Ideas for Defcon 15

[Nikita]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

You can't get non defcon residents to comply with your idea. I see the blinken lights wheels turning in your heads from here. But what about all the hotel guest in between in the negative space? ( And, What about light pollution )

[DaKahuna]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

Or the skull and cross bones symbol being displayed on both sides of the tower building!

[converge]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

It would take a feat of astronomical size.. but schedule a time when all defcon attendees would go to their rooms. Pre-planning would determine which room-numbers were needed for the correct pattern, then in planned time intervals on a synced clock have everyone turn their room lights on or off in concert. All your base are belong to us.. an image of Mario jumping, cycling through the three circles of the defcon logo ...

[samayra]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I think part of the success was in the cheap materials. It was VERY cool that folks walked away with a robot 10x the value, but in all honesty I think part of the success was cost of commitment. $200 to hop in a breakout session that may or may not turn out successful (for myself) is a big commitment.

This will be my first year attending a con and I would like to learn hands on. I agree that $200 is a big commitment.

If folks are doing it exclusively for the hardware discount then the wrong folks are consuming space of the breakout to begin with.

However, there should be some middle ground to limit the "space consumers", but still allow those on limited budgets to participate.

[digital_dreamer]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I'm down for the breakouts, I would recommend $20 also, keep it cheap, keep it fun, and bring more than six boxes this time if you can, I wanted to crack one at 14 but i was 2minutes late, lol.

DT,when are you putting up the main DC15 page with vendors, events, etc

Adam & Abby, please tell my you guys have the penthouse booked already xD

AST, get the cameras ready, this year will be better than last!!

[mage2]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I was thinking about doing a breakout on soldering, just a simple hands on. I am working on getting the irons together. I know I can not afford to buy 50 weller irons, but I am going to see if they might donate them or something similar. Would there be a interest in a basic soldering breakout?

I love the robot also, It was and is alot of fun. thanks LoST.

I think part of the success was in the cheap materials. It was VERY cool that folks walked away with a robot 10x the value, but in all honesty I think part of the success was cost of commitment. $200 to hop in a breakout session that may or may not turn out successful (for myself) is a big commitment. $20 in Vegas is a breakfast burrito sampler and not even a question for dropping on a cool diversion in skill experimentation (ie, hey, I think I'll pick up a solder iron and burn something for the first time!)

I'm not saying that success depends on outrageously generous donated goods .. but that cost of involvement should stay lower. Lets face it, the breakout session is ultimately the cool pitch to learn hands on, even if its just a cheap LCD, a board, and some wires. If folks are doing it exclusively for the hardware discount then the wrong folks are consuming space of the breakout to begin with.

NOT to downplay the cool robot of last year. That thing is frickin awesome man.

[converge]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I think part of the success was in the cheap materials. It was VERY cool that folks walked away with a robot 10x the value, but in all honesty I think part of the success was cost of commitment. $200 to hop in a breakout session that may or may not turn out successful (for myself) is a big commitment. $20 in Vegas is a breakfast burrito sampler and not even a question for dropping on a cool diversion in skill experimentation (ie, hey, I think I'll pick up a solder iron and burn something for the first time!)

I'm not saying that success depends on outrageously generous donated goods .. but that cost of involvement should stay lower. Lets face it, the breakout session is ultimately the cool pitch to learn hands on, even if its just a cheap LCD, a board, and some wires. If folks are doing it exclusively for the hardware discount then the wrong folks are consuming space of the breakout to begin with.

NOT to downplay the cool robot of last year. That thing is frickin awesome man.

[mage2]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I was one of the persons waiting for the breakout. I knew about it from being in the contest and mostly from you talking about it here. My friends and I were there and paid the donation. I have the bot on my desk right now. I loved the session and would be very interested in another.

There are a few changes that would help if there is going to be another one.
I do think tables and chairs would be a good improvement, as would a set time and place . I know personally that a $200 fee for a breakout session is a bit on the high side and I would have to know about it before con to try have the money. The cost is part of the reason I did not already have a micro controller. But a smaller donation like last year was great. Even if it was a bit more than last year it would be worth it to me.

Getting the info out would be good also, I know this has been and is being talked about for methods of getting the info out to the masses.

I would love to have more hands on breakout sessions, I have been pondering the idea of running one myself. And I plan to try to get some equipment donated if possible.

I am not sure how many break-out sessions happened last year- I ran one right in the middle of the contest area- right on the floor- I had more people wanting to participate than I had hardware with me- and I got some hardware into the hands of people who might not have otherwise picked up a uController and start working with one-

A few questions: Interest in a break out again this year? (Like I did last year)- Would people be willing to pay for the cost to cover materials? (Last year people got $200 kits for like $20- I had the kits donated)-

We had very little advertising for breakouts last year, I just posted a few things on the forums here, and then just shouted out to the room, "Hey, I'm starting a breakout session"-

Thoughts? Anyone who attended wish to comment?

LosT

[LosT]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

I am not sure how many break-out sessions happened last year- I ran one right in the middle of the contest area- right on the floor- I had more people wanting to participate than I had hardware with me- and I got some hardware into the hands of people who might not have otherwise picked up a uController and start working with one-

A few questions: Interest in a break out again this year? (Like I did last year)- Would people be willing to pay for the cost to cover materials? (Last year people got $200 kits for like $20- I had the kits donated)-

We had very little advertising for breakouts last year, I just posted a few things on the forums here, and then just shouted out to the room, "Hey, I'm starting a breakout session"-

Thoughts? Anyone who attended wish to comment?

LosT

[theprez98]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

At the risk of making myself VERY unpopular, I'm going to suggest strongly that you leave your kids at home.

I wouldn't say that makes you unpopular at all. I have 3 kids and wouldn't consider bringing them to DC. Unless I'm completely alone, and then we'd be very unpopular together.

[shrdlu]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

Thats why I opened the idea for others to have ideas. For instance getting a local daycare to be a part of it or hiring a local baby sitter or something like that. It may be a bad idea and never happen. But at this stage it is just a idea. And is open to criticism or helpful ideas.

At the risk of making myself VERY unpopular, I'm going to suggest strongly that you leave your kids at home. If you can't do that, consider that they are going to hear and see things that I NEVER would have let my daughter see at that age. I realize that you said daycare, but that also means you think that there's places that the little dears will fit right in. They won't. Really.

Children have their place, but you might want to think about whose interest you are serving here. The hotel(s) usually offer sitters (it might take prior arrangement), and those peopler are licensed and trustworthy. I would suggest that if you're bringing young, impressionable little creatures, that you shouldn't even be staying in the defcon block of rooms. The Embassy Suites (the one over by the Alexis Park) is very pleasant, and there's no casino. They are family friendly, and there are others just as good (but I have experience with that one).

If you're going to bring your family, be considerate, both of your family, and of the rest of us.

[liberator]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

hmmm... I know many providers will translate email sent to yournumber@theirfuckedupdomain.com and resend to your handset as an sms. In these cases, Infobooth could interface RSS to a mailer based on subscribed addys, sending event updates to your phone as they happen. In fact, they could create multiple lists to isolate folks interested in talk updates, contest updates, breakout sessions, random con announces, etc. ...

Yes, this was my thought as well. A further distinction could be a "moderated" set of lists (i.e. low volume, with traffic generated only by "official" DEFCON goons), and an "unmoderated" set of lists which anyone could post to. Drunken ramblings and flames may make unmoderated lists all but unusable.

Then pray that the scribe list doesn't make it out to the mass slackers waiting for that kind of opportunity...

I was thinking that one possible security workaround would be for the users to first create a throwaway email account on one of the free services, which they then configure to autoforward incoming content to their SMS email bridge. That way when the DEFCON SMS server gets hacked (after all, it will be the defacto biggest CTF prize), only their throwaway account is exposed. The attacker then has to also hack the free email provider, or social engineer the user, before he gets their SMS email bridge info.

Optionally the throwaway email account could autoforward only content from a specific address, e.g. XXX@rss.defcon.org or some such, so that spam doesn't go to the phone.

Of course this extra step of including the throwaway account is one more hassle, but that's a cost / benefit tradeoff that people can individually evaluate and choose or not if desired.

Bigfoot has such an forwarding service, but I quit using them years ago because of intolerable delays. That latency may well be fixed by now, but they have introduced daily limits, so that's a show stopper IMHO. I'm sure that many other services exist that would all work fine.

Another option would be for them to export the RSS feed to a publicly accessible server.. allowing con attendees, defcon radio, defcon by phone, etc direct subscribe access to the feeds that they are generating and using for their gurucrazyknowledge.

I would think that this would be necessary to keep the upkeep manageable.

Again, I'd be surprised if this problem hasn't already been solved a million times. This seems like a universal need for any big convention, which Las Vegas alone is built on these days. Tour groups and many other organizations would find this indespensable, which tells me that it's probably already been figured out in an elegant way.

[converge]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

hmmm... I know many providers will translate email sent to yournumber@theirfuckedupdomain.com and resend to your handset as an sms. In these cases, Infobooth could interface RSS to a mailer based on subscribed addys, sending event updates to your phone as they happen. In fact, they could create multiple lists to isolate folks interested in talk updates, contest updates, breakout sessions, random con announces, etc. ... Then pray that the scribe list doesn't make it out to the mass slackers waiting for that kind of opportunity...

Another option would be for them to export the RSS feed to a publicly accessible server.. allowing con attendees, defcon radio, defcon by phone, etc direct subscribe access to the feeds that they are generating and using for their gurucrazyknowledge.

[liberator]

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.

How about some kind of SMS or other text-to-cellphone notification? I'm an old enough fossil to not be familiar with the logistics of transmitting this. Broadcast? Subscription? I don't know. (If you know about 5U4GB, 805, 6L6, 6146B, etc. then you know where I'm coming from).

One challenge may be that people don't want their SMS / cell phone numbers in somebody's database, but I would think that a workaround for that has already been developed (?). If not, maybe it's time for me to learn about SMS and develop the next killer app.

[DaKahuna]

Re: Ideas for Defcon 15

The only kid I would even consider brining to DefCon is myself :)