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You're absolutely right! Europe has conference facilities! Of course, most places in Europe also have much stricter laws on guns. Many places aren't quite into
by Kalium 8y ago
You're absolutely right! Europe has conference facilities!
Of course, most places in Europe also have much stricter laws on guns. Many places aren't quite into the whole "free speech" thing in the way Americans are. These things are pretty important to a large number of attendees.
DEFCON is probably best regarded as a regional North American hacker con that reflects the culture and history of North American hackers. You cannot transplant DEFCON and preserve its cultural history. This is an issue of some concern, as it's the people and culture that matter the most at DEFCON rather than the conference that someone who has never attended might reasonably assume. After all, it's just a conference, right?
Continental Europe already has CCC. DEFCON's roots and history tie is pretty firmly to Vegas.
- jimnotgym 8y agoI'm not quite following, apart from firing guns, what is it you can do in Vegas that took can't do in Europe? Or are you saying the guns are what makes DEFCON?
- Kalium 8y agoPeople routinely and unremarkably carry weapons upon their person at DEFCON. It's a reasonably common event, to the point where early pictures of DEFCON events sometimes contained more guns than laptops. The yearly shoot is a social fixture. Guns are an easy example. Lockpicks are another - the UK does not smile on them. I'm saying you cannot readily relocate DEFCON to a randomly selected European conference venue without fundamentally transforming it into something that is no longer the DEFCON we know and love. To put it another way, your suggestion and incomprehension underscores that you understand DEFCON as a conference. An event where people talking at halls of other people is the main thing that matters. I'm trying to communicate that it is a convention and cultural touchstone enabled by the unique confluence of laws in Nevada and the willingness of casinos to cooperate with wealthy groups. It's very easy to suggest that an event be moved somewhere else. Why not move Jeremy Corbyn's next rally to, I dunno, Canada? There are halls for rent there too! It's perhaps more subtle to understand that there are other things than bare physical requirements that tie an event and a place together.
- jimnotgym 8y ago> Why not move Jeremy Corbyn's next rally to, I dunno, Canada? Because Jeremy Corbyn is a politician whose constituency is in the UK. The just makes DEFCON sound parochial > Lockpicks are another - the UK does not smile on them. Yet locksmiths in the UK routinely carry them. You seem to be trying to paint a picture of Vegas being free, and Europe being oppressive. There are plenty of things that are legal in parts of Europe that are not in the USA. What you have really succeeded in doing is painting a picture that DEFCON is so much about guns that you would not trade the guns for anything.
- Kalium 8y ago> Because Jeremy Corbyn is a politician whose constituency is in the UK. The just makes DEFCON sound parochial You're exactly right! His events are tied to a place. Perhaps DEFCON is a convention whose primary constituency is in North America in the same way that CCC is a convention whose primary constituency is in continental Europe. > Yet locksmiths in the UK routinely carry them. Because they're licensed for such. Random people are subject to arrest for doing the same thing. Which would mean that nearly everyone who visits the lockpick village would be subject to arrest and a goodly number of other attendees. We're talking about thousands of people, arrested for having funny-shaped little bits of metal. What I'm saying is that you are possessed of the wonderful opportunity to come to a greater understanding of what DEFCON - and its community - are. It's perhaps possible that you may stand to benefit by perhaps seeking first to understand the thing you wish others to consider changes to.