Ideas for Defcon 15

[cashmoney]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

Subject matter break-outs would be nice. Topics ranging from hardware to software...lock-picking to war-driving (or rocketing )

[TheCotMan]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

Subject matter break-outs would be nice. Topics ranging from hardware to software...lock-picking to war-driving (or rocketing )

For such things, the space is and was available, but what we need are volunteers to lead such breakout sessions.

I believe there were two "chill-out" skyboxes that could easily be utilitzed by anyone wishing to bring people upstairs to demonstrate things , as impromptu breakout session spaces, for small groups. Additionally, breakout sessions could happen anywhere, as demonstrated by LoST/Lostboy with the hardware breakout session that took place on the contest floor (literally.)

Breakout sessions were suggested for DC14, and the use of the LP village was a great way to break into this BoF-like breakout session.

So... how do we encourage knowledgable people at Defcon to allocate resources to planning, and dedicate some of their con-time to leading breakout sessions? It can take some work, organizing the event, dealing with signup lists (for popular sessions) and being active on the forums, or elsewhere to encourage members. It also means, being on-the-ball when it comes to providing the necessary information to Russ, BlackBeetle, Grfiter, and others when requested, and on-time.

Ideas are welcome.

[Chris]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

For such things, the space is and was available, but what we need are volunteers to lead such breakout sessions.

I believe there were two "chill-out" skyboxes that could easily be utilitzed by anyone wishing to bring people upstairs to demonstrate things , as impromptu breakout session spaces, for small groups. Additionally, breakout sessions could happen anywhere, as demonstrated by LoST/Lostboy with the hardware breakout session that took place on the contest floor (literally.)

Breakout sessions were suggested for DC14, and the use of the LP village was a great way to break into this BoF-like breakout session.

So... how do we encourage knowledgable people at Defcon to allocate resources to planning, and dedicate some of their con-time to leading breakout sessions? It can take some work, organizing the event, dealing with signup lists (for popular sessions) and being active on the forums, or elsewhere to encourage members. It also means, being on-the-ball when it comes to providing the necessary information to Russ, BlackBeetle, and others when requested, and on-time.

Ideas are welcome.

I also love the idea of breakout sessions and thing what LoST did this year was awesome! I think the biggest hurdle regarding the breakouts is getting the word out that one is happening/going to happen.

Forget about the speakers...my concern is for the attendees. How do we get the word to them about upcoming breakouts? They generally happen pretty quickly and if you aren't in the right place at the right time, you are kind of hosed.

I really don't know what the solution to this is? The Info Booth? Perhaps, but then people have to come by the Info Booth several times a day to see if there is a session they want to go to. There must be a way, I'd love to hear folks' ideas.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I also love the idea of breakout sessions and thing what LoST did this year was awesome! I think the biggest hurdle regarding the breakouts is getting the word out that one is happening/going to happen.

Forget about the speakers...my concern is for the attendees. How do we get the word to them about upcoming breakouts? They generally happen pretty quickly and if you aren't in the right place at the right time, you are kind of hosed.

I really don't know what the solution to this is? The Info Booth? Perhaps, but then people have to come by the Info Booth several times a day to see if there is a session they want to go to. There must be a way, I'd love to hear folks' ideas.

A working ical tool could solve some of this. A separate ical for each type of thing could help, and people could subscribe to them.

ical supports things like, lists of people subscribed (for events planned in advance) , resource requirements, and room-allocations. With the proper ical tools, doing things like rescheduling 3 tracks of speakers can be as easy as selecting all events in a day, and dragging them down 2 hours.

ical allows for centralized control of specific calendars (such as would be desired with speaker-tracks) and other calendars which can be semi-authoritative, with the only users allowed to add items/change items be required to authenticate. It also allows for a an "open calendar" where anyone can create any event or delete any event.

Multiple ical calendars can be built and served. Integration of information booth schedule data to pull from the same ical data, could allow for a public "no-tech" listing, and for those people with computers or PDA that support ical import, direct immediate access.

I have had plans for a long time, to try to build a WebDAV available ical repository on the forums, and have the forums be able to import (with restrictions) ical events to the forum calendar, and perhaps have ical calendars for which the forums are authoritative, be exportable.

Frankly, the forum calendar interface SUCKS for planning speaker tracks. Apple's iCal, MS Outlook (latest versions), and the mozilla tool (SunBird IIRC) all have much nicer interfaces-- especially for mass-rescheduling.

The forums don't need to be the place where all ical's are stored, but are an option.

ical RFC for events supports things like GPS coordinates (even though not all clients support this) with the GEO specificiation, and most modern scheduling systems can at least import ical.

Export from the forums is working right now. Import is quite a bit more complicated, and won't be able to support all ical features for import. I have not had time to work on this lately.

[hackajar]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

What about reaching out to promters for some barter system for video content?

I was thinking abou this for a while now, and was wonder what you thought.

Think about it, let's take...Music video's for example.

Say an indie label like "Fueled by Ramen" or "Victory Records" has a well known band (Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, etc) that people would want to see video's for. Due to licence issues can't. You could ask the label "Can we have rights to show vide x, which people know and love, and in turn we will also show y and z, which people DON'T know, or want more exposure". Could this not work with other video related content? Thoughts?

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

What about reaching out to promters for some barter system for video content?

while that has the potential to work, it gets a wary thumbs down from me simply because it legitimizes a horrid system that deserves to die.

[big chopper]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I thought the "Dart Throwing Village" was strangely out of place.
--BC,

[jeremycec]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I would really like to see some custom Riviera Defcon chips this year like these.

Jeremy

[Vog]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15: Hacker Olympics

There are several competitive events at Defcon, as we all know, and the winners from all those events get their 15 seconds of fame during the award presentations and sometimes even the coveted black badge. Being part of the DC208 crew that was awarded the buffalo bills award last year, for placing second in Hacker Jeapordy for as long as I can remember, I would like to see longtimers like g4lt, Anonpoet, and Cute Skunk have a chance at getting their 15 seconds of fame for sometime other than always placing 2nd.

I propose that a Hacker Olympics be started for those DC groups that participate in multiple events with an over all hacker award going to the winner. So even though you place 2nd in Ken Shoto's CTF and Hacker Jeapordy (ahem) you would still get points towards an over all hacker title awarded at the end of the con.

So a series of qualifying team events (ctf, actf, jeapordy, scavenger hunt etc...) would need to be listed and then a points system established so that a running tally can be kept through the con. There are of course problems with this picture because not everyone qualifies for entry into every event, but who said things had to be fair, if everyone can apply, that's all that matters. I don't see people bitching about locals having a leg up on everyone else in the scavenger hunt... If this idea gets a positive reaction then I'll create another thread to go into more detail.

Cheers,
Vog

[TheCotMan]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15: Hacker Olympics

There are several competitive events at Defcon, as we all know, and the winners from all those events get their 15 seconds of fame during the award presentations and sometimes even the coveted black badge. Being part of the DC208 crew that was awarded the buffalo bills award last year, for placing second in Hacker Jeapordy for as long as I can remember, I would like to see longtimers like g4lt, Anonpoet, and Cute Skunk have a chance at getting their 15 seconds of fame for sometime other than always placing 2nd.

I propose that a Hacker Olympics be started for those DC groups that participate in multiple events with an over all hacker award going to the winner. So even though you place 2nd in Ken Shoto's CTF and Hacker Jeapordy (ahem) you would still get points towards an over all hacker title awarded at the end of the con.

So a series of qualifying team events (ctf, actf, jeapordy, scavenger hunt etc...) would need to be listed and then a points system established so that a running tally can be kept through the con. There are of course problems with this picture because not everyone qualifies for entry into every event, but who said things had to be fair, if everyone can apply, that's all that matters. I don't see people bitching about locals having a leg up on everyone else in the scavenger hunt... If this idea gets a positive reaction then I'll create another thread to go into more detail.

Cheers,
Vog

How would a scoring system work? Would more weight be placed in scores of certain event instead of others? What events would be included? Who would run the final numbers after scrabling around to get information on the placements of various winners in all of the contests after they were over, but before closing ceremonies?

Expand this idea with more thoughts and suggestions. Let's see where it goes. If you get more responses, I can shear the related posts into "New Ideas" which is under the Contests/Events section as a separate forum.

[converge]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15: Hacker Olympics

I think Defcon 15 should have a contest that goes something like this. x teams are formed to compete in a challenge of awkward feet... something that goes against every grain in our online existance.

Teach.

Contest runners find and, through painful measure, certify the limited skills of x skript kiddies attending Defcon, one for each participating team. Contest runners on the first day of Defcon present the desired outcome/contest format. Each team of skilled haxor then has the weekend to pump their randomly assigned patron with as much knowledge and skill as humanly possible (whether systems exploitation, SE, lockpicking, etc) ... tailored to that teams strategy for winning the contest at the end, where only the prepped and groomed haxors in training can actually make the win for the entire team. This could include forced attendance of talks, participation in certain events for practice, hanging out in certain breakout areas (Villages) etc.. none of the above, or other more creative means. Final contest is held at the end of Sunday before Awards Ceremony where results are announced.

Individual gets recognized for their learning ability and skill, team gets recognized for their 1337 skills as well as their ability to bring others up to speed.

It's CTF meets Olympics meets Breakout Session meets Junkyard Wars meets Defcon.

Spoonman?

[mage2]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

A idea, what about a low power FM station that could broadcast updates every hour or so? Sooner for those last minute sessions. I am pretty sure almost everyone has a fm radio somewhere available , that along with a projector/website at the info booth should keep the masses informed as well as could be expected. The transmitter could also be located at the info booth. Of course this could be subject to abuse, like someone transmitting on the same freq with false data. But the data could be verified by the info booth.

What do you think?

I also love the idea of breakout sessions and thing what LoST did this year was awesome! I think the biggest hurdle regarding the breakouts is getting the word out that one is happening/going to happen.

Forget about the speakers...my concern is for the attendees. How do we get the word to them about upcoming breakouts? They generally happen pretty quickly and if you aren't in the right place at the right time, you are kind of hosed.

I really don't know what the solution to this is? The Info Booth? Perhaps, but then people have to come by the Info Booth several times a day to see if there is a session they want to go to. There must be a way, I'd love to hear folks' ideas.

[Voltage Spike]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

A idea, what about a low power FM station that could broadcast updates every hour or so?

Defcon Radio was around for years, but the organizer (dmz, I believe) was unable to attend last year.

[LosT]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

It is hard enough creating a tier based contest, much less bringing all contests together this way...

LosT

[Vog]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15: Hacker Olympics

I think Defcon 15 should have a contest that goes something like this. x teams are formed to compete in a challenge of awkward feet... something that goes against every grain in our online existance.

Teach.

Contest runners find and, through painful measure, certify the limited skills of x skript kiddies attending Defcon, one for each participating team. Contest runners on the first day of Defcon present the desired outcome/contest format. Each team of skilled haxor then has the weekend to pump their randomly assigned patron with as much knowledge and skill as humanly possible (whether systems exploitation, SE, lockpicking, etc) ... tailored to that teams strategy for winning the contest at the end, where only the prepped and groomed haxors in training can actually make the win for the entire team. This could include forced attendance of talks, participation in certain events for practice, hanging out in certain breakout areas (Villages) etc.. none of the above, or other more creative means. Final contest is held at the end of Sunday before Awards Ceremony where results are announced.

Individual gets recognized for their learning ability and skill, team gets recognized for their 1337 skills as well as their ability to bring others up to speed.

It's CTF meets Olympics meets Breakout Session meets Junkyard Wars meets Defcon.

Spoonman?

Funny you mention that, crickett from DC208 is trying to put together a local Con in SE Idaho that addresses that very concept. http://wargamez.org/. I'm not trying to plug the con but we can probably use the experience of the con as a template for how one could be run at Defcon.