This contest appears to be Bogus-Bummer -- New word, I crafted...

[TheCotMan *****Retired ***** Find all posts View Profile Close TheCotMan]

The contest called "[forum=755]The Challenge that Black Hat Wouldn't Take[/forum]" appears to meet all the criteria for a word I invented, "Bogus-Bummer" :

I posted this in a thread of discussion and questions about this contest:

...[chop]
A lack of response, and failure to address concerns in a debate often implies the person that fails to address issues is conceding each point. At this point, the discussion is looking like this, with Blakdayz point being made, and not addressed or countered with logical arguments backed by mathematics or proofs.

We are rolling out DEF CON 22 content, and these forums will eventually be closed. Soon, the lack of response from the people running this contest and the in-thread content stopping without comment will become frozen, and no new posts will be allowed when this forum is closed and archived. How will this thread end? Will it end with constructive criticism unanswered, causing the people running the contest to forfeit their points on this product?

I also posted this in forum announcements:

Some time next month (in September) I'll be closing the DEF CON 21 contest/event forums and begin the process of opening new contest/event forums for people that have announced their intention to bring their thing back to DEF CON 22 in this thread: https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=13646

Some time before the end of this month, I'll be closing some of the other DEF CON 21 forums. I plan to copy the thread asking for suggestions to make DC22 better over to the DC22 forum, and then close the DC21 thread with a final post directing people to the new thread.

September has come and gone. I left all DEF CON 21 Contest, Event and Social gathering forums open so the organizers of this contest could address the valid concerns of our members.

These valid concerns were ignored, so from my point of view, as a scoring in debate, all issues not addressed by the party attempting to prove their point (valid contest, that is on the up-and-up) with burden of proof, has failed to successfully argue their point, and as a result, loses their argument that this was a valid contest and on the up-and-up.

The comment from Pry0 suggests that this "contest" at DEF CON 21 violated rules on advertising and won't be invited back to DEF CON 22 for reasons described:

I was told it was a crypto cracking challenge with a huge cash prize. They agreed that they were not going to be advertising any business or product. But as with any contest, event, or village the community's voice and opinion determines if we bring it back. I have had several people send me comments about this and at this point I think they will be welcome to return next year but only as a vendor.

The consensus appears to be:
* It was a new contest, and worth a try
* Some attendees claim it did not live up to the claims
* Some attendees claim there was active advertising by the people running this contest
* Other complaints about the rules being easily abused, such that they could be re-interpreted to mean anything other than giving a cash award to a winner.
* Other complaints about real-world application, and weaknesses in this as a real-world solutions, which were not addressed here.
* More.

As a suggestion for next time they run this, the title could be: "The contest with too much marketing, advertising, and wonky rules, which could easily be re-defined to give zero cash prize to anyone that DEF CON would not take it!" (based on a combination of many issues brought up by a few people.)

It annoys me when people attempt to use DEF CON as a marketing strategy, and cite their contest was dropped from future DEF CON because of any reason other than being considered "lame" or "not part of the DEF CON hacker culture" by the attendees or goons.

This post is a record, and reminder for people using google to find out about the history of this contest and why is was not invited back to future DEF CON.

Thanks search engines, for making history accessible to anyone willing to find out why things happened, and complete proper fact-checking.