Lpcon Iii

**TheCotMan** · January 19, 2005, 22:49

Originally posted by Kai

Haven't posted in a while! Just wanted to check in and see if anyone has any suggestions or comments for this year.

As a casual observer of this event, I have some suggestions:
# The contest will be more popular this year than last. This means more spectators.
* find a volunteer who is willing to follow each contestant (one at a time) with a video camera. Have the camera show the person who is competing first, and then only focus on their hands and the lock through the course.
* Send theis video feed (maybe with an overloay of the course clock? and an overlay of their nick/handle?) to multiple monitors or projectors on the wall(s), this will allow many more spectators to see what is being done and may permit you to have a video of the event.
* Send the video feed of the recorded event over one the of the DC channels during off-hours. (Say, if the CTF contest is on hold overnight, use their channel to broadcast the contest.)
* Place the broadcast time into the program ahead of time

# See if DT will let you show a video segment of the 2 winners (if you have 2 tracks) on projectors at the award ceremonies while the awards for this contest are being given out.

People I talked to said they were impressed with the competition you/your group hosted. What will you do for space if the size of your audience doubles? I think such growth is possible for the next DefCon. The number of people you had at these events was quite impressive, and when you consider all that *can* go wrong at DefCon, your event was very well organized.

I am glad to see you are doing this again this year and expect things will work as you hope and "this year's event blows away previous years."

:-)

**renderman** · January 20, 2005, 08:45

Everything last year went very well. Was nice to participate.

The Obstacle course was a bit dissapointing though. Not knowing ahead of time there were tubular locks, etc made it much harder than expected and took alot of the fun out of it (frustration kicked in). I would have liked to have seen easier (but not too easy) locks, mounted in odd ways, or perhaps unusal items with locks (i.e. briefcases). Make it so that they are all possible with standard picks, and can be done in a reasonable amount of time. Really punches up the time trial aspect

Another idea for a side event would be 'wierd lock' meeting where we can all bring our wierdest locks and compare notes/tricks etc.

Aside from the schedualing mishap with the Runningman contest that left my arms like Jello, everything went very well this year, and I'm definatly competing next year.

A · January 20, 2005, 09:44

Originally posted by TheCotMan

* Send the video feed of the recorded event over one the of the DC channels during off-hours. (Say, if the CTF contest is on hold overnight, use their channel to broadcast the contest.)

Great suggestions Mr. TheCot. The only possible exception is your comment about the award ceremonies, I'd say that would be awesome, as long as they are edited well. A lot of people might not appreciate the zen of lock picking if the video segment was more than 30 seconds or so.

As one of the organizers of the Defcon Movie Channel I would invite clips from the days events to be added to the pool of filler that gets played between the movies. I would recommend they be post-produced enough to have a timer and a crawl with info that it is a clip from <day>'s lock pick event and give a name of the person picking. Hit up Grifter or myself if this is of interest to you.

-A

**TheCotMan** · January 20, 2005, 10:17

Originally posted by A

Great suggestions Mr. TheCot. The only possible exception is your comment about the award ceremonies, I'd say that would be awesome, as long as they are edited well. A lot of people might not appreciate the zen of lock picking if the video segment was more than 30 seconds or so.

Good point. The award ceremonies are often pressed for time anyway, and this would make issues with time even worse.

As one of the organizers of the Defcon Movie Channel I would invite clips from the days events to be added to the pool of filler that gets played between the movies. I would recommend they be post-produced enough to have a timer and a crawl with info that it is a clip from <day>'s lock pick event and give a name of the person picking. Hit up Grifter or myself if this is of interest to you.

Ahhh! filler for DCTV! very good idea! Events as filler!

Could filler be scheduled? There were certain clips used last year that I wanted to show my friends, but was not able to predict their appearance due to the random selection scheme that was used.

As for a timer... if there is no hardware to build an overlay, a very crude timer can br made by using subtitle files. Since FPS could be static, an update of the time every 2 seconds in the subtitle would be trivial, and the same subtitle file could be used and only change the name of the person (global search and replace) with a script for each needed file.

I've done a lot of work with subtitles and mplayer. It is even possible to setup mplayer and encoder to make a video with subtitles burned into it. I have scripts for this. Let me know if any of these scripts can help.

I'd also like to work with whoever will be doing the video playback to get 23 to work this time. (One of those things where it works great for me on my machines, but did not work there for your machines.) Since I sent Grifter a legal copy via snail-mail, I have no problem trying to make future copies/attempts and ftp-ing them or scp-ing them to Grifter/your group.

On an unrelated note, I am going to be really busy for 2 or 3 months starting Feb 1. I'll be checking into the forms and posting less often, and will be on channel maybe once per week.

Lastly, I think the game (LL) was handed from Grifter to someone else... [removed name of person I thought it was.] If more technical/hacker questions are needed please contact me sooner rather than later.

A · January 20, 2005, 10:56

Originally posted by TheCotMan

Could filler be scheduled? There were certain clips used last year that I wanted to show my friends, but was not able to predict their appearance due to the random selection scheme that was used.

The point of the filler is to do just that, fill space. Eco wrote a kick ass script that does a good job of finding material to fill the space given the time until the start of the next movie and the runtime of the filler clips. I think we are going to stick with that setup. We should have the ability to add clips durring the con but I don't think scheduling of every clip is going to happen.

Originally posted by TheCotMan

I've done a lot of work with subtitles and mplayer. It is even possible to setup mplayer and encoder to make a video with subtitles burned into it. I have scripts for this. Let me know if any of these scripts can help.

Yeah I'd love to take a look at em, I'm not the scriptfu wizzard, but as an a/v geek they might come in handy, I'll pm you contact info.

Originally posted by TheCotMan

I'd also like to work with whoever will be doing the video playback to get 23 to work this time. (One of those things where it works great for me on my machines, but did not work there for your machines.) Since I sent Grifter a legal copy via snail-mail, I have no problem trying to make future copies/attempts and ftp-ing them or scp-ing them to Grifter/your group.

I'll be in touch about this.

-A

**Tierra** · January 20, 2005, 10:58

Originally posted by TheCotMan

I'd also like to work with whoever will be doing the video playback to get 23 to work this time. (One of those things where it works great for me on my machines, but did not work there for your machines.) Since I sent Grifter a legal copy via snail-mail, I have no problem trying to make future copies/attempts and ftp-ing them or scp-ing them to Grifter/your group.

Skipping the overlay stuff, and leaving that for someone else in our group that knows a lot more about that than I do (I do remember it was brought up a number of times last year). I've got the copy of 23 we tried to play, and after Defcon, I tried just about every player imaginable all on different systems, and a few different codec packs. I did have the codecs, that's for sure since I did get it playing. However, it would only play the first 20-30 minutes, then start looping video in some weird fucked up behaviour. I don't know if the problem exists in the copy you send Grifter, or if it was his fault on ripping it (most likely a problem on your copy if you send an already ripped/encoded version). If the copy you have right now plays fine, I would like to continue to try to get that working again for next year. PM me if you've got somewhere I can download your copy from, or let me know if you need me to keep my FTPd up, and I'll send you login infos.

**TheCotMan** · January 20, 2005, 11:28

Originally posted by Tierra

Skipping the overlay stuff, and leaving that for someone else in our group that knows a lot more about that than I do (I do remember it was brought up a number of times last year). I've got the copy of 23 we tried to play, and after Defcon, I tried just about every player imaginable all on different systems, and a few different codec packs. I did have the codecs, that's for sure since I did get it playing. However, it would only play the first 20-30 minutes, then start looping video in some weird fucked up behaviour. I don't know if the problem exists in the copy you send Grifter, or if it was his fault on ripping it (most likely a problem on your copy if you send an already ripped/encoded version). If the copy you have right now plays fine, I would like to continue to try to get that working again for next year. PM me if you've got somewhere I can download your copy from, or let me know if you need me to keep my FTPd up, and I'll send you login infos.

No, dont' blame grifter or eco. The DVD I sent him has poor subtitles, but the video file has much better, custom subtitles. What I can do is this:
Send the original uncompressed video, the subtitles file and the script I used to make the final video that was NTSC ratio and speed within a letterbox and subtitles pre-burned into the bottom black-space of video. Then, you can check out the script, run it and have it build a video file.

*That* video file should at least work on your system like it does mine. (I think this might be about 3-4GB of data.)

As for methods to move the files, I prefer scp instead of ftp for the advantage of encryption, or webdav over ssl, and if these are not available, then ftp would be fine. (Maybe gpg of file before ftp?)

If that does not work, I can see if I am able to free up 4GB of space on one of my servers and then give you an https URL with username/password required.

[Edit: added content below]
(Sorry about highjacking your thread Kai. :-/ I did not mean to.)

**Kai** · January 20, 2005, 12:38

Thanks for the feedback all!

As far as AV goes, I have less than zero experience, and I don't know if anyone in the groups does. I don't think I can count on any post editing (at least not during con). I also wouldn't be able to video each LPer, as the first rounds run 6 at a time (means needing 6 video units). Last year we contemplated doing a single video feed into a wall projector to make viewing better/cooler for the audience, but we had trouble with space for the projector.

I'm working on a new application that will take advantage of the serial output of the timer, that could display current times, heats, standings, etc. and have that projected on the wall too. I honestly don't think I'll be able to do 2 projectors, so I have to decide which one. Right now I'm leaning towards video of the contestants from behind, this way the audience can get an "LPer view".

I like the idea of the "wierd lock" meet too, that would be kinda cool. Last year I was hoping too do a kind of speaker thing at the end of the day (around 6 or 7 before parties and jeopardy) in the contest room. Maybe we could just have an LPCON get together Friday night in the early evening in the contest room? We can hang out in the room, talk tips/tricks, drink and mess with the demo boards? I am VERY SERIOUSLY considering bagging the obstacle course, but this would be kind of a fun replacement.

As far as the obstacle course goes, for the amount of interest it drew (and yes, I think a lot of that is due to my ill-preparedness), it was kind of rough to spend all my time in the contest room. In all my years at DC, I have not yet seen a single speaker. I plan on changing that this year. I haven't totally decided yet, but that's just the way I'm leaning.

Again, thanks for the input! All comments are appreciated!

**Kai** · January 20, 2005, 12:40

Originally posted by TheCotMan

(Sorry about highjacking your thread Kai. :-/ I did not mean to.)

lol, no prob!

**Tierra** · January 20, 2005, 14:12

Originally posted by TheCotMan

If that does not work, I can see if I am able to free up 4GB of space on one of my servers and then give you an https URL with username/password required.

That would work best since wget -c might come in as a life saver.

Edit: Sorry, I was going to copy this over to a new thread, then forgot as well...

**WhiteHat** · January 24, 2005, 18:45

Originally posted by Kai

I'm also looking to purchase new locks (as I do every year), but I'm looking at spending some cash and getting nice ones that I can re-key. This way, I can set the pin configuration to the same on all lock to make it as equal across the board as possible. Hopefully I can reuse them as well so I don't have to continue replacing them every year. Anyone got any discount hookups?

may I suggest lockpicking101.com - there are quite a few good locksmiths on there that could probably get some decent locks and even key them alike for you. I believe the mod Varjeal is a schlage distributor and currently sells practice kits for newbie pickers. the problem is that he lives in canada - but I'm sure he could point you in the right direction.

... not that I wish to plug another forum or anything, but if you post on lp101 asking for suggestions for a comp, you'd probably get quite a good response and it would be some good advertising for defcon also.

**chibi2666** · February 22, 2005, 07:44

Lockpicking Question

Hey,Kai

I just had a question for you about the Lockpicking contest this year at Defcon

Ive been into picking locks for a while and wanted to know how I can go about registering for this event?

Any Info would be great.

Thanks

Chibi

**renderman** · February 22, 2005, 10:31

One thing to note about the LPcon, if a contest is going to be anything other than pin tumbler or wafer locks, let the competitors know ahead of time.

i.e. If there's a tubular lock, let us know to bring tools for that (though not nessecarily full tubular locks, depending on the challenge expected), or if there's a schlage everest or soemthing we can bring the proper tools.

There's nothing more crappy than *NOT* being able to get a lock, even if you are'nt the fastest.

**shanker** · March 4, 2005, 00:18

dc719

hay Kai is DC719 helping with the lpcon this year ?

Lpcon Iii

Lpcon Iii

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