9707.08.1747 (PDT) Just arrived to Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix. Have an hour layover here before catching the flight up to Vegas. The flight from Austin was uneventful. Ended up with a bulkhead seat, so had NO leg room. Mental note - no further bulkhead seat assignments. Guy next to me was kewl - I enjoy traveling with "younger" folks (gz, I sound old!) - usually get stuck next to old tacky couples, or fat- farm escapees. This guy noticed I was reading one of the Star Wars novels & we chatted some about that. Just before leaving the house back in Austin, Scott Bufton (NevTel) left me voice saying he needed a quick authorization signature to have the LVDI-end of the T1 moved with LVDI's move this weekend. He wanted to fax it over, but since I was leaving for the airport, I called him back, left him voice mail saying I was going to stop by tomorrow and if there wasn't a super urgent need, would that work for him. Upon getting to PHX I checked voice mail again (VMJunkie) and he'd called back & said that was great. No new news from the Aladdin. John from ComTech was going to run the line - not real sure what kind of jack to terminate the line with - and neither was I. We agreed we could find out in the morning & deal with it then, once I've got the equipment. As I was finding a parking space at Austin (AUS) Chris (Sexpistl) called me - he got in, but only got one package - the good news is that it was the DB60 V.35 cable for the router. WOO! Now I just have to do is track down the other 8 boxes - including the "T1-in-a-box" package. Kinda important. I'm going to be rather disappointed with Airborne (nothing new, tho) if they screw it up. I'll be able to check as soon as I get to Mark's in Vegas. Now's the time I wish I had a cellular modem. Or rather, that I had more time in AUS to find the Motorola cable to hook the Motorola Mariner modem up to my cell phone. Ohwell, next time. Maybe it's a good thing - it would have just run up my roaming charges! J Note: Sexpistl is in room 526. ?? 20:05 - The "Lockheed Party" was paged to meet their group by America West baggage claim. 20:40 - Got into the apartment - Jeremy came running to catch me - they kinda forgot about me! Hahaha. Got in, cooled off, called Sexpistl & then my friend formerly from BankAmerica, Chris - set up dinner with Chris on Thurs nite. Going to go change clothes now and go catch the bearded- boy (Sexpistl) and go explore and quaff much beverage. 9707.09.0800 Well, Chris and I went out for a little bit last night. Totally forgetting Mr. Pistl isn't 21 yet, that nuked the idea of clubbing. So we drove around for a while & stuff, then went down & grabbed a burger at In-n-Out on Sahara. Necessary eats when traveling to the Southwest! Came back to the apartment for a bit - got online (the data connections out of the Aladdin are apparently so bad that you CAN'T make a connection) so we did the email routine, had a couple beers, and ended up returning him to the Aladdin about 1:15am. I came back and made a phone call to a friend for a while, then crashed about 2:30 or 3 I guess. Oh, when I got back from dropping off Sexpistl, I called Airborne to check on the boxes I'd shipped, but had not arrived. The website did not show any status other than picked up at shipper's door. Called the customer service number - they explained that there had been airport delays at Las Vegas and nothing in or out of Las Vegas went out yesterday. She indicated I would get the boxes today. Fine by me as long as it actually happens! 06:45 - Woke up. Exciting, huh? - just too hype I guess. Couldn't really go back to sleep. It's now 8am and I said "fuck it" and got up. Checking mail now. Checking now on the boxes on Airborne's website. So far, no new status - Think I am call them again. 09:45 - Arrived & checked into Black Hat. Checked out the T1 location(s). Found two possible outlets. One in Salon B, one in Salon D. The jack in B has 6 pair of wires just coming outta the wall. The jack in D has 20 feet of unterminated cable coming out of the wall. Called Jan Cook (PBX Supervisor who I've been working with to almost an intimate basis over the last week) and checked in with her. She said John (the ComTech technician who does the actual work on the line) is due in between 10 and 11 usually. Asked her to send him down & we'll find the line & get it terminated. Called LVDI to confirm I needed RJ45 termination for the CSU/DSU. On a note about Airborne - they suck - not that we didn't already know that, but it's just confirmed-AGAIN. Box 1 of 8 got shipped to Seattle for some reason. The rest of the boxes are supposedly in-transit to LAS. LAS just got everything last night so they haven't scanned everything in yet. The Airborne CSR took my name & cell# - she was going to call Seattle and have the box there shipped down here (she indicated the system showed it as 89109 zip code, so doesn't know why it didn't come up by now as a "mis scan". She was also going to check on the other systems in-bound to LAS. So for now I wait til John gets down here so we can finish the line. Then I'll run over to LVDI perhaps. The also need to go run to NevTel. This afternoon I don't know what I'll do at this point. Gotta keep an eye open for the shipments - soon as the T1-in-a-box arrives, then I can get something going with that. Tho DT told me they double-booked Salon C/D and can't have the net up in there til Friday at 7pm. Bah Humbug. Hopefully I'll have enough time to get the line setup & confirmed as WORKING - otherwise it's going to be a long Friday nite. 10:35 - Called Airborne - 7 out of 8 boxes are OUT FOR DELIVERY. The box that went to Seattle is now listed as "wrong zip code" and is due to be re-routed tonight and delivered tonight. Good enough since we can't setup the CTF network til Friday nite. 22:30 - out at Marianne & Joe's place. Update for today: Sprint did some sort of funky setup on the T1 - only terminated 2 wires (not pairs, but wires). By end of day got Sprint in touch with the Aladdin and walked John thru wiring up the line. It was 5 o'clock by the time that all got done. We're going to check the line first thing in the morning. If we don't have a green line first off - I'm going to have someone's head at Sprint. On a separate note, really enjoyed Sluggo's talk at Black Hat. Very good. Very charismatic speaker - I think it came off very well! I had to bail out the uber- social activities of the evening and go pay the parents their annual visit out in Pahrump. Wow - lots of stars out there - I wonder if we can annex them. Driving back home at midnight, on the 60 mile drive back to Vegas, remember seeing a couple limos going into Pahump - uh-huh, we know what THOSE are, don't we?! J Got to bed about 4am, after having to go visit other friends. 9707.10.0845 Who needs sleep! Got up at 8am. Sunlight = portable alarm clock! I'm crashing on Mark's sofa here at my old apartment - The sun thru the patio door wakes me up. Gotta love it. Time to shower & get my ass down the Aladdin & kick things off. I recall two mental notes from yesterday: 1. Bring spare cell battery. 2. Fuck if I remember now. 09:45 - Got to the con. Relieved the security guy. Didn't know he was security at first - started bullshitting about the T1 line with him. I stopped after I saw his eyes roll around a couple of times. Shipley's speech with NDI ran over, so his Black Hat talk scheduled for 10:10am got delayed til 10:30. John the telco tech didn't show up. Called down to the PBX room at 10:15 - Jan said he hadn't gotten in yet. Told her we had a couple mins of window where the meeting room was un-used right now - if he didn't show quick, then shoot him up to the room about 11:40. So we wait. Did I mention I'm not very patient when it comes to my bandwidth?? 9707.11.2145 Trying really really hard to get the T1 line up now. We can't get our router (Cisco 2501/IOS 10.3.8) to talk to LVDI's router (Bay Network ASN-something). Swift is here; he brought a spare 2511 with IOS 11.2. This issue right now is that PPP-encapsulation isn't coming up. We're hoping that a new IOS will help (hence Swift's router). On other notes, most of MCS is here - the old crew together again - me, Sexpistl, Crusad3r, Psylon, and Xist (Swift). Me, Sexpistl, and Xist are trying like hell to get the line up tonight (even tho the ISP is moving ine morning). This morning, tho, went chaoticlly. However, given that fact that we had a heavy line of people for registration down the hall and around the corner, I think we kicked thru it pretty well. We haven't run out of badges yet-that's a good thing. DT was late this morning; Sluggo & I were both here at 8am to take him down to Kinko's to copy programs - he got down from his room about 09:40. We got the cash boxes setup, the merchandise table setup real quick, and opened the doors to the main meeting room about 10:15. The hotel wasn't happy about the line of people down & around the corner - fire hazard I guess (they couldn't handle the volume?) - but we opened up & got it taken care of. The day has gone fairly smoothly. Granted we got jacked out of our network room until 7pm, but ohwell - not much I could do about it. I asked the convention lady if we could POSSIBLY run the T1 line across the hall into the main conference room, but she was like "no, the line is in the other room and you don't have access to the room-so no." Ohwell, I tried. Chris/Sexpistl's current thought, just so you know (remember he's buzzed) is that now that he has roommates for his hotel room, he has to remember to shut the bathroom door when he utilizes the facilities. Also, he notes that from the Salon C/D meeting room, the men's room is too far away J I have very effectively delegated network crap at this point, and I'm enjoying a very pleasurable buzz. So my memory at the moment is fairly limited. The TCP/IP drinking game is in full effect right now. This will be followed by the infamous Hacker Jeopardy. 9707.12.1200 Well, the cirucit didn't come up by 10am - but did come up at 10:55 at least. Called LVDI at 11:20 - they're waiting for Sprint to finish up the fiber. They should be done with that at 12:30. We'll recontact LVDI at that point. I posed to Lori the idea of setting up our two Cisco's to talk to each other, and bring one down to their site to plug in - she had no problem with that. Swift is configuring his 2511 for that now. Estimate we'll end up at LVDI at 13:00. Got CTF running about 11:30 - AJ's aching to get the Novell machine - tho he said it's even more "stock" than he expect - that won't stop him, tho! Ira's talk just finished and so the network room is being flooded with people. CTF tables are popping up all over. Things seem to be well in control so far this morning. Sexpistl is over watching Uncle Ira's Fun Farm of Death - Haven't seen him this morning - he's probably out shooting with the goons. 18:50 - Problems problems problems. We got to LVDI, switched out routers - still no effect - we were actually able to get an ADC CSU/DSU in on LVDI's side. Couldn't get loopback, but thought that was due to the Verilink on our end. Came back, after stopping at 7-11 of course, and started fucking with it again. Still nothing. We really needed to get an ADC or other compatible CSU/DSU (I know that is a non-sequiter, but just deal with it). We rounded up the Ninja's - they pulled out an Addtran. Still nothing - can't get protocol up. Okay, so now we've gone from routers, to CSU/DSU's, it's time to analyze the line. We tried to get down to the PBX room to verify the NI is online and that wiring - but no go. Ended up calling the PBX manager at home to try to get authorization to enter, or to get John from ComTech down here to do it for us. After about 20 mins with her, she agreed to call the Tech & try to get him down here. Left her with Ryan's pager number for John to page him. Meanwhile, I called down to the NevTel switch to try to get verification of Spint running loopback between NI's. He was going to call me back on my cell phone. He may have tried and it didn't make it thru & left me voice mail, but my phone never rang. The ninja's came in and went to work hard core - kudo's to them - I have to say I really appreciate everyone's help on this. As far as a straight T1, I can do that - with the issues & problems we've had, it's gone over my head, admittedly - but I've learned a lot! At any rate, the Ninja's went to work toning out the wiring in the jack here. I went for a margarita. BS'd with Noid at the bar, got my tasty fruity drink and headed back. Got caught by Priest, Uncle Ira, Ming, Zacc, Major Malfunction, and Xylord - we headed over to Balley's for buffet dinner - so I had to slam my margarita. Two words: Brain Freeze! It was a healthy exerience. After my second plate of food, I got a call from the Ninja's - they got the line up, and they said something about needing to goto the ISP for routing issues. Then the call got cut off. I called down to Jim @ LVDI and warned him. Rushed back to the Aladdin, per request. Caught the Ninja's in the hall, they were gonna go grab a bite to eat, and told me they got the wiring straight, got the line up, loopback was verified - they wanted to grab Swift & his equipment and head up to the ISP to finish up. I now have to round up Swift (his stuff's here, tho) while they're off grubbin'. 23:00 - Waited til 20:35 then went home to change clothes, get into the fed-suit. Pimped out in the G-threads, complete with Doc Marten's and black shades - going for the MIB look. Got back at 21:30, and one of the Ninja's was back - Swift was back, too - they fucked with it some more, then gave up. PPP-encapsulation will just not come up. Pretty much gave up for tonight. Time to relax & have some fun. I relieved Uncle Ira so he could go upstairs & change - been here now for about an hour or more. I've missed Hacker Jeopardy again. Bunch of noise going on across the hall. Not entirely comfortable with leaving Ira's stuff here unguarded. Crusad3r and Psylon have some shit going on over in the MCS corner of the world - a small crowd going on over there. Swift disappeared. Sexpistl's handling the registration desk. I'm almost getting tired. 9707.13.10:58 Well, last night was okay I guess. Shut down the con for the day then Uncle Ira & I headed up to Operation Sierra Charlie (StripperCon). Master Chemist was BLITZED! Got some funny pix of him, tho. The strippers didn't get there until like 01:00 and didn't get started til 01:15. People were getting grumpy cuz of the delay. I snapped a picture with my digital camera, one chick saw it, and was like "Turn the video camera off" (in that arrogant snippy voice) - dumb bitch doesn't know a still camera from a video camera. Don't think that stopped me, tho. I just went into stealth mode. Then lap dances were done for $40 more. During those someone grabbed a flash-camera and took a nice flash shot. *DOAH* Then with MC passed out in the corner, we had one girl lay down next to him and we woke him up - he just kinda grinned and fell back into coma. Oh, and the girls didn't even bring any music - the room was kinda eerie being so quiet - we tried to tune in music on the TV, but all we got was CNN - that got a good laugh when the CNN promo ran across audio. Finally wrapped up about 02:10. Apparently there were a couple of "events" last night. Someone found a power breaker & killed power on a couple floors. There was something that happened across the street in the parking garage for the Bellagio (still under construction). I heard some group went over there just to hang & chill, then some lamers followed & they were the ones setting off fire extinguishers & pulling crap that got `em busted. 11:50 - Swift (Xist) just took off. He has to be at work at 07:00 tomorrow morning. Got one last pic with him, Crusad3r, and myself. It's sad to see him move away, out of country, but he's going to be working at Cisco in Norway, and working for Cisco has been one of his goals for a long time - I know I speak for the entire MCS Crew that we wish him the absolute best of luck, and if he ever needs anything, he's always got friends to turn to. None the less, it's not like we won't see him or hear from him again. The Net is good like that (assuming you get enough bandwidth hahaha). I think we're wrapping up the con at 5pm today. I'll have to start thinking about getting things packed away & hope that the bell desk with hold the packages for Airborne. Last resort, we'll stash the boxes in Sexpistl's room overnight. 9707.14.0200 The rest of the day went slowly. People started leaving somewhat early - think many of them just had to get back home to work Mon morning. Took Ming to the airport about 14:00. Things went slowly from there. DT gave out the last of the giveaways. I forgot some of my more 31337 stuff, so I'll leave it with Mark here so that he can swap it for stuff himself. We shut things down at 17:00 - mostly only goons left by then anyway. It was cool, tho. The bell desk said they'd hold the boxes & ship them out tomorrow, no problem - fuckin' Monte Carlo last year, man (see last year's notes). Anyway - then at 18:45 I took Artimage out to the airport. I think this afternoon held a certain "sadness" to the air - just the last day, it's been a fuckin' awesome time (in spite of the fact we didn't get the T1 up-luckily I think most people came with other plans to do other than just get online). Bunch of goons met at the lounge at 19:00 to get together & do shit. Ended up being DT, TDK, Noid, Zack, Major Malfunction, DA & his g/f (damn, forget her name), Xylord, me & Sexpistl, and a couple of others I didn't recognize. We all walked down to New York New York and did the roller coaster. It was unanimous that I had the BEST picture (you got your picture taken at one point & could buy a copy at the end). I'll have it scanned & post it. Then we got on the radios & went across the street to Gameworks to meet Shipley & crew. They were going down to TI to meet up with some other folks, then off to the Hard Rock later. DT & TDK decided to eat there at Gameworks, then go back & crash-early flights home. The rest of us went over to the Monte Carlo Caf‚ for dinner. Have to say, after asking for an initial round of water for all 11 of us twice, and the waitresses disappearing - we began to think "Can we have some water" was a code-phrase for "Get the fuck outta here." J Anyway, dinner was good. Unfortunately DA's Pilot locked up while waiting for food, he hit reset, and he lost EVERYTHING. All weekend's worth of data & notes were gone. Sucks :/ Damned pilots! Then we went over to Houdini's bar, still there in the MC. Had a cocksucker (it's a drink, ya goof-balls!) - first drink with Baily's I've had since I moved from Vegas - that one dreadful "last night" when my friends from the bank took me out for "a couple drinks." Nuff said. Well, anyway, we hung til about 00:30, then Sexpistl & I headed back to the Aladdin. We chatted & stuff, had fun. Got back, said our goodbye's, and I came home. I fired up email. Couldn't get CC:Mail Remote to make a good connection back to the servers at work - had to mail my boss & tell him I had to go down to LA for a meeting on Tuesday. Gave up on that, dropped him mail thru my fc.net account. Gonna try to call Noid & Priest tomorrow evening for dinner perhaps. Then Scott & Sean later that nite, and/or Tuesday nite. I think that's pretty much it for DefCon this year. It's been awesome, in spite of stuff. Oh yeah, never mentioned that my cell phone got ripped off today. Caught it missed probably within 10 minutes of the assholes swiping it. Got it turned off. Ohwell. Things like that make ya think DefCon should be invite-only sometimes. The lamers spoil our name so so often!! However, it's still a fucking cool con. We guessed about 1200 people this year. DAMN! Have fun, and peace!