Need a letter of some sort to get my company to pay for my trip to Def Con

[Z3r3nt1]

I have a chance to get my company to pay for my entire trip to Def Con this year if I can come up with a good explanation. I am thinking about going the way of cheap training....what do you all think? Does anyone have an example of a letter they used for there bosses to explain the benefit?

Thanks

Z3r3nt1

[renderman]

Dear work,

Pay for my trip to Defcon or the root passwords end up on the wall of sheep.

Sincerly,

You

[Voltage Spike]

Search the forums. You are not the first person to ask this question.

[TheCotMan]

Search the forums. You are not the first person to ask this question.

Z3r3nt1:
Business Case for Def Con / Blackhat
Getting my Company to foot the bill
I really want to know (related)

More than these are on the forums IIRC. You search for the rest. if you find more threads in these forums, why not post links to them in your own thread so other people can find them too[, and increase the value of this thread.]

[noid]

Dear Z3r3nt1's job:

Please let Z3r3nt1 come to Defcon. We promise to make him learn stuff. There will be no booze or slutty girls at the event, just speeches and workshops. We promise. Thank you.
- Defcon

[Siviak]

Please let Z3r3nt1 come to Defcon. We promise to make him learn stuff. There will be no booze or slutty girls at the event, just speeches and workshops. We promise. Thank you.
- Defcon

hold the phone... something about that doesn't seem corrent...

[highwizard]

hold the phone... something about that doesn't seem corrent...

Corrent? Siviak, are you making up words again?

[Chris]

Dear Z3r3nt1's job:

Please let Z3r3nt1 come to Defcon. We promise to make him learn stuff. There will be no booze or slutty girls at the event, just speeches and workshops. We promise. Thank you.
- Defcon

I swear to God I am going to make this a form letter and use it.

[highwizard]

I swear to God I am going to make this a form letter and use it.

It should have been signed "Epstein's Mother"

[noid]

It should have been signed "Epstein's Mother"

I was originally going to do that, but I wasnt sure if the joke would be lost on everyone or not.

[Chris]

I was originally going to do that, but I wasnt sure if the joke would be lost on everyone or not.

Unfortunately, it probably would have. These kids today...no appreciation of the classics.

[Siviak]

Corrent? Siviak, are you making up words again?

yeah.. sorry about that. hearing all the other guys here in Da' Hood use words like "correck" and "acks" got me to thinking I could pull it off too... guess I need to tan more.......

[dead addict]

Serious response...

yeah.. sorry about that. hearing all the other guys here in Da' Hood use words like "correck" and "acks" got me to thinking I could pull it off too... guess I need to tan more.......

There are a couple of things to justify DC to an employer. One is to show some examples of talks from past years that relate to what you or your company is doing. Another is to point out that a percentage of the DC talks are also at Black Hat - a more more expensive conference.

Compare DC to other training venues or conferences.

At the very least, if they don't pay, you should get paid time off to go to the event - as they will be getting benefit from it.

One minus of having work pay for DC is that you probably should write a trip-report - this will help justify next years trip.

If they bring up the partying (in a conversation about DC), et cetera, point out that every conference known to man has partying in it, and this aspect of DC is promoted because the press often doesn't know how to find the technical stories.

But I assume these points are all made in those links to threads I didn't bother reading.

DA

[Voltage Spike]

Compare DC to other training venues or conferences.

I wouldn't personally go this route unless the employer in question initiates an attack on the educational aspect of the conference. It conveys the impression that Defcon isn't a normal conference. Play up the positive attributes and let Defcon speak for itself.

Note that the topics for many (all?) of the talks are now available.