3 ms·

It’s also painfully corporate. It used to be Defcon attendees would make fun of black hat attendees. Now they’re the same people. It’s no where near the same f

by zer8k 3y ago

It’s also painfully corporate. It used to be Defcon attendees would make fun of black hat attendees. Now they’re the same people. It’s no where near the same feeling it was years ago. Too expensive for the value you get out of it.

upwardbound 3y ago
Is there any smaller conference that's more focused on white-hat illegal hacking, like DEFCON used to be?
- rychco 3y ago
  A former colleague of mine had a good impression of BSides in this regard, but I can’t remember which location/year it was (& there seems to be a lot)
- j0hnyl 3y ago
  Regional conferences like bsides, but the punk/counterculture vibe of early defcon is lost to time and will never be back. Cybersecurity is a big industry now.
  - mmaunder 3y ago
    Sad but true. It’s as if the last ounce of hacker authenticity died with Kevin.
    - j0hnyl 3y ago
      I think hacker authenticity lives on, but not in the form of a massive con that has become a pop culture event.
    - milsorgen 3y ago
      We're living in a golden age of burgeoning counter cultures. It's just never easy to see in the moment.
      - j0hnyl 3y ago
        It used to be, but maybe I'm old.
- david_shaw 3y ago
  There are lots of regional conferences that are really great: NolaCon in New Orleans, THOTCON in Chicago, ShmooCon in D.C., just to name a few :) The hacker community is alive and well (even at DEF CON), but in my experience you have to look harder to find it.
- albertzeyer 3y ago
  The events in Europe: All the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) events, or then also OHM/SHA/MCH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Contain_Hackers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Contain_Hackers) etc.
- zer8k 3y ago
  From what I've experienced BSides aims to be as close to Alexis Park DEFCON as possible. It does a good job.
  - igetspam 3y ago
    DC @ AP was probably peak 'con. You can't even reference pool numbers with kids these days... The AP _hated_ us but they had a multi-year contract.
    - throwaway892238 3y ago
      AP was the closest thing I can imagine to "what if the Hell's Angels were a bunch of nerds into computers?"
- screwturner68 3y ago
  tHOTCON is pretty cool, I'm not sure if I'd consider it White hat as much as it is non-corporate.
krisoft 3y ago
> It’s also painfully corporate. It used to be Defcon attendees would make fun of black hat attendees. Now they’re the same people. I'm confused about this part of your comment.. To my understanding "black hat" means that you are not caring about laws and ethics. Yet it sounds like you are using the word to describe the corporate security types?
- zer8k 3y ago
  "Black Hat" is the professional computer security conference that preceeds Defcon. Defcon was the grungy hobbiest doing crazy shit with computers. Black hat was corporate sponsored presentations, stuffy suits, and business cards. At Black Hat you had a real name. At Defcon you had a handle. Black Hat attendees were looked at as sellouts. Now Defcon is the same way. They even take pre-payment and I'm old enough to remember when DT would've NEVER even floated that idea. I went for 20 years. I quit going after 2018. IMO it died around 2010 but kept floating for a while before sinking.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Black Hat was contrived as a device for getting corporate IT departments to pay for their staff (who were already going anyways) to attend Defcon. Since then, it's become one of the primary venues for non-academic offensive security research, so anybody dunking on it is telling on themselves a bit. There are higher-end vulnerability research conferences, but they're not less corporate. There are regional conferences that are much closer in spirit to the Defcon of the 1990s, but while some of that is due to not having a vendor expo (not my favorite Black Hat innovation either), some of it is also due to early Defcon being pretty superficial and non-rigorous. Better if you're looking for a particular kind of social scene, worse if you actually want to see interesting new research.
    - screwturner68 3y ago
      The difference of course is that Black Hat is really expensive and DEF CON used to be really cheap -you also couldn't pre-purchase a badge so it was more egalitarian. DEF CON used to have more of the punk/libertarian/anarchist vibe where Black Hat was a corporate event. --Just my opinion, you may disagree.

by zer8k 3y ago

upwardbound 3y ago

Is there any smaller conference that's more focused on white-hat illegal hacking, like DEFCON used to be?

rychco 3y ago
A former colleague of mine had a good impression of BSides in this regard, but I can’t remember which location/year it was (& there seems to be a lot)
j0hnyl 3y ago
Regional conferences like bsides, but the punk/counterculture vibe of early defcon is lost to time and will never be back. Cybersecurity is a big industry now.
- mmaunder 3y ago
  Sad but true. It’s as if the last ounce of hacker authenticity died with Kevin.
  - j0hnyl 3y ago
    I think hacker authenticity lives on, but not in the form of a massive con that has become a pop culture event.
  - milsorgen 3y ago
    We're living in a golden age of burgeoning counter cultures. It's just never easy to see in the moment.
    - j0hnyl 3y ago
      It used to be, but maybe I'm old.
david_shaw 3y ago
There are lots of regional conferences that are really great: NolaCon in New Orleans, THOTCON in Chicago, ShmooCon in D.C., just to name a few :) The hacker community is alive and well (even at DEF CON), but in my experience you have to look harder to find it.
albertzeyer 3y ago
The events in Europe: All the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) events, or then also OHM/SHA/MCH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Contain_Hackers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Contain_Hackers) etc.
zer8k 3y ago
From what I've experienced BSides aims to be as close to Alexis Park DEFCON as possible. It does a good job.
- igetspam 3y ago
  DC @ AP was probably peak 'con. You can't even reference pool numbers with kids these days... The AP _hated_ us but they had a multi-year contract.
  - throwaway892238 3y ago
    AP was the closest thing I can imagine to "what if the Hell's Angels were a bunch of nerds into computers?"
screwturner68 3y ago
tHOTCON is pretty cool, I'm not sure if I'd consider it White hat as much as it is non-corporate.

krisoft 3y ago

> It’s also painfully corporate. It used to be Defcon attendees would make fun of black hat attendees. Now they’re the same people. I'm confused about this part of your comment.. To my understanding "black hat" means that you are not caring about laws and ethics. Yet it sounds like you are using the word to describe the corporate security types?

zer8k 3y ago
"Black Hat" is the professional computer security conference that preceeds Defcon. Defcon was the grungy hobbiest doing crazy shit with computers. Black hat was corporate sponsored presentations, stuffy suits, and business cards. At Black Hat you had a real name. At Defcon you had a handle. Black Hat attendees were looked at as sellouts. Now Defcon is the same way. They even take pre-payment and I'm old enough to remember when DT would've NEVER even floated that idea. I went for 20 years. I quit going after 2018. IMO it died around 2010 but kept floating for a while before sinking.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Black Hat was contrived as a device for getting corporate IT departments to pay for their staff (who were already going anyways) to attend Defcon. Since then, it's become one of the primary venues for non-academic offensive security research, so anybody dunking on it is telling on themselves a bit. There are higher-end vulnerability research conferences, but they're not less corporate. There are regional conferences that are much closer in spirit to the Defcon of the 1990s, but while some of that is due to not having a vendor expo (not my favorite Black Hat innovation either), some of it is also due to early Defcon being pretty superficial and non-rigorous. Better if you're looking for a particular kind of social scene, worse if you actually want to see interesting new research.
  - screwturner68 3y ago
    The difference of course is that Black Hat is really expensive and DEF CON used to be really cheap -you also couldn't pre-purchase a badge so it was more egalitarian. DEF CON used to have more of the punk/libertarian/anarchist vibe where Black Hat was a corporate event. --Just my opinion, you may disagree.