How would you make Defcon 21 better?

[RivkaS]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

I do like the idea of having a forum to discuss talks after the fact. One possible way to mitigate creating a bunch of forums that no ones uses, is generating the forums during the Q&A session after the talk. My reasoning is, if no one goes to the Q&A then no one would would use the forum. For example the goons that notify the Q&A that their time is almost up, could ask if a forum needs to be created to keep the conversation going. For any others that would like to continue the discussions that did not attend the Q&A, they could always just request on here to have a forum generated.

Q&A is a good idea for finding interested people, especially meatspace.

What I really want is a bulletin board at Defcon for things like. "I want to talk about X presentation, I will be in place X at Y time" "Did anyone catch Z?" "Does anyone want to go to tourist attraction Q?"

DC101 went on about how important it is to be social. With in excess of 13,000 people I need some way to filter. Having a place to post and retrieve info would be one way to find people to talk to.

Any other suggestions?

For now, where would I post a thread asking if anyone caught the social engineering skytalk?

[Quiet]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Does anyone know why we were unable to take food or drinks into the Penn and Teller talks? I don't remember this being the case last year. Luckily I had just ran out of alcohol before the talk so I didn't have to throw anything out.

In order to use the Penn & Teller theater, must abide by their policies.

No outside food or drink (water in a sealed/resealable container is exempt & allowed) in the Penn & Teller theater is a Penn & Teller theater policy. This restriction was enforced last year by the security Goons working that venue and by the Penn & Teller theater security/ushers.

I know last year, since I worked it...
The security Goons would inform attendees "no outside food or drink" and if you had any to toss it or to drink/eat it before you got to the Penn & Teller theater security/ushers. If the Penn & Teller theater security/ushers saw you with food/drinks, they would tell you to toss it or prevent you from entering. If the Penn & Teller theater security/ushers caught you within the theater with food/drink, they would escort you out of the theater.

New this year was the bag checks for the Penn & Teller theater.
This was also policy set by the Penn & Teller theater.

[theprez98]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

frankly, i haven't understood for AGES why the speaker/presenter is EVER the focus of videos. it should be a HUGE image showing just their slides... either a tiny P-in-P with the speaker or no speaker at all.

i HATE when i am watching a video of a talk and it cuts to the speaker. i don't give a damn about seeing them. i want to see their content.

+1

Video of the speakers is almost always unnecessary. Given the choice, I'd choose speaker audio + video of slides all the time.

This seems to be a perennial complaint. Has anyone ever explained why no change?

[RivkaS]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

"What I was thinking was more of a sub forum in the Recovery forum called "Presentation Discussion" or something like that where people could start a thread about a particular presentation they wanted to discuss"

I think one area is a great idea! I wasn't looking to put a huge job into the moderators' laps.

[GuloGuloDesu]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

This year was a really weird year for me. It was still fun, but some strange things happened that made it weird. Some of this will be suggestions, some of this will be semi-rants.

Awesome job on the registration this year. I had planned on showing up early to stand in line to get a badge, but honestly I passed out drunk from the Pre-Defcon. So when I had shown up I just walked right up and purchased my badge. Excellent job.
I know in previous years I waited in line mainly because I was concerned that badges would run out. This year that was not the case, and I loved the fact that extra badges were being sold after the con. I purchased a few extra, and as soon as I find out where I can order a couple more from, I will purchase a few more. I think the selling of extra badges should take place every year, that way I can keep my main badge semi-prestine (minus the hardware hacking village) and I have other badges that I can hack around with all year round.

One of my biggest issues this year was the crowds. I had a list of talks that I wanted to attend, and despite showing up 20 - 30 mins early for the talks I was not able to attend any of them (except for the talk in Penn and Teller). This slightly changed my outlook on Defcon. Since I found that I was unable to attend talks I spent more time socializing and playing in the contest areas. Now I do not stay at the Rio, mainly because I have to continue to work, and I don't want to risk compromising my work at Defcon.
My first suggestion with the rooms filling up would be to also broadcast Defcon TV over the Defcon network or online. That way I could have sat in the Chill Out room or the Contest area and watched the talks. Now this may drive down the DVD sales, so my next suggestion would be to setup projectors in either the Contest or Chill Out rooms to broadcast the video. Then you could use either radio or Internet steaming for the audio. This would make it more difficult (not impossible) to record the sessions, but still allow some over flow for the talks.

One thing that appears to be an oversight, was the lack of the track 5 Q&A room. The on talk that I did attend we ended up in the hallway trying to talk over everyone for the Q&A. While it worked, it would have been nice to be in a quieter area, and to be able to sit.

Does anyone know why we were unable to take food or drinks into the Penn and Teller talks? I don't remember this being the case last year. Luckily I had just ran out of alcohol before the talk so I didn't have to throw anything out.

For the Lockpick village, I thought that it was a bit cramped, but in the end it wasn't all that bad compared to previous years. For those of you complaining, why not move to the Chill Out room or the Contest area. While I did not have a lot of my gear with me I would have gladly taken some beginners with me for some basic lock picking. Even though I only spent a very short amount of time in the village I did help out a handful of beginners. I'm not that advanced, so I am only able to assist beginners.
Next year why don't we start a thread in the Lockpick village forum for people that would be willing to take small groups else where to learn? Maybe we could approach Toool and see if we could take some of the locks with us in a couple of break out sessions.

I heard some complaints about the HHV being in too small of a room. The issue isn't with the size of the room for the HHV, the issue is with the impatience of everyone. If you went into the HHV on Saturday or Sunday there was plenty of room. The issue is that everyone tries to squeeze in there on Friday. On Sunday, other than the solder table, it was close to empty, or at least the couple of times that I wandered in there.
I would suggest more solder stations though. I know most of the stations are donated by the people that run the HHV, but there are normally lines for the stations that last hours. I have two possible suggestions for this:
I don't know how plausible the first would be, but have a few more people familiar with soldering helping out with the stations. Basically they would help to expedite the soldering of the badges. Keep the beginner section open to teach people to solder, and the other stations flowing for quick mods. This year we received 2 PS/2 and 1 VGA connector with the badges. A lot of people just wanted to get those soldered onto their badge and then leave. Expediting this process would have freed up a lot of space and people for ones that actually wanted to mod their badges. I'm not saying solder the badges for them, but for the ones that are slow try to help them along a bit. (Viking drums or whips)
Now the second suggestion has more to do with equipment than anything else. I have a couple of solder stations that I would be willing to bring them in for use in the HHV, but I don't have time to babysit them. Would it be possible for me to drop off some of my equipment with the HHV organizers at the beginning of the con, and then pick them up at the end of the con? I would find some way to mark my equipment to identify it as mine, but allow others to use it. Granted this wouldn't be fool proof and I know there would be a chance that I would lose some equipment, but in theory that risk would be mitigated a little bit by relying on the HHV organizers.
One last suggestion for the HHV, would it be possible to have a separate network setup for the HHV? Meaning another VLAN that we could hook into to give the HHV Internet access. We found it rather difficult to connect to the Defcon wireless this year, and we needed some tools and research from the Internet for the changes we were making to the badges.

Along the lines of my last suggestion for the HHV, the wireless was really difficult to connect to. I actually built up a custom OS that I planned on running on the unsecured Defcon wireless just to see how long I could last. But I was not able to connect for more than a minute. I am assuming this is due to deauth's being broadcast. What if we setup another contest akin to the Wall of Sheep, where we track down the deauth'ers? A little mob justice? Sending deauth packets is not rocket science, and the ones that are doing it are just being jack asses. So I think hunting them down and giving a little public humiliation, and or public canings would be a nice touch. Or maybe build a little Faraday cage room that has it's own wireless that they can all go into and deauth each other as much as they want without screwing with the rest of the con.

One last question: Is there something or someone specific that we are supposed to do or contact about black out drunks at the parties? I had a couple of idiots that became so drunk that they were unable to take care of themselves or behave in public. For some stupid reason I took pity upon them and spent several hours making sure they didn't get arrested and or drown in their own vomit. After which, I helped to carry their dumbasses back to their hotels so they may live for another day.

I do like the idea of having a forum to discuss talks after the fact. One possible way to mitigate creating a bunch of forums that no ones uses, is generating the forums during the Q&A session after the talk. My reasoning is, if no one goes to the Q&A then no one would would use the forum. For example the goons that notify the Q&A that their time is almost up, could ask if a forum needs to be created to keep the conversation going. For any others that would like to continue the discussions that did not attend the Q&A, they could always just request on here to have a forum generated.

[birukun]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

To encourage discussion both at the con and after, maybe add a space at the bottom of the badge for 3 digits / Area Code?

I epoxied a backing to mine after the registration desk warned me mine can snap if I manhandle it. (badge issuing was AWESOME this year, shortest wait in YEARS, and I got there at 1100 on Thursday)

Anyhow, sorry for the ADOS, but I added my NAME and AREA CODE to some extra backing that extended below the badge.

Not super visible but I was hoping someone from the 858 would stop me and we could exchange ideas/info at the con and then AFTER.

My .02 - someone already covered the DCTV with presentation screen instead of speaker thing.

And I got a room at the Rio this year, so I could use the DCTV since I knew it would be a cluster getting in and out. Thanks for the circus tent AP memories of Hacker Jeopardy and the underperforming A/C......

And another note - why doesn't anyone dress up anymore for any party? I saw Renderman and his lady dressed up. I know no one is stopping me but it seems like the large crowd is almost too serious sometimes. I vow to continue wearing my tinfoil hats. Damn now I am just whining....... :-)

[TheCotMan]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Look man. I'm an idea guy. Implementation is the hard part and I avoid the hard part like it has Syphilis.

Hah!

Actually, maybe we will get some ideas in this thread from folks that are interested in this idea. If we don't even get feedback on how to do it, then there's probably not enough interest in the idea to seriously consider it.

I like this idea. So far, the only new addition is yours: get a link from the list of presentations on the main site to a thread for each presentation. Let's see if other people like the idea and have other suggestions to make it more likely to succeed than last time.

And to be fair, there is nothing stopping individuals from starting a thread to discuss a particular presentation now, so there very well may not be interest in the idea.

Yes.

BTW, Nulltone came back again this year. It was great to see him/hang out some.

That is great! :-)

I told him last year, if he finds he has the time to dedicate to moderating on the forums, and wants to moderate again, he is welcome back. We're kind of like a mafia; he was a made man, so he will always be a made man. :-)

[Chris]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Look man. I'm an idea guy. Implementation is the hard part and I avoid the hard part like it has Syphilis.

Actually, maybe we will get some ideas in this thread from folks that are interested in this idea. If we don't even get feedback on how to do it, then there's probably not enough interest in the idea to seriously consider it. And to be fair, there is nothing stopping individuals from starting a thread to discuss a particular presentation now, so there very well may not be interest in the idea.

That said, I went to my first presentation that I wasn't giving this year since probably DEF CON 9. I thought the talks this year (by topic only of course except the one I went to where I can speak from experience) were top notch (for the most part) and can actually see a renewed interest in discussion about them.

BTW, Nulltone came back again this year. It was great to see him/hang out some.

This was the idea of Note-Ex, but it remained open after con.

The idea for Defcon 14: Forum: [forum=140]Speakers/Presentations: notes, comments?[/forum] was meant to exist and persist after Defcon for post-con discussions. It remained open as long as the post-defcon 14 forum.

I'm willing to make something like this again, but what would we do differently?

[TheCotMan]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

If I remember correctly (and I may not) both the Note-Ex and DC14 ideas were for info exchange during the Con. This is probably not ever going to work because too many people are afraid to even get online at DEF CON.

The way I understood his post was asking for a Post Con discussion area. What I was thinking was more of a sub forum in the Recovery forum called "Presentation Discussion" or something like that where people could start a thread about a particular presentation they wanted to discuss. This reduces overhead (there will always be some talks that NO ONE wants to talk about so making a forum for each presentation is probably overkill and is a lot of work) and also allows folks that want to talk about a specific topic to start the discussion themselves and it can go where it goes.

Thoughts?

This was the idea of Note-Ex, but it remained open after con.

The idea for Defcon 14: Forum: [forum=140]Speakers/Presentations: notes, comments?[/forum] was meant to exist and persist after Defcon for post-con discussions. It remained open as long as the post-defcon 14 forum.

I'm willing to make something like this again, but what would we do differently?

[Chris]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

If I remember correctly (and I may not) both the Note-Ex and DC14 ideas were for info exchange during the Con. This is probably not ever going to work because too many people are afraid to even get online at DEF CON.

The way I understood his post was asking for a Post Con discussion area. What I was thinking was more of a sub forum in the Recovery forum called "Presentation Discussion" or something like that where people could start a thread about a particular presentation they wanted to discuss. This reduces overhead (there will always be some talks that NO ONE wants to talk about so making a forum for each presentation is probably overkill and is a lot of work) and also allows folks that want to talk about a specific topic to start the discussion themselves and it can go where it goes.

Thoughts?

We have attempted this in the past. Before I was an Admin, Nulltone and others tried to push "Note-Exchange" or "Note-Ex" as a space for people to share links and ideas about presentations, contests or other events at around Defcon 10. It did not take off as expected.

Around Defcon 14, I thought a reason for lack of involvement and contributed content was a lack of pre-created spaces. For Defcon 14, I pre-populated a new forum with a new thread for each and every presentation and speaker:

Defcon 14: [forum=140]Forum: Speakers/Presentations: notes, comments?[/forum]

It also did not take off, so I did not try it again.

The forums are a continuously evolving medium for exchange of ideas. many of the changes to the forums have appeared as a result of user feedback or proposals. Everything we do is an experiment, and nothing is, "written in stone." We reserve rights to stop any experiment if it is not working as we want.

I am not against trying again, but...

* What can we do differently this time that we did not do last time?
* Do you have other suggestions on things we should try?
* How will we make this more successful?

Chris' suggestion is a good one. For each location on say, the Defcon 21 page of speaker talks with links to PDF, and eventually video/audio, maybe we could get an addition for "discussion" which would link to a pre-populated thread in a forum?

What else?

[TheCotMan]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

I'd love a way to find people who are interested in talking more about the presentations as the talks often bring up things I want to discuss. There are so many people that I am not likely to just happen to run into people from the same audience.

Do people do that in the forums between cons?

It hasn't been something that has happened a lot in the past, but I think that could be on us. I think this is a good idea and will discuss the viability of having a "Presentation Discussion" sub-forum created. We'll have to get the word out through the main DEF CON site if we do it so that people know there is a place they can discuss the talks. Let us look into it and see if this isn't something we can do.

Thanks for the suggestion.

We have attempted this in the past. Before I was an Admin, Nulltone and others tried to push "Note-Exchange" or "Note-Ex" as a space for people to share links and ideas about presentations, contests or other events at around Defcon 10. It did not take off as expected.

Around Defcon 14, I thought a reason for lack of involvement and contributed content was a lack of pre-created spaces. For Defcon 14, I pre-populated a new forum with a new thread for each and every presentation and speaker:

Defcon 14: [forum=140]Forum: Speakers/Presentations: notes, comments?[/forum]

It also did not take off, so I did not try it again.

The forums are a continuously evolving medium for exchange of ideas. many of the changes to the forums have appeared as a result of user feedback or proposals. Everything we do is an experiment, and nothing is, "written in stone." We reserve rights to stop any experiment if it is not working as we want.

I am not against trying again, but...

* What can we do differently this time that we did not do last time?
* Do you have other suggestions on things we should try?
* How will we make this more successful?

Chris' suggestion is a good one. For each location on say, the Defcon 21 page of speaker talks with links to PDF, and eventually video/audio, maybe we could get an addition for "discussion" which would link to a pre-populated thread in a forum?

What else?

[arose4beni]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

This is something that we think about often. The thing is, the Lockpick Village is something of a goldfish at any con where TOOOL appears... it swells up to fit the size of its environment. You give us a 200 sq. foot room and we will fill it. You give us a 2,000 sq. foot room and we will fill it. You give us the goddamn contest area (no one is suggesting it) and we will fill it.

The thing is, this is DEFCON, not LockCon. You are supposed to see lots of various things at the con. What we often try to do is specifically engineer situations where people will stop by, learn, try some things, and then run out of shit to do and leave the Lockpick Village. That last part is the hardest... because it is achieved, in part, by keeping seating limited and forcing people to go elsewhere.

We would never want the LPVillage to exceed, say, the whole Tropical room space. (Last year we were in 3 of the 6 subdivisions of the Tropical room. This year we had 4 of them).. while we might grow a tiny bit more in the future, we can't just grow to meet demand, because demand is an ever-moving target.

I completely understand that logic. You want to make sure everyone gets a chance to learn while making sure people move on and see other sites of the con.

As for village closing six, what if next year you sold old or used locks for like five bucks at the end of each day? This way, newer pickers who don't have a lock collection can practice after hours. Maybe seasoned pickers would be willing to donate locks they don't want anymore for a small discount at the TOOOL vendor? I don't know, just a thought.

[Chris]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

I'd love a way to find people who are interested in talking more about the presentations as the talks often bring up things I want to discuss. There are so many people that I am not likely to just happen to run into people from the same audience.

Do people do that in the forums between cons?

It hasn't been something that has happened a lot in the past, but I think that could be on us. I think this is a good idea and will discuss the viability of having a "Presentation Discussion" sub-forum created. We'll have to get the word out through the main DEF CON site if we do it so that people know there is a place they can discuss the talks. Let us look into it and see if this isn't something we can do.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[RivkaS]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

I'd love a way to find people who are interested in talking more about the presentations as the talks often bring up things I want to discuss. There are so many people that I am not likely to just happen to run into people from the same audience.

Do people do that in the forums between cons?

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Here's some Lockpick Village feedback responses...

I think the Lockpicking Villiage could have been in a bigger venue. Having the TOOOL vendor and talks in the area was great, but it seemed to become very crowded very quickly. If it is not possible to find a bigger room, then possibly a different layout of village to allow for more seating.

This is something that we think about often. The thing is, the Lockpick Village is something of a goldfish at any con where TOOOL appears... it swells up to fit the size of its environment. You give us a 200 sq. foot room and we will fill it. You give us a 2,000 sq. foot room and we will fill it. You give us the goddamn contest area (no one is suggesting it) and we will fill it.

The thing is, this is DEFCON, not LockCon. You are supposed to see lots of various things at the con. What we often try to do is specifically engineer situations where people will stop by, learn, try some things, and then run out of shit to do and leave the Lockpick Village. That last part is the hardest... because it is achieved, in part, by keeping seating limited and forcing people to go elsewhere.

We would never want the LPVillage to exceed, say, the whole Tropical room space. (Last year we were in 3 of the 6 subdivisions of the Tropical room. This year we had 4 of them).. while we might grow a tiny bit more in the future, we can't just grow to meet demand, because demand is an ever-moving target.

Lockpick Village - NO Seat Saving. While I understand if you gotta pee, that's fine. Say like a 5-10 minute policy. But I watched a number of seats being saved for folks that either did not show up, or left and never returned, and was still being saved after 30 minutes.

that sucks. we did not notice that happening.

you are right... calling fives is a decent play, but holding seats forever is not.

For me it was the lock pick village that was to small for my biased tastes. I wish that the villages were open later. I realize that the rooms are supported by volunteers and that all the spaces through out Defcon seemed to run at capacity so I started to think of other ways to accommodate my own interest in lock picking.

yeah, we really do appreciate folks' desire to learn and play some more... but we work our volunteers to the damn bone and can't keep the Village open any longer than 6 PM.

what we need is a way to allow people to take public locks elsewhere and to hang out in the public areas when the village is closed. it's what we had at HOPE, frankly... a way for the main TOOOL gear to be secured after hours, but still letting folk play with some of the public locks all night long.

I thought it was very convenient to have toools in that space with their products. I wondered if the other pick vendors complained about special treatment? If they did I would say toools earned the privilege with all the equipment and people they provided.

TOOOL pays for a second vendor table, actually... so there's no ill will. Most folk would not deny, however, that there may be too many folk selling picks now overall. In the past Roamer tried to limit things so that there wasn't too much crossover between vendors but there have been some more shifts in recent times. I heard someone say there were picks for sale in the Contest area this year, even, but i didn't see that. They may have just seen the College of Lockpicking table advertising.

LOCKPICK VILLAGE: Sadly was WAY too small. I didnt much like the arrangement of the seats either. There were only 3 round tables that sat about 10 people each. The room had a lot more space available to fit more people. I had already been introduced to lockpicking so I was using that time to introduce a friend because I knew they would have tools on the table to use before advising my friend to just go out and buy a set. We couldnt get a seat at any of the picking tables so we tried back multiple times, but had no better luck.

Actually, the room had terrific use of space and there was virtually no other way we could have put MORE tables in there than we had already.

However, you are basically admitting that you and your friends were a little bit of the problem in terms of crowding... if you have some experience already, it would have been best if you chose to sit in the public hangout area with your friends and show them some picking elsewhere. I'm not saying that we wouldn't have wanted you folk there... just that i wish more people would hang with their picks and locks in the public con space, too. Sometimes i think that when we were given our own room it caused the rest of the con areas to have way less lockpicking happening.

the TOOOL shirts were not all the same color and one table didnt even have a TOOOL shirt.

this was a genuine problem and one that we fixed on Day Two... the black staff shirts didn't arrive until Friday night.

As far as "one table didn't have a TOOOL staff member"... we are not under an obligation to staff each and every table with someone. We have some volunteers who mingle and hang out, but this isn't a Black Hat training where you get personal hand-holding every step of the way. It's supposed to be the community teaching each other. The TOOOL members plan the seeds (during the instructional lessons which run every hour, for pete's sake) and then people should be willing to show one another what they have learned, and so on and so on.

I would like to see a donations box to pay for replacement tools that go missing during these events. I planned on making such a donation, but changed my mind after arrival.

If you bought anything at all from TOOOL, then you made a donation. TOOOL's funding comes principally from pick sales and that is what we use to replace all our gear. We start every single Lockpick Village with brand new public gear and most of it is trashed by the end of the con. What's left gets sent to chapters to rebuild and play with. What few public picks remain tend to be damaged. TOOOL usually eats it for about $3000 every DEFCON, just in terms of public hardware. Thankfully, our sales cover that and some other expenses.

I would have preferred a few long tables to increase the # of seats and allow the TOOOL crew to walk between ends to assist as needed. the style this year was more of a round-about campfire situation where everyone was supposed to listen to Chief Runs with Beer for a friendly how-to session, but instead everyone just tuned it out and did their own thing.

I'm not sure what all that means, but it seemed every time i was around for the half-past-the-hour lessons that the rows of chairs in the "classroom" area were full, then afterwards people who wanted to were hanging out at the round tables.

did anyone ever notice a time when there was an instructional lesson taking place on the big screen and the village attendees were just tuning it out?