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another defcon has come and gone... this one was a success by all accounts i witnessed or heard about. i think there must have been a deposit of good karma that settled upon the ap this year, since as far as i could tell no majorly negative incidents went down (with the exception of that lady who fell down the stairs... but, backing up my karma theory, had she not cracked herself up badly they wouldn't have found the tumor and saved her life)
big hand to all the goons and staff who worked their asses off making things run well. even lockheed - who takes a lotta shit from people unnecessarily - had a great network going on. (i have photos of a working connection that i had on all three days!)
{side note about the network, particularly the wireless, the only trouble i really saw was caused by people who brought their own wireless gear and wanted to "help" the public by adding their access points to the lan improperly. for every real DefCon AP out there, i counted two or three APs or cards in peer-to-peer mode where geniuses had set the SSID to "defcon" but didn't setup DHCP and/or routing services, etc. etc. most people i helped to get online were establishing connections to these idiots and not the real defcon wi-fi network.}
big hand to the senior staff who did a great job of managing the logistical problems that came up at the last minute with the fire marshal, etc. (although i had a huge problem with the fact that people were kicked out of hallways and shit. if the fire marshal wanted to stick to the room capacity, that’s fine. but i and many others were rousted out of hallways next to the public area and the zeus room repeatedly. that i thought was nuts. the hallways are like ten feet wide for god's sake.)
also, i don't know if anyone saw... but the con was featured on the FOX 10:00 news on sunday evening. surprisingly, they didn't completely demonize the hacker community or report on us like it was a criminal gathering. the news piece featured a summary of the con's focus and an interview with one person (who may have been a speaker) talking about wi-fi risks, particularly in the area casinos that offer wireless lan access. priest was also featured on screen for a few good quotes. (we were watching in tec-lord's room and there was quite the uproar of applause at that. :-)
i'm pretty sure that all the suggestions and input will be coordinated and given to the senior staff as people get home and unwind, but i'm curious as to everyone's thoughts, too. did you like it this year compared to last year? what would you have liked to have been different?
my short list of comments:
1) lockpick contest ruled. let's have that as an official event with more room for spectators, etc. (the crowd was amazing, for those who didn't see it. they were really into it and incredibly supportive of those of us who participated, cheering for everyone no matter how they did.) big props to DC719 for organizing. also, does anyone know if the "beer lock" was ever picked successfully?
2) can the goons reign in tighter on hotel security next year? i don't mean to say that security doesn't have a job to do or that we can just tell them to fuck off... but there was more than one occasion when it seemed that the hotel security was just really out of the loop... ragging on con attendees and telling them to get lost when goons and staff had clearly stated we had a purpose and place to be. examples...
* letting people INTO full speaking rooms when audience members left early. this happened a lot and the people I saw were getting pretty pissed. if the room is at capacity when a talk begins, the doors are closed. i get that. but if 10 people file OUT during the talk, and there is a crowd trying to get in to see the rest of the talk, why not let 10 people IN at that time? goons were telling us that was OK, but security wouldn't allow it.
* pools being closed or off-limits. it was my understanding that pool three was a 24-hour pool, where people could be in the water at any time. i saw people hassled about this... particularly on sunday evening. i didn't frankly give a shit who got drunk and passed out where… i was a paying hotel guest and i was not personally holding a beer in my hand and i didn't see why i was thrown out of pool number three around 9:30 PM on sunday.
* security guards just being generally rude. i know that defcon is more of an endeavor for the hotel staff than basic year-round operations... but we were being bitched at and give a load of attitude by hotel security a lot and i don't know why this year. i heard hotel guards telling con attendees to "fuck off" or "move the hell along" on more than one occasion when no one was being disruptive, but merely trying to figure out where to line up for talks (this was a particular problem for the zeus room where the line was down a back hallway and stretched outside. on saturday i waited in this line a few times and there was one very old male AP guard with shaggy long gray hair who seemed to literally DELIGHT in hassling the attendees.)
that's about it for me - overall i'd say everything was wonderfully positive. the talk content was very good and having the three speaking areas featured on the AP TV channels worked very well. (when the audio was working. :-)
there were still talks that i missed but i'll just download them i suppose. (can i beg and plead that the talks on the media server be put in some other format than crappy RealMedia. even Quicktime would be an improvement, frankly. :-)
i look forward to seeing you all at DC12 and hearing what everyone else thought.
big hand to all the goons and staff who worked their asses off making things run well. even lockheed - who takes a lotta shit from people unnecessarily - had a great network going on. (i have photos of a working connection that i had on all three days!)
{side note about the network, particularly the wireless, the only trouble i really saw was caused by people who brought their own wireless gear and wanted to "help" the public by adding their access points to the lan improperly. for every real DefCon AP out there, i counted two or three APs or cards in peer-to-peer mode where geniuses had set the SSID to "defcon" but didn't setup DHCP and/or routing services, etc. etc. most people i helped to get online were establishing connections to these idiots and not the real defcon wi-fi network.}
big hand to the senior staff who did a great job of managing the logistical problems that came up at the last minute with the fire marshal, etc. (although i had a huge problem with the fact that people were kicked out of hallways and shit. if the fire marshal wanted to stick to the room capacity, that’s fine. but i and many others were rousted out of hallways next to the public area and the zeus room repeatedly. that i thought was nuts. the hallways are like ten feet wide for god's sake.)
also, i don't know if anyone saw... but the con was featured on the FOX 10:00 news on sunday evening. surprisingly, they didn't completely demonize the hacker community or report on us like it was a criminal gathering. the news piece featured a summary of the con's focus and an interview with one person (who may have been a speaker) talking about wi-fi risks, particularly in the area casinos that offer wireless lan access. priest was also featured on screen for a few good quotes. (we were watching in tec-lord's room and there was quite the uproar of applause at that. :-)
i'm pretty sure that all the suggestions and input will be coordinated and given to the senior staff as people get home and unwind, but i'm curious as to everyone's thoughts, too. did you like it this year compared to last year? what would you have liked to have been different?
my short list of comments:
1) lockpick contest ruled. let's have that as an official event with more room for spectators, etc. (the crowd was amazing, for those who didn't see it. they were really into it and incredibly supportive of those of us who participated, cheering for everyone no matter how they did.) big props to DC719 for organizing. also, does anyone know if the "beer lock" was ever picked successfully?
2) can the goons reign in tighter on hotel security next year? i don't mean to say that security doesn't have a job to do or that we can just tell them to fuck off... but there was more than one occasion when it seemed that the hotel security was just really out of the loop... ragging on con attendees and telling them to get lost when goons and staff had clearly stated we had a purpose and place to be. examples...
* letting people INTO full speaking rooms when audience members left early. this happened a lot and the people I saw were getting pretty pissed. if the room is at capacity when a talk begins, the doors are closed. i get that. but if 10 people file OUT during the talk, and there is a crowd trying to get in to see the rest of the talk, why not let 10 people IN at that time? goons were telling us that was OK, but security wouldn't allow it.
* pools being closed or off-limits. it was my understanding that pool three was a 24-hour pool, where people could be in the water at any time. i saw people hassled about this... particularly on sunday evening. i didn't frankly give a shit who got drunk and passed out where… i was a paying hotel guest and i was not personally holding a beer in my hand and i didn't see why i was thrown out of pool number three around 9:30 PM on sunday.
* security guards just being generally rude. i know that defcon is more of an endeavor for the hotel staff than basic year-round operations... but we were being bitched at and give a load of attitude by hotel security a lot and i don't know why this year. i heard hotel guards telling con attendees to "fuck off" or "move the hell along" on more than one occasion when no one was being disruptive, but merely trying to figure out where to line up for talks (this was a particular problem for the zeus room where the line was down a back hallway and stretched outside. on saturday i waited in this line a few times and there was one very old male AP guard with shaggy long gray hair who seemed to literally DELIGHT in hassling the attendees.)
that's about it for me - overall i'd say everything was wonderfully positive. the talk content was very good and having the three speaking areas featured on the AP TV channels worked very well. (when the audio was working. :-)
there were still talks that i missed but i'll just download them i suppose. (can i beg and plead that the talks on the media server be put in some other format than crappy RealMedia. even Quicktime would be an improvement, frankly. :-)
i look forward to seeing you all at DC12 and hearing what everyone else thought.
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