Defcon 7
by: Agent X
Prelude
Defcon baby, yeah
that's the
ticket, hackers, computer security consultants, feds, kooks,
surveillance geeks,
and a whole slew of other weird ass spooky mother fuckers, get
drunk, go to
titty bars, talk about crypto and network security, fucking with the
media,
blowing shit up in the desert and generally have a great fucking
time in the
city of sin all under the guise of a computer security convention.
And if they
are lucky or sneaky paid for by their respective bosses. I am
neither lucky
or sneaky so I'm paying for this out of my own pocket, which by the
way sucks.
But I'm ready the tickets are bought the gear is packed. I have
fortified myself
for this trip, with a bowl of corn flakes, a cache of CDs, and a
hangover. I
dry swallow two Alleve as I step out the door.
The 3 hour bus ride to the airport was about as
exciting as a
3 hour a bus ride can be. In other words deathly boring. But the
headache is
gone. I'm at the airport lounge, drinking a L.I.T and trying to
figure out if
7 buck is to much to pay for a burger. Airports are about the most
boring places
to be stranded for any length of time as well. The televisions only
show 2 things,
golf or 5 minute news reels. The food is generic and expensive. And
there is
no fucking place to check my e-mail. Only another 4 hours till my
plane leaves.
The Plane: It's a sign when 12 mothers carrying screaming babies get
on the
flight. We hit the worst turbulence I have ever seen or felt. [the
guy beside
just used his barf bag for it's intend purpose]. I can see it now
the wings
snap off and barrrroooooooom! I'm just another flight statistic.
Wouldn't that
just be the rats asshole to die on the way to Detroit.
[Note at this point this article goes into short
hand mode,
there was just to much happening to quickly for me to mention,
remember or talk
about]
Friday
From this point on things be come an insane blur of
meeting new
people and getting things done. I arrive 3 hours late to the hotel,
the people
I'm staying with had a hell of a time checking in and I'm exhausted
, I have
a glass of water and go to bed. Friday First day of con I get up,
get dressed
and eat some breakfast all by 7:00. To do my part by gooning at the
con. Big
mistake It's a mad rush after that, from getting a goon badge to
working on
pre-registration. The List for registration is great except that
it's not in
any order. So I GREP the whole list a couple of hundred times during
the con.
I check people in all day long. By the end of the day I know almost
everyone
at con who is on the list. Naked people count for Friday: 1 guy gets
up on a
table and strips down to his G-string, 2 naked fat guys jog around
the vendor
area for free t-shirts 1 babe hops up and a table and gives
everybody a show
of her tits. I love Vegas. The day is hectic and long. I'm exhaust
by the time
I sit down at 7:17 to write this before heading out to the MGM grand
for some
dinner. Vegas is a weird as ass place. New York New York the most
disturbing
of all. The fake graffiti, the fake manhole cover with fake steam,
all in fake
NYC it is not right I was just waiting for a fake mugging in a fake
dark and
dirty alley. After getting back to the hotel I collapsed on the
bed.
Saturday
Slept a hard 8 hours last night, got up and help
register people,
mad craziness more people then you could possibly images. All of
them young
white males. Checked out the DJ action, saw my ghetto hacker buddies
The DataAngel
and Jester 47 spin some mad tunes to Ninja Scroll video. The CDC
show rocked ass. Total mayhem, with a revival theme, it doesn't get
much better
then this. Things slowed down a bit. Checked press badge for the
After CDC presentation
in the media suite. Went up and talked with some media types. Got to
see what
the media is like in action. I expected to hear some really probing
question
that were well researched and insightful. They weren't, nuff said.
Finally got
to chill about 7 or 8 helped set up for the root suite party. Went
back to my
room changed and got booze, went back to the root suite and proceed
to drop
a complete bottle of tequila on the floor. Saturday night Mad
partying in the
root suite Saturday night. I played bartender for most of the night,
pouring
DoC beers, serving
punch and
mixing drinks. Dis Org
Crew beer was
great. The Strawberry SYN Flood was smooth and sweet, the Brown Box
Barley Wine
was strong as hell, and the FireWire Stout which is fortified with
caffeine
is the perfect hacker beer. Congrats to HCF, Wyatt Earp, Pete
Shipley and the
rest of the DoC who helped for a great beer. Caezar
defiantly knows how to throw a party. Towards the end of the
night I was
getting help from Jennifer Grannick. Left about 4 or 5 went back to
the room
and slept like the dead. Slept for 2 hours and got back up. I had a
English
muffin for breakfast it was good.
Sunday
By Sunday the kinks had been somewhat worked out and things were
finally running
reasonable smoothly, I helped with this and that. Sold shirt and
mugs for the
better part of the morning, some guy wanted to trade a rental car
for a t-shirt,
I told him to get permission from Priest. He ended up trading us
some porno
passes for a shirt instead. Finally had lunch with some cool
people's one of
which was with the NSA. After lunch I'm up in the media/goon lounge
resting
and eating some fruit with Major Malfunction when his radio goes
off, "all goons
to the NOC" and then "Carolyn is being kicked out" Needless to say
Carolyn got
kicked out of con.. I'm sure that she will write all about it on her
web site.
I'm sure she will paint herself as the victim, either way I don't
care, she
is an adult and she should have known better. After word I wandered
around some
more. Said good-bye to all the people I could find. Went back to the
hotel grabbed
my bag want got on a plane fell asleep. Switch planes fell asleep.
got off plane
got on bus fell asleep, switch busses fell asleep. got off bus got
home fell
asleep. ....till next year.
-
-
Quotes from the weekend:
A short conversation I had with some newbie kid who
wandered
into the root party.
" So your in l0pht"
" oh yeah me and the rest of the east coast
people"
"really"
-
"My son did his first hack at age 7, I was so proud." Major
Malfunction.
Who
Agent X is a slacker.
The views,
commentary and ideas expressed in this article are not those of
Hacker News
Network, it's Editors or the Defcon Organizers. I own my own
words.