Questions from a newcomer

[bk7]

I plan to attend Defcon for the first time this year, pretty much just for the tamper evident village. I have a few questions:
-Since there is a forum for the tamper evident village, does that mean it is set in stone happening this year?
-Will the tamper evident village be running all of Defcon, or just certain dates/times?
-What events/contests will be held at the tamper evident village, and when? I have heard about the tamper evident contest, when will this be held?
-What goes on in the village when there are not contests/events scheduled?

I realize some of this info is not available since the schedule is not, but any help would be appreciated, as this village will be the main reason I will or will not attend.
Thanks!

[TheCotMan]

I plan to attend Defcon for the first time this year, pretty much just for the tamper evident village. I have a few questions:

Ok

-Since there is a forum for the tamper evident village, does that mean it is set in stone happening this year?

No guarantees. Anything can be cancelled at any time, or moved, or have its schedule altered.
This late in the planning, it is unlikely for there to be a change without an announcement somewhere, like on the main site, or on twitter with the "defcon" account, or in this fourm.

Last notice, it is still planned to happen:
https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-2...#dc25tevillage
https://www.facebook.com/defcon/post..._fb_noscript=1

-Will the tamper evident village be running all of Defcon, or just certain dates/times?

Historically, most villages are open during normal open times during con. If there are speakers talking in the speaker tracks, odds favor villages being open.
There have been a few cases where more than one village shared a space, and changed hands, but this is less common now.
The bigger question will be if the villages will be starting on Thursday or Friday. Many things are not open on Thursday. At least once in the past, some villages opened on Thursday instead of Friday.

-What events/contests will be held at the tamper evident village, and when?

I have not been given those details.

- I have heard about the tamper evident contest, when will this be held?

I have not been given those details.

In the past, this contest started on the first day contests were open (Friday.) This is no guarantee they will not start earlier or later this year if they are going to happen.

-What goes on in the village when there are not contests/events scheduled?

I have not been given those details.

Usually, villages have demo-spaces available for people to try things or chat with each other. Lockpicking village has had a bunch of locks for people to try to pick. I would expect this village to have Tamper Evident Technology available for examination, and maybe testing/defeating. There may also be other people sitting at tables talking about Tamper Evident Technologies.

I realize some of this info is not available since the schedule is not, but any help would be appreciated, as this village will be the main reason I will or will not attend.
Thanks!

Sorry I do not have the answers you need. If you are lucky, one or more of the people that will be running this village will see the questions you have and answer them.

[sainate]

This will only be my third time actually getting to go to DEF CON (prior to that, I got to live vicariously through this forum, social media, YouTube [is that now considered Social Media?] and friends / associates that were able to go), but one thing stood out to me in your previous post that I wanted to comment on. You noted that you're going "pretty much just for the tamper evident village". Having that plan is definitely a good thing but my first trip to DEF CON I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of it all. I have a spreadsheet that I usually put together with venues along the top row and dates / times going down the left row and I try to populate it with all of the events. I then try to read over all of the summary info for the events (a good place to start for me is the Speakers https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-2...-speakers.html) to see what I'm interested in and pick 3 for each time block (if I can't get into my first choice for whatever reason, I have a second and third choice quickly available). That worked for smaller cons but not DEF CON. As I was wondering around aimlessly trying to find things, I started *meeting and talking to people*. I left my first DEF CON feeling a bit defeated and lost because of all of the time that I spent trying to stick to my schedule. The second (last year), I had a rough idea of what talks I wanted to attend and what villages I wanted to visit but tried to focus on the people (that I would not be able to see via YouTube in a few months at home) and had a blast. This year, I've got a few talks and a few events that I definitely want to make but my biggest goal is to interact with the folks there and enjoy being surrounded by several thousand people that I have things in common with and talking shop.
Possibly not relevant to you but wanted to share my experience and lessons learned. It's a huge event and is exceptionally cool but it was easy for me to get overwhelmed my first time and, as a result, I think that I missed out on a good bit of stuff. Congrats on getting to go and hope you have a blast!!

[datagram]

I plan to attend Defcon for the first time this year, pretty much just for the tamper evident village. I have a few questions:
-Since there is a forum for the tamper evident village, does that mean it is set in stone happening this year?
-Will the tamper evident village be running all of Defcon, or just certain dates/times?
-What events/contests will be held at the tamper evident village, and when? I have heard about the tamper evident contest, when will this be held?
-What goes on in the village when there are not contests/events scheduled?

I realize some of this info is not available since the schedule is not, but any help would be appreciated, as this village will be the main reason I will or will not attend.
Thanks!

Yes, we'll be back for DC25. We're open Friday - Sunday 10:00 - 18:00. (Sunday closes around 14:00 - not sure yet).

All the contest information is now posted on the forum. Most people do the contests, hang out at public tables (working on seals, socializing), or talk to us at the staff table. We focus on hands-on learning rather than lectures, so be prepared to get your hands dirty without having your hand held 100% of the time.

dg
[mfp]

[Mitchell Effect]

Due to my human rights works, I find tamper-evident technology to be very important in protecting my physical spaces. (See COINTELPRO or Zersetzung for background on tactics I seek to deter). Will advice be offered on the best practices for tamper-evident technology that has not been compromised?

[datagram]

Due to my human rights works, I find tamper-evident technology to be very important in protecting my physical spaces. (See COINTELPRO or Zersetzung for background on tactics I seek to deter). Will advice be offered on the best practices for tamper-evident technology that has not been compromised?

The fundamental nature of tamper-evident technology implies that defense is only as good as your abiity to inspect and forensically analyze for evidence of tampering. It's unlikely that an individual will be able to match defensive capabilities against the offensive capabilities of the programs you mentioned (which are very minimally tamper-related, I might point out).

That said, everything has been (or, if you can't find public information, "can be") compromised, but it's not just design flaws that work into real-world defeats. The people aspect (people must be involved in installation, inspection, etc) is a big vulnerability that is hard to demonstrate in the village / a classroom setting.

dg
[mfp]