I think there's a bit of mystique about how dangerous the Defcon network is, and it doesn't really reflect the current reality. To quote the defcon27 FAQ https

I think there's a bit of mystique about how dangerous the Defcon network is, and it doesn't really reflect the current reality. To quote the defcon27 FAQ https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-27/dc-27-faq.html https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-27/dc-27-faq.html "Why yes, DEF CON is FULLY network-enabled. Now that we've perfected the art of a stable hacker con network, we're ascending to a higher level - we're providing you a network that you feel SAFE in using! Since DEF CON 18 we're WPA2 encrypted over-the-air, with a direct trunk out to the Internet. No peer-to-peer, no sniffing, just straight to the net (and internal servers). We'll provide login credentials at Registration. We know the 3G airwaves will be saturated so we're putting our own cred on the line to give you a net that even we would put our own mobile phones on." They do also provide a free-for-all network, but no-one has to use that...