Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

[TheCotMan]

Did you wish that vendors carried something at DEF CON, but didn't? Did you wish they carried more of something?

From this post: https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=13986&page=2&p=131895&viewfull=1# post131895 is this suggestion:

[chop]
I was actually very surprised to find zero RasPi, BeagleBone & Arduino boards in the vendor area (Especially since the RasPi B+ was released roughly a month before). Sure there was some Parallax stuff, but the choice was limited. There were a lot of lock picking tool sets, but I think there were too many vendors selling them. I'm half considering pestering a local company to me (Valuetronics) which sells refurbished electronic test equipment about attending DEF CON in the vendor area next year.
[chop]

Again, I do not control any other departments, but suggestions can be passed to Vendor Room goons, which may help them with informing vendors of items requested by attendees.

What else would any of you have liked to see vendors carry for sale at DEF CON?

[astcell]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

I miss Ira.

[extremx]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

I think the colleges and universities were a waste of space. Empty booths with one person sitting behind the table just wishing someone...anyone would stop and talk to them.

Bring in Adafruit! :D

[dhb/kd5]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

Bring in Adafruit! :D

And SparkFun!

[Tynius]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

We were looking for a raspberry pi. And I would have happily bought a bag of 'pimp my badge' goodies, say a few LEDs and some jumper wire, etc. Actually I'd have gladly bought some overpriced bits for badge pimping from the guys running the HHV, and considered it to be my tip to them for the use of the irons.

Tynius

[TheCotMan]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

We were looking for a raspberry pi. And I would have happily bought a bag of 'pimp my badge' goodies, say a few LEDs and some jumper wire, etc. Actually I'd have gladly bought some overpriced bits for badge pimping from the guys running the HHV, and considered it to be my tip to them for the use of the irons.

Tynius

This suggestion will need to be sent to vendors and whoever is designing badges (Lost this year) to coordinate parts that would be good to have in such a bag. The inter-department coordination might make it difficult. Maybe Vendor Goon and Badge goons will both like it.

Thanks for your suggestions and other people for other suggestions.

[admford]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

Heh, the lack of some of the electronics stuff actually got me interested in trying to be a vendor next year. Considering the talks and the general interest things look promising.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

since TOOOL and i have a vested interest in asking, i'll poll the community here:

of all the lockpick and lock tool vendors that are at DEFCON now, how do you distinguish them? do you see any differences between them? what makes you patronize one over another?

1. price ?
2. product offering ?
3. location / line ?
4. staff who answer questions ?
5. interactive demos ?
6. something else ?

a few folk told us that they specifically bought from TOOOL because we are the only non-profit in the area and they appreciated their full purchase going back into the community to fund more learning and research, etc. but that is probably a minority opinion.

this year we actually managed to NOT run out of lots of things. so that's good. in the past we often get fucking SLAMMED on Day One and exhaust our supply of the most popular items.

[Penni-piper]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

I wished there were solder kits besides the darknet badge

[Tynius]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

since TOOOL and i have a vested interest in asking, i'll poll the community here:

a few folk told us that they specifically bought from TOOOL because we are the only non-profit in the area and they appreciated their full purchase going back into the community to fund more learning and research, etc. but that is probably a minority opinion.

That would be us - you folks taught our daughter to pick locks at her first DC, so you win. I don't even comparison shop.

Ty

[danix]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

Last year (which was my first DC) I wanted to buy a BeagleBoard but the guys selling 'em ran out of 'boards early. I was hoping to buy either a BeagleBoard or a RasPi… and found neither. The Hak5 stand was good, though. :) I concur with others that more hardware kits would be good, especially for HHV.

[admford]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

Last year (which was my first DC) I wanted to buy a BeagleBoard but the guys selling 'em ran out of 'boards early. I was hoping to buy either a BeagleBoard or a RasPi… and found neither. The Hak5 stand was good, though. :) I concur with others that more hardware kits would be good, especially for HHV.

I've been messing around with electronics for a number of years and I've been keeping up on these SOC boards for a while. There's some nice variety among products and some interesting ones coming out later in the year ($99 x86 Minnowboard). I was also looking for stuff with electronics and such at DEF CON this year and found more or less none that would interest me. So I'm pretty keen on trying my luck out early next year and start reselling them online (and possibly DEF CON next year). Plus, other than just selling random stuff online, I know what some stuff would be useful to IT Sec professionals (I bet there would have been a few people willing to buy a HID Maxiprox long range RFID reader this year, and an arduino kit with it). Plus there's a local company where I live which reconditions and certifies old test equipment, so getting used stuff like portable oscilloscopes, signal generators and stuff like that wouldn't be too hard.

[t0x0]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

I'd like to see more RF stuff in general...most of the RF equipment in the vendor area revolves around wifi, but ISM/VHF/UHF equipment is always cool to see, and I bet accessories for the cheapie Baofeng HT's would sell pretty well (Nagoya NA701/NA771, ear pieces, etc). I forgot a bunch of my kit, so ended up running around to Fry's, discovering that they had jack shit, and ordering next day from Amazon. I think I saw RTL SDRs, but if not, that's another cool option. On the other hand, perhaps handing out ham radio equipment to a bunch of hackers who may not be licensed might not be the best idea. *shrug*

[bombnav]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

From the HHV front office folks we would have loved for a vendor to be selling kits like last year. Since this was an electronic badge year I chose to not sell kits at cost (loss) in the HHV this year as it was a monster of a task and very costly to me as it all came out of my pocket. I did give out a lot of free kits to kids and people that really convinced me they needed one. I am toying with the idea of selling kits again next year but not something I would willing do as it pretty eats up my HHV time.

So yes I would love sparkfun or adafruit to come to DC23 and set up vendor tables. But if you sell SMT kits to beginners I will hunt you down and make you come to the HHV and give a SMT soldering class and then help those that you sold kits to!!

[FirmWarez]

Re: Stuff you wished vendors would provide at DEF CON 23...

...But if you sell SMT kits to beginners I will hunt you down and make you come to the HHV and give a SMT soldering class and then help those that you sold kits to!!

OK