DEF CON 23 Theme Announcement

[The Dark Tangent]

NEW for DC 23 we are announcing the theme far in advance

The theme and style will be the 23 enigma in the Film Noir or Art Noir style.

In the past we have announced themes for the art contests, which was cool, but not everyone got the message. By announcing so far in advance and with a general theme and style I hope to inspire a whole range of creation for the con.

Hat Tip to LadyChaos for predicting what we were planning. I wanted something with many layers, secret societies, math, hidden abstractions, and a bit of conspiracy. The 23 enigma fills all of that, and should be a large enough theme that everyone won't do the same thing, kind of like what happened with DEF CON 21.

PROS:
- With a unifying theme it will be easier for L0st to hide stuff for his contest in the background. :-)
- We can experiment with the theme and put our own hacker twist on it.
- Hopefully we'll get lots of cool art, themes, and contests incorporating the imagery to create a more unified feel.

CONS:
- Not everyone will use the theme. Oh well, nothing we can do about that.
- Everyone will out do us with their awesome ideas. That would be a great problem to have.

For ideas try image searches, read the links above, and remember the key elements. Think Blade Runner, Sin City, Chinatown, The Maltese Falcon, etc. These are stories where everything is not always as it seems, there are strong leading ladies, and the images are fairly iconic but not totally stilted.

Ready! Set! Go!

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON 23 Theme Announcement

The theme and style will be the 23 enigma in the Film Noir or Art Noir style.

For those that were around, or have read about it, Clifford Stoll's, "the Cookoo's Egg," as a telling of how he tracked down an inconsistency in billing to a break-in to a system, and then through fabrication of Top-Secret and other military plans, keep the person connected long enough to try to track them back to Germany.

This story was reduced to a short on PBS in the US called, "The KGB, The Computer and Me," which provided some humor in explaining the story by summary:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308449/ [The KGB, The Computer and Me, 1990]

What was not as well known is there was a German film that attempted to explore this from the view of the person/people that broke into Stoll's system as well as many others. They take many liberties in collapsing several real people into smaller numbers of characters to tell the story, but the title of this film?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/ ["23" (Nichts ist so wie es scheint), 1998] == [ "23" (Nothing is as it seems), 1998 ] (It is a bit depressing, but a nice gem for anyone that read Stoll's original book and was entertained. It is a nice pairing with "The KGB, My Computer and Me")

When DC TV had a "DEF CON Movies" Channel at the AP, this made an appearance one year.

If 23 is a part of the theme, then consider this movie and subtitles.

[astcell]

Re: DEF CON 23 Theme Announcement

Well that dates me. I remember reading The Cuckoo's Egg when it came out around 1989/1990. When I finished reading it I emailed Cliff Stoll and -- he emailed me back.

[LadyChaos]

Re: DEF CON 23 Theme Announcement

Aaw! Thanks for the shout out!
This extra time makes it way easier to make some awesome art ♡

[bandors]

Re: DEF CON 23 Theme Announcement

NEW for DC 23 we are announcing the theme far in advance

The theme and style will be the 23 enigma in the Film Noir or Art Noir style.

In the past we have announced themes for the art contests, which was cool, but not everyone got the message. By announcing so far in advance and with a general theme and style I hope to inspire a whole range of creation for the con.

Hat Tip to LadyChaos for predicting what we were planning. I wanted something with many layers, secret societies, math, hidden abstractions, and a bit of conspiracy. The 23 enigma fills all of that, and should be a large enough theme that everyone won't do the same thing, kind of like what happened with DEF CON 21.

PROS:
- With a unifying theme it will be easier for L0st to hide stuff for his contest in the background. :-)
- We can experiment with the theme and put our own hacker twist on it.
- Hopefully we'll get lots of cool art, themes, and contests incorporating the imagery to create a more unified feel.

CONS:
- Not everyone will use the theme. Oh well, nothing we can do about that.
- Everyone will out do us with their awesome ideas. That would be a great problem to have.

For ideas try image searches, read the links above, and remember the key elements. Think Blade Runner, Sin City, Chinatown, The Maltese Falcon, etc. These are stories where everything is not always as it seems, there are strong leading ladies, and the images are fairly iconic but not totally stilted.

Ready! Set! Go!

I never thought I'd live to see the day that defcon would have a semi formal theme.
The feeling of the new con center matches it well.

[geeksedition]

Perhaps a N00b question. How can I be part of that theme. This will be my first Defcon and I am getting involved now, asking questions etc to make this worth the trip from Canada eh!? So how can I get into that them. Is it the clothes people wear, the personas they show etc?

Cheers,
//GeekSedition

[TheCotMan]

Perhaps a N00b question. How can I be part of that theme. This will be my first Defcon and I am getting involved now, asking questions etc to make this worth the trip from Canada eh!? So how can I get into that them. Is it the clothes people wear, the personas they show etc?

Cheers,
//GeekSedition

A majority of attendees do not adopt change of clothing to match the official theme. For the B&W Ball (assuming that will happen) a much larger percent of people will adopt the theme, but still not all do. More often, eah party has their own theme, and there is no requirement for all parties to meet a theme, and not all parties are official.

The most common theme adopted at DEF CON? Black shirts with trendy or witty text or diagrams, or company logos, and comfortable shoes.

Many contests choose to adopt the theme as an element of consideration. The Artwork contest (if it returns) is a good example. Another is the Short Story contest, which was started by Nikita and handed off to Eris, with several judges volunteering their time to judge submitted works.

Lost[boy] has been making badges with riddles and a mini-contest with solving many clues, and that is stated to include this theme in it.

Not all contests will get in on this theme, and the importance of the theme in each contest or event is variable.

Advice? You would be better off meeting people that will be attending DEF CON before you go, so you know people that will be there before you get there. The more experience they have, the more they can help you. As a first-timer, see "DC101" , assuming the Thursday "DC101" event is going to happen again. (There may be a whole track that is called intro, or DC101, or 101. I am not writing about the whole track.) The historically Thursday event "DC101" is an "Intro To DEF CON" to give you some ideas about what to look for, and how to make the best of your DEF CON experience. Every year that I have attended, I've included DC101 in my list of things to see.

Your interest in trying to get involved is a great idea! If you are looking to become a volunteer, do not be too discouraged if people tell you they do not need help. What often happens is help is more readily accepted from people that are known, and established with a history of reliability. It takes time and experience. A common path for first-timers to become involved with others is to join or start a team in a contest they find interesting. Problem solving can help bring people together. Lost[boy]'s badge riddle-contest has done this, for example, as has the Scavenger Hunt.

There is no single right answer on how to get involved, but what is known is being involved is better than keeping to yourself. :-)

Hope this helps,
Good luck!
-Cot

[astcell]

Be yourself. I'm much more impressed by a person who has questions than one who only has answers.
Don't be a dick.
Making friends is as easy as saying hi or saying hi and handing them a beer.
There are plenty of folks from Canada. That's my home originally, and Renderman, genius extrordinaire, is from there too.
Don't worry if you bring your collection of yellow bronie shirts and then feel out of place. There are plenty of vendors there who sell shirts for Defcon.
Bring more cash than you think you will need.
Bring less tech than you think you will need.
Consider arriving early and staying late. At my first Defcon (DC8) I left much earlier than I wanted to. I arrive Tue and stay until Mon now.
This is by no means complete. The embodiment of Defcon emotions cannot adequately be placed into words.

[geeksedition]

Thanks Cot! Very informative. I have read the FAQ and I am hoping the DC101 will be happening. I am hoping to be in Thursday morning or Wednesday and hope to stay to the end. I have watched the official doc, and been reading about previous DefCons since I made the decision to FINALLY come this year. I will not be a wallflower and have plans to meet people already. My full intention is coming is to feed my brain ;) I am good at what I do, but I know the best of the best of the best attend. As a business owner, I am no stranger to approaching people and networking. So I hope to meet many people ;)
Though I could see myself really getting involved and wanting to volunteer right off, I realize that I should really attend for the first time and take it in. If I meet the right people stay in touch. THen next year or the year after I could really see myself getting involved some how. But its a position of trust and I would rather get involved when the time is right.
Also, thanks Astcell. having worked in the trade show industry, I am learning the Defcon is an experience like no other. The Organization and lack of (with all the unofficial) that seems to happen will provide a nice dichotomy. I cant wait!

Cheers!!!

[Edit: Stripped out font color, so it should be readable, after user gave permission later in this thread.]

[TheCotMan]

For some reason, posts (from you and eris) are appearing with dark colored fonts, which are unreadable in the dark theme.
I'll find out why later tonight after work. It does not happen for my posts.

I'm not sure if it is a coincidence, them choice, something only a risk with new posts, or something else.

When I "quote" your post or her post, I can see "color=#000000" is explicitly selected. Not sure why. It does not appear when I select "edit" of my post, or "Edit" (just to look, but not change) your post or her post.

[geeksedition]

If you want a hand to debug, just let me know. For this email, I changed my theme back to the dark. Though while writing this message, the edit wondow is white on black. I am using Firefox 34.0 (a little older, just have not yet had a chance to update) on Linux. I have not changed any custom themes or selected any colours.

iam[at]geeksedition.org

Cheers,
//Ian

[TheCotMan]

If you want a hand to debug, just let me know. For this email, I changed my theme back to the dark. Though while writing this message, the edit wondow is white on black. I am using Firefox 34.0 (a little older, just have not yet had a chance to update) on Linux. I have not changed any custom themes or selected any colours.

iam[at]geeksedition.org

Cheers,
//Ian

Thanks! Some questions:
1) Do you see your post is black text on dark background just above mine?
2) Are you using the "Dark" theme?
3) Do you remember selecting "black" as a color for your font when creating your post immediate above the one I replied with the comment?

Your most recent post did not appear as black font on dark background.

When we finish this discussion/tangent, I'll break these posts out from this thread, and put them into a new thread so we don't distract others from the original purpose of the post (and highjack the thread.)

[geeksedition]

When I am in the dark theme, I see the same thing as you. 1. My most recent post is fine now. 2. Currently in dark theme. 3, No never selected any colour, however.... I know why this happened now. My spell checker was not up to snuff. I copied my post into Google Docs, fixed my atrocious spelling and pasted back into the forum editor. THAT my friend is 99% sure the cause. When I pasted it took the formatting with it. So it was my doing and no need for further debugging. I just remember that I did that.

Sorry man, I hope you didn't spend too much time on that. If we meet at Defcon, I'll buy you a beer ;) Looking forward to Blue Moon (Cant get that in Canada!)

Cheers.

//Ian

[TheCotMan]

When I am in the dark theme, I see the same thing as you. 1. My most recent post is fine now. 2. Currently in dark theme. 3, No never selected any colour, however.... I know why this happened now. My spell checker was not up to snuff. I copied my post into Google Docs, fixed my atrocious spelling and pasted back into the forum editor. THAT my friend is 99% sure the cause. When I pasted it took the formatting with it. So it was my doing and no need for further debugging. I just remember that I did that.

Sorry man, I hope you didn't spend too much time on that. If we meet at Defcon, I'll buy you a beer ;) Looking forward to Blue Moon (Cant get that in Canada!)

Cheers.

//Ian

No worries, and thanks for the feedback! I will work to test this and see what else might cause this.

In another, but unrelated topic, this error
"
Invalid server response.

Please try again.
"

Is a known problem. I am working to diagnose it. I thnk it is being cause by new security settings.

It is really annoying, especially if you type long-winded posts like me.

Also, I will soon be foriking our discussion from this thread into "Forum Announcements"

Would you give me permission to edit your post so that I can change the font color to unspecified? It will allow each theme to make it readable dynamically.
(Except for rule violations, I do not like to edit user posts unless they give permission, and I prefer such permission be stated in public so people can see we're not altering their content without permission.) If you agree, your post that I edit will include more information saying something like "Last Edited by TheCotman at date/time"

All posts edited by mods, admins, users should show "Last Edited by..." with the username that last edited the post and when.

Thanks!

[geeksedition]

Sure can edit the post. Cheers!! ;)