Why DEFCON beats H2K
   --------------------
   By Drew Ulricksen
   July 17, 2000 6:27 PM PT

   NEW  YORK  -- If you're a hacker or a fed with a limited budget (yeah,
   right) and are bummed that you couldn't afford to go to H2K as well as
   DEF  CON,  rest  assured  --  you  haven't  missed  anything yet. 2600
   magazine's  H2K,  or Hacking on Planet Earth 2000, is over but DEF CON
   8.0 is coming up in less than two weeks.

   While  there  were a few redeeming qualities to H2K this year, it sure
   wasn't worth a plane ticket to New York and the cost of staying in the
   scummy  Hotel  Pennsylvania. In my humble opinion, DEF CON is far more
   informative and entertaining.

   At  the  start of H2K, people were starting to wonder whether it would
   take  the  crown away from DEF CON as the premiere hacking conference.
   Most  of  that  speculation  was due to the appearance of such hacking
   greats  as  the  Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) -- a much hotter commodity
   now,  post-Back  Orifice, than during the last 2600 con in 1997 -- and
   the backing of 2600.

   But  cDc's  performance  at  H2K didn't seem to compare with their
   rock  concert  of  a show at DEF CON 7.0 to unveil BO2K. cDc's H2K
   show was quite bizarre and most of it seemed to have been thought up a
   few  minutes  before. As for the unveiling of a new cDc application by
   Sir  Dystic,  he said to wait two weeks, until DEF CON 8.0, which left
   me wondering why I bothered coming.

   H2K  was  held  at  the  Hotel Pennsylvania, a shoddy place not nearly
   large  enough  to hold all of the people. For instance, marquee events
   like  the  cDc  show  and  Kevin Mitnick's phoned-in contribution to a
   social  engineering  panel  were held in the Virtual Paris room on the
   18th  floor,  but  also  had to be telecast to a spillover room on the
   same floor to cater to the crowds.

   The  organization  was  also  lacking.  Everything seemed to be always
   behind  schedule  and  at the wrong time and being cancelled -- and it
   always  took  forever  to  get  the  microphones working. Don't get me
   wrong,  DEF  CON  has  its  share  of problems, but the rooms are much
   larger, the organization is much better ... and the microphones work.

   At  DEF  CON last year, there were far more technical speakers than at
   H2K,  which  seemed  like  it  was  struggling  to  fill up slots. H2K
   featured speakers on such irrelevant topics as:

     "Parents: Are They Your Enemies?"

     "MTV -- How Did It Happen?"

     And of course, "High School Horror Tales."

   (Yawn.) Who cares?

   The  keynote  speaker of H2K was Jello Biafra. You know, Jello Biafra.
   The  frontman of Dead Kennedy's. The band that had their peak before a
   lot  of  the kids attending H2K were even born. The guy that proclaims
   he's never used a computer in his life gave the keynote. Riiiight ...