Defcon 7.0 In a Nutshell.
By Asmodian X


	Defcon is a convention held yearly in las Vegas usually in July. 
It is promoted by Dark Tangent and his Defcon Goons.  For more information
about Defcon consult: 

http://www.defcon.org

In concept, Defcon is a gathering of computer enthusiasts, paranoid
people, and people who just want to be in the lime light.  Ironically the
majority of these people call themselves "Hackers."  Weather any of these
people can create furniture with an axe I do not know. 

(See Dictionary definition)

The Ride to Las Vegas

My commerads and I boarded the airplane around 11 or 12pm and plopped down
in our seats.  Axon and Frogman plopped out their new(er) laptops, and
proceeded to poke around with articles and other projects.  Meanwhilst I
was playing around with Twiggy (a Cassiopia E-10 Palm-PC).  Twiggy was a
new acquisition of mine, and I was playing solitaire and setting up a profile
for myself in the case some one wanted to exchange electronic business
cards.  Frogman had a similar device which was made by Everex.  Needless
to say, the ride was un eventful.

-=- Arrival -=-

We arrived at Las Vegas and walked to the luggage area.  After picking out
our luggage pieces, we walked over to the Taxi area and picked up a Taxi
over to Alexis Park.  Where we were surprised to find that we had to pay a
400$ deposit.  After scrimping up enough cash we waddled over to our room. 
It was a two bed room with a quasi kitchen.  It had an empty refrigerator
and cabinent with a convenient empty 6 pack of bottles. 

We all hoped into one of the Whirl-pools, and relaxed for a bit before
heading back to the room.  I crashed on one of the beds, and axon and frog
man poked around on laptops until about 7ish in the morning when we picked
our selves up and walked over to the convention center.  Alexis Park was
really nice, it had rained a few inches a day or so back, so of course
everything flooded out.  The fountains looked rather polluted, and some of
the pools were shut down.  After getting some over priced breakfast we
waited in line until 10am when they actually opened the doors.

During that time, it began to rain, which was a serious problem to those
who chose to haul their laptop with them.  Las Vegas was rather muddy from
the floods which had pre-ceded the Defcon crowd.  The ran had made the
fountains polluted.  The hotel staff scurried around dumping a cleaning
compound into the murky fountains.  By night fall the fountains were clean
again. 

The kick off was pretty cool, everybody got metal tags and lanyards, which
beat the hell out of the lame plastic tags during DC6.  Hordes of Tshirt
sales tables were there.  If I had any cash left I would have gotten the
Shell oil spoof shirt (e.g. Shell -> /bin/sh)  We probably would have
gotten more stuff if it were not for the hotel rapeing us for the deposit.
400$ is not worth the P.O.S rooms we got, but we were happy enough to be
there not to complain.

-=- The Speakers -=-

This time it was a bit more compartimentalised than it was a year or so
back.  It had three tracks, newbie, intermediate and advanced.  My only
regret was that we could not compete in the Capture the flag contest,
primarily because everybody wanted to see the speakers.  Not surprisingly
the ghetto hackers won, purely because of numbers.  (No disrespect of
course.)  Now a few words on the widely disliked Caraloyn Minel, which I
can attest that Mrs. Minel is in fact, the closest thing to a true bitch
that I've ever met.  I could theorize possible causes for MBD (Massive
Bitchness Disorder), but you probably all know about that.  In-case you
don't, I suggest you consult "http://www.attrition.org".  (BTW. Carolyn
got thrown out of defcon due to refusal to provide any services on her CTF
box, she was under the impression a brick on a rope was an acceptable CTF
target boxen.) 

I found the Identity theft speaker the most interesting.  His speech made
me glad my credit rating sucks.  Professor Feedlebom, made his speech
about pirate radio amidst a hangover.  It was un-interesting, and would
have been better sans booze.  The how to use nmap similar was boring as
hell, it didn't get interesting until fydor showed up and answered some
questions.  The Oracle stuff was power pointed, and thus boring as hell. 
I noticed a trend.  "Professionals" used lame power point presentations, the
developers and grey hats were the MOST interesting because they could
answer anything about the software you wanted to know.  The newbies
generally were hard to follow, due to lack of planning and shuddering.

As a note to future speakers who read this, be considerate of your
audience, I don't use Microsoft products, thus ppt presentations are
pointless, it would be more convenient to me to have something like a text,
or some Unix friendlier document.

-=- Food and stuff -=- 
Because of the hotel raping us, we could not
afford to eat out.  So we made do with some instant Mac&cheese, and some
PB&J we bought from a grocery store.  Of course the hotel practically
required a down payment for the food.  We ended up living at a convenience
store down the street. 

-=- Transit Hell -=-
30 hours + bus + psycho-driver = hell.
nuff said.

-=- Epoch -=- 
It was an enlightening experience, I want to go again, next
time I am bringing more cash, better laptop, and more people.  And food
that requires less preparation.  Aegis, my laptop, made it, but it was
dwarfed.  With luck,By the time DC8 is going on, I will have my new(er)
laptop, (deacon) and/or something newer.  Axon talked about bringing an
IBM rs/6000 work station to the con for some extra muscle for crunching
passwords.  The frogman, will be bringing on his new(er) laptop an IBM
thinkpad to join in to the fray.  I'm expecting another friend of mine to
come along and check out some of the speakers. 

<E0F> 
