I don't know. I just have an image in my head of a manual USB stick programming party a few days before the con.

A tar isn't smaller than a ISO. TAR is an archive (Tape ARchive) for ease in retaining a group of files, and ISO is an image of a disk. A tar might be smaller, if it is compressed, but then the decompression is one more hoop that's required for people to go through. Not that it's a big deal, but it may also require downloading more software depending on the OS/distro the user has, and then a possibly a configure; make; make install cycle.

I agree, it's not a big deal. It could even take a few hoops and some software to use an ISO. I'm not sure a universal download format exists, so any download is going to require some hoop-jumping.

USB Flash has all of the advantages of the CD (instantly available individual copy, portable) with none of the disadvantages of CD (an old format that new machines don't support, large physical size), nor the disadvantages of an ISO (fighting other people for server and connection bandwidth, slow downloads, needing to be online on a potentially hostile network), and aside from the same mounting issue a CD might have, a flash drive doesn't require any special software to be read at the directory and file level.

The ISO option has the distinct advantage of allowing a more up-to-date copy of the data. With either a USB drive or a CD there will have to be some time when the data is copied well in advance of distribution. That said, there's never been a problem with out-of-date data that I've heard of, so this could be a null point.

Each media type will have some drawbacks.