How would you make Defcon 21 better?

[syrel]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

If anyone witnesses problems with security goons please find any other red shirt goon and ask to speak to their team lead. We have a direct power structure and we take serious complaints very seriously. If there's any incidents then please report them IMMEDIATELY. Waiting until con is over and then posting vague complaints on the internet doesn't help anyone.

couldn't we have a "suggestion box" or even just an old school pen and paper feedback form or survey? Previous talk of surveymonkey was dismissed due to potential tampering like anything else available on the web. it might be nice to have a detachable paper form inside the program so we can write down things as they occur, maybe even rate the speakers, and get whatever feedback you require.

I am sorry your feelings got hurt. Find me next year - I am sure I will be alot less sarcastic after having to deal with humans making wisecracks like your last comment against my sister goon. No seriously. We should chat.

-blak

I will try to find you next year if nothing more than to bring to your attention these major issues (should they reoccur) and to have an official witness of such incidents. It's almost required since goons don't have name badges or any kind of identification (at least not that I noticed...did't see any last year either and everyone seems to cling to the shield on anonymity), so reporting goons could be difficult. If I were to report the really angry dude that yelledat people in line, I would only be able to describe him as a skinny white guy in a black goon shirt with crazy elvis hair and a backpack moving towards the P&T theater. Do you know whom I speak of? Mighta been easier if he was wearing a goon jersey with a number on the back.

But I'd be happy to chat more with a goon such as yourself and hear your perspective and for you to hear mine as well. And in regard to the sister goon comment, she technically deserved it as it was very accurate given the circumstances. Perhaps it wasn't fair as you may have viewed it as an attack against all goons, but in the same light so was the goon's attack against all of us in line....we just tolerated it because we didn't want to get OUT of line. Perhaps next year I will yell back and maybe take some forbidden pictures.

[Salem]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

If your feelings got hurt because you were in a group of people who was yelled at, bummer. Toughen up a bit, the world is a harsh place.

Goons are staff, if one tells you to stop taking pictures, you stop taking pictures. Lines and crowds are loud. If a goon is yelling, it's likely needed so as to be heard by all in question. The photography debate has gone on for a long time, and on more than one occasion I've seen someone taking a picture get physically confronted by the person he took a picture of.

If there was a real issue, you would have left the line and dealt with it. Instead, you choose to vent afterwards with vague details.

since goons don't have name badges or any kind of identification

Nearly everyone has an avatar badge or nametag of some sort, and I highly doubt that if you asked that goon for his name he would lie about it.

then tell us who we go to complain to during the con and you might see a few more complaints than those willing to post them here

As was stated; find an on duty red shirt, have him/her radio their lead. Your complaint will be listened to and acted upon appropriately.

[b0n3z]

Rollercon 2102 attendee checking in. I'm the guy who had the derby girls present the award at closing ceremonies for our contest:

Thank you for that!

A prime example of this was the Meet the Fed: Policy panel with 10 panelists. However, by the time the copious introductions were done, there was little time for actual questions.

I was the ginger red shirt in the background at the panel and the Q&A. I agree that there was probably more questions and things that needed to be answered, but limited time. Priest did mention that if you have any other questions to get with them AFTER the Q&A panel and discuss things with them 1 on 1. Hell I even have questions for them that I didn't get answered due to working, but they were able to be found relatively easy.

4. Disrespectful goons: While I understand that the goons have to deal with a lot of D1cks, and drunks... they choose to be a goon after all. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. Personally I did nothing wrong, and was minding my own business in line, and here comes a goon yelling and screaming for no apparent reason other than he saw a camera from someone. Instead of trying to find who it was, he decides to come after the whole group, and I looked at him like WTF are you talking about dude?

If someone is taking pictures, why aren't YOU telling them to stop being a fuck bag? A ton of the attendees do not want their pictures taken because it could affect jobs and other things. Also, if a goon comes up "being disrespectful" you can pull them aside and talk to them about them being harsh, will you get an apology? Maybe. The reason it's done that way is if you say HEY WHO THE HELL to a group, someone will normally dime out the person being a fuck bag in my experience.

ps....for the wasted blonde red shirt goon playing dubstep in the hallway on sunday using nothing but pandora.... were you TRYING to be like paris hilton or just seeing how many beers it took before you could no longer use an apple computer? cuz until I saw that... I actually thought you were cute.

Nobody in a red shirt is wasted for starters. You will see red shirts having a beer while on shift because 1. We fucking love beer and 2. The attendees GIVE them to us cause WE FUCKING LOVE BEER. The meer fact that you probably 1 didn't talk to the "wasted blonde" proves that you didn't know she was 100% sober, as I do because I was with her, and 2 that she was letting derby girls skate, getting the crowds to dance as they walked through the halls, etc. All in all, that comment was completely unnecessary.

Want to know who they are, then tell us who we go to complain to during the con and you might see a few more complaints than those willing to post them here.

As stated above, talk directly to the goon or ask to speak to their boss. If they refuse, find another goon and take the issue up higher.

Edit: TheCotMan, can you consolidate all of these posts please? Thanks.

[syrel]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Nobody in a red shirt is wasted for starters. You will see red shirts having a beer while on shift because 1. We fucking love beer and 2. The attendees GIVE them to us cause WE FUCKING LOVE BEER. The meer fact that you probably 1 didn't talk to the "wasted blonde" proves that you didn't know she was 100% sober, as I do because I was with her, and 2 that she was letting derby girls skate, getting the crowds to dance as they walked through the halls, etc. All in all, that comment was completely unnecessary.

actually, I did talk to her. and you must be the big dude to her right. the fact that she didnt say anything after asking her a legitimate question....twice...and continued to dance more than anyone else in the two crossing hallways proved to me she had a little too much buzz going. but hey, i'm sure you can just spin that into a rejection or something else that makes me the bad guy as I am sure you are obliged to defend her honor.

I know very much you folks love beer. I gave 4 to the goons that assisted me and a couple goons that were just plain amusing (not unlike yourself). The other 2 beers from the 6 pack I bought went to Sugetoma2 simply because I like Japanese people. But I am sure you are lovely just the same.

and yes, the comment was over the line, which was its only purpose. i threw it in there because I knew you all would be focusing on that instead of all the other legitimate suggestions made by others. ie, this is not a decent method to collect suggestions and feedback, it's just a place to make your clique feel special. yes methods like surveymonkey or other digital methods may get hacked, but if it doesnt cost a crap load then it's worth a try. all I hear in this thread from your end is rejection and refusal. but don't worry, all of YOUR suggestions are being taken into account so we'll just see how things play out next year.

[Chris]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

and yes, the comment was over the line, which was its only purpose. i threw it in there because I knew you all would be focusing on that instead of all the other legitimate suggestions made by others. ie, this is not a decent method to collect suggestions and feedback, it's just a place to make your clique feel special. yes methods like surveymonkey or other digital methods may get hacked, but if it doesnt cost a crap load then it's worth a try. all I hear in this thread from your end is rejection and refusal. but don't worry, all of YOUR suggestions are being taken into account so we'll just see how things play out next year.

So basically you admit you're a troll? And your argument makes no sense. If there are legitimate posts/concerns/comments in this thread why in the world would you want to draw attention away from them?

Don't feed the trolls kids.

[b0n3z]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Don't feed the trolls kids.

^^^All of that

[Legion303]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

- LOCKPICK VILLAGE: Sadly was WAY too small.

You should have seen it last year. I wandered in and out this year, and there was at least space to move around.

The security goons (red shirts) were a lot more sarcastic and mean this year. I know this is defcon and we tend to get away with a lot of curse words and other odd behavior, but unless these clowns are ON STAGE, they should be acting at a minimum level of "professional" regardless of their volunteer status. The people put in charge of keeping order and safety in line do not need to be making constant cracks and jokes at others' personal expense. We all have shitty jobs (at least at some point in our lives), but you are the asshole that volunteered for it, so STFU.

I experienced the exact opposite. In fact, I fucked with them all weekend (grabbing my badge to hide it and doing kamikaze runs at the checkpoint, etc.) and they were never less than professional.

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.

Agreed. I was surprised at the sub-optimal space usage with those round tables.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Some sort of split screen on DEFCON tv where we can see the slides/demo along with the presenter would be awesome.

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.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

Better and less expensive food! I would love to see the Defcon community taking control of the food vending area. I'm sure we can come up with some good alternatives.

the food situation is a hack... the Chillout area is stocked with food that no one is supposed to actually eat because it's part of the contract with the hotel.

the hotel gets to charge ridiculous prices for bad food and the hackers do not eat the food. that's how the system works.

if you want better food, go off site (even on foot) for a little bit (or send a runner or whatnot) and your options are limitless. we could have a whole separate discussion of a "cheap, good food in Vegas" thread.

for now, i'll mention TOOOL's new absolute favorite place in town... KoMex. It's awesome Mexican food, but all the meats in the food are Korean Barbecue. It's out of this goddamn world and super cheap. We fed the TOOOL staff often from there. The first time, Babak was out on the road, found them via Yelp, and just called and said "i have 10 hungry people and i can't think right now... can you just put food together?" and they did. For like $25 or something.

best food i had on this trip, i swear.

[arclight]

Re: How would you make Defcon 21 better?

This year, I asked the Ethiopian cab drivers where they go to eat. Two different people recommended the Merkato restaurant near Swenson:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/merkato-ethi...cafe-las-vegas

Arclight

the food situation is a hack... the Chillout area is stocked with food that no one is supposed to actually eat because it's part of the contract with the hotel.


for now, i'll mention TOOOL's new absolute favorite place in town... KoMex. It's awesome Mexican food, but all the meats in the food are Korean Barbecue. It's out of this goddamn world and super cheap. We fed the TOOOL staff often from there. The first time, Babak was out on the road, found them via Yelp, and just called and said "i have 10 hungry people and i can't think right now... can you just put food together?" and they did. For like $25 or something.

best food i had on this trip, i swear.

[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?

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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?