::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::
                 :*:                                       :*:
                 :*:    HohoCon '91:  The Sordid Details   :*:
                 :*:                                       :*:
                 :*:             by:  Mack Hammer          :*:
                 :*:                                       :*:
                ::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::*::
                                                            


        December 27 - 29, 1991, Houston was invaded by some 80 plus hackers
and telecommunications enthusiasts from around the country.  HohoCon '91 was
a marked success, unlike its predecessor, HohoCon '90.  The con, sponsored by
NIA and dFx, was very well organized, with Drunkfux, Judge Dredd, and Lord
MacDuff taking the brunt of the organizing on their shoulders.  Vision was
also acknowledged as one of the organizers, but was out of town and couldn't
make the Con.

        The Con was held at the Airport Hilton near Intercontinental Airport
in Houston, Texas, and was a three-day event, although almost all of the
business was taken care of on Saturday the 28th.  Thanks to the organizers'
securing an entire wing separate from the rest of the hotel and a large
conference room, the conferees went unmolested for the whole of the weekend.

        Friday the 27th
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        Most of the guests started arriving during the afternoon of Friday
the 27th.  After laying around/getting acquainted for most of the day,
Hunter (who provided valuable assistance with entertainment all weekend)
contacted Rogue, who provided spirits (at cost) for the night.  After
bringing in some 300 dollars worth of hard liquor, the party began.

        While the events that ensued that evening are somewhat foggy for
this writer, I will attempt to detail some of the highlights.  Everyone
wandered in and out of the conference room (where the liquor was located)
and basically got smashed and swapped hacker war stories.  It was then that
Doc Cypher made the unofficial introductory address of the Con.  The entire
group cheered and jeered as Doc, in a drunken stupor, took a nostalgic look
back at some of the great NUIs, systems, services, etcetera that marked
hacking in the Eighties.

        The party then moved to the room of MC Allah (who was passed out on
the bed after drinking beer all day and capping it off with some mixed
drinks that night).  A VCR was set up, and a group of about 20 people
watched "Necromantic," a European porn flick featuring, you guessed it, the
dead.  After the movie, everyone split up and either went to bed or drank
the night away, talking about the old times.

        Saturday the 28th
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        The actual conference was scheduled to begin at noon on Saturday,
but due to massive hangovers, was postponed until 2 pm.  At 2 pm somewhere
between 80 and 100 people made their way into the conference room to hear
speeches by various members of the hack/phreak community.

        Drunkfux started things off with a few introductions and some
general announcements about the Con, and then introduced Bruce Sterling, the
first speaker.  Bruce, the writer of several cyberpunk novels including his
most recent release, The Difference Engine (with William Gibson), was basically
the celebrity of the Con, and spoke as a member of the Austin Branch of the
Electronic Frontiers Foundation.  As you should know, the EFF is concerned with
protecting the civil liberties of computer users and telecommunications
enthusiasts.  Mail can be sent to the EFF at eff.org, or the Austin Branch can
be contacted at eff-a.tic.com.

        The next speaker was Steve Ryan from World View Magazine.  World
View is an electronic magazine which also concerns civil liberties,
especially those involving computers.  One of the primary concerns of the
magazine's writers is freedom of speech, and Steve spoke about the
suspension of this right during the sixties, and warned that it may happen
again.

        The guys from Phrack (Crimson Death and Dispater) then took the
podium and basically told the story of what had been going on with Phrack
over the last year or two.  They explained the editorial conflict
surrounding Phrack 34, and gave everyone a short history of who had edited
Phrack when.  Crimson Death and Dispater finally put to rest any controversy
concerning Phrack, and did an excellent job of clarifying the situation.
They also explained why Phrack has "sucked" as of late, blaming it on poor
submissions.  Now that the editorship is once again on stable ground, we're
once again expecting big things from hacking's most famous electronic
publication.

        Everyone's favorite ex-LODers, Chris (Erik Bloodaxe) and Scott (Doc
Holiday) were the next speakers.  Now known as Comsec Data Security, and
trying to shake that evil hacker stigma, Scott and Chris have joined
corporate America as security consultants.  The two explained that they
hadn't gotten an especially warm welcome from anyone already in the security
field, and that they had been blackballed by every trade organization.
Rather than taking advantage of the huge body of knowledge possessed by the
ex-hackers, established security experts and publications have chose to
ignore them due to their colored past.  Furthermore, it seems that they have
also been spurned by much of the hacking community.  Overall, the speech
provided an interesting look into the way the computer security field
operates, and was very reassuring to the hackers still on the other side of
the fence.  Scott and Chris did report, however, that business was good.
They then shifted gears and reported on New York's MOD, perhaps the most
unpopular group in the history of hacking.  First they reported on MOD's
activities in general, ie; the posting of personal information of other
hackers on IRC and Lutzifer, general harassment of many noted members of the
hacking community, and the destructions of private systems on various
networks.  They then announced the best news of the day, five MOD members
(including Corrupt, Phiber Optik, and Outlaw) were raided on December 6.

        After the Comsec guys finished their speech, Count Zero of RDT
presented a film, starring himself and the other RDT guys, exploring the
campus of MIT.  The film included extensive footage of the steam tunnels
running under the campus, and a great shot of a physical plant employee.

        After the MIT film, about a third of the attendees left, and the
conferees who remained saw the episode of "And Now It Can Be Told" about
hackers.  Geraldo Rivera, along with just about everyone else on the show,
got a lot of boos and hisses from the crowd.

        The conference then took about a four hour lull while everyone ate,
drank, and watched the pay-per-view channels for free (see Tid-Bytes for
more info).  About 9 pm, Hunter and Rogue once again came through with the
liquor, and yet another night of revelry began.  Everyone once again began
to indulge heavily in the alcohol, and most of the conferees staying in the
hotel found their way into the hallway, where a horrified couple was being
hustled from our wing.  The couple, mistakenly assigned to the HohoCon wing
by the hotel staff, was quite amazed to find some 40 odd drunken and raucous
hackers partying in the hallways.

        Just when things once again died down a bit, Hunter came through
once again, this time with a couple of strippers he picked up somewhere.
While the live performance put on by the strippers couldn't compare with
Necromantic, it was the main entertainment of the night.  Eventually,
everyone ended up either going to bed or working on CDC File #200, and
HohoCon '91 was all but through.

        Sunday the 29th
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        As always, there wasn't much going on Sunday, with most people
checking out and departing for home.  Overall, it seems that HohoCon '91 was
a smashing success, and we're looking forward to next year.


Now...  for the first annual...


                     :: Informatik HohoCon Awards ::


Least constructive use of time:

    Crimson Death, for watching approximately six hours of pornos free of
    charge on Saturday night.

Most disgusting drink:

    Ronnie, who mixed rum, tequila, grenadine, blue Hawaiian mix, vodka, and
lime          juice.


Hard-day's-night award:

    M.C. Allah, for drinking all day, drinking most of the night, passing
    out, and puking on his hotel room floor and Siegfried's foot.

Most distasteful video presentation:

    Erik Bloodaxe, for showing the most vile porno known to man,
    Necromantic.

Should have been drowned in the pool award:

    Rou Tisten, the most annoying personality in the world and a voice to
    match.

Hard Luck Award:

    The whole crew from Memphis whose transmission went out in their truck.
    I sure hope you made it home, guys.

I get paid for this? Award:

    Wile E. Security Guard.  For marching around our wing approximately
    11,000 times and never saying ANYTHING about our raucous conduct.

Logistical genius Award:

    The guy who put the Baptist-Revival-Worship-Meeting-Thing next to the
    Con on Friday night.



                 :: Unofficial HohoCon '91 Guest List ::


        Allanon                                 Lord MacDuff
        Amateur                                 M.C. Allah
        Analog Assassin                         Mack Hammer
        Archangel                               Macross the Black
        Battery                                 Material Man
        Beowulf                                 Minor Threat
        Black Night                             Misanthrope
        Bryan O'Blivian                         Morpheus
        Bundy                                   Mustang
        Cabbage Truck                           Nihilator
        Chizz                                   Omega
        Circle Jerk                             Phaedrus
        Colin Campbell                          Psionic Infiltrator
        Count Zero                              Purple Hayes
        Count Zero                              Rambo
        Crimson Death                           Razorback
        Cross Connect                           Rev. Scott Free
        Cyndre The Grey                         Rogue Lord of the Swastika
        Dark Piper                              Ronnie
        Devereuax                               Rou Tisten
        Dispater                                Search 'n Seizure
        Doc Cypher                              Siegfried
        Doc Holiday                             Snow Blind
        Drunkfux                                Split
        Elrond of Rivendell                     Spoink
        Erik BloodAxe                           Sterling
        Format C:                               Swamp Rat
        Frosty                                  Technysis
        G.A. Ellsworth                          Terminator
        Holistic Hacker                         Terry-Scientist of Confusion
        Hunter                                  The Brain
        Informant                               The Butler
        Jabba                                   The Chairman
        Joe Rockhead                            The Conflict
        Johnny Rotten                           The Desert Fox
        Judge Dredd                             The Master
        Junk Master                             The Pope
        Kable Borks                             The Prisinor
        Knightlife                              White Knight
        Loki                                    Winter's Ice


 Please note:  This list was compiled mainly from a sign-in sheet passed
               around at the conference on Saturday.  If you missed being
               on the list, we apologize.

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