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Defcon is a waste of time. Nerds pay walled from their friends.
by iwontberude 2y ago
Defcon is a waste of time. Nerds pay walled from their friends.
- markus_zhang 2y agoIs blackhat more serious and better?
- MSFT_Edging 2y agoBlackhat is even more of a pay-to-play corporate event.A few years ago, someone paid to do a talk on time traveling crypto and the CEO of trail of bits(iirc) stood up and called him out on the spot over the nonsense tech. Defcon has a lot more grassroots stuff, but it's grown to a size that it cannot avoid the corporate BS anymore. It's probably one of the biggest and most disruptive conferences in Vegas, venues don't like having 1000s of hackers hanging around slot machines.
- markus_zhang 2y agoMaybe they should just move away from Vegas. I don't know why people choose that spot. Why not some place with better view?
- nicolas_17 2y agoA friend said "getting out of vegas would mean losing half the point of going to bh/defcon (which is getting your company to pay for you to go to vegas)"
- iwontberude 2y agoImagine wanting to go to Las Vegas in the summer. Dumb as bricks.
- FridgeSeal 2y ago“Do you want to go to a sweltering hot city filled with casinos situated in the middle of a desert, in the middle of summer?” Any one of those things sounds unpleasant to me, let alone all 3 at once.
- EricE 2y agoOh please, it's not like nerds go outside anyway ;)
- iwontberude 2y agoI appreciate the sarcasm because you are right, we have Toor Camp, Chaos Camp, EMF Camp, and others. I think we could use more time outside. Cheers!
- wkat4242 2y agoThe people that go there for that reason are probably not the ones you want there anyway. And most corp trips are to black hat, not def con. I've been offered a trip to black hat before and asked if I could go to def con as well but no. I was thinking of just staying longer on my own dime but we got a travel ban for cost cutting reasons so the whole thing never happened. I wasn't really interested in black hat anyway so I didn't care, I hate corporate PR. But Vegas to me is a detractor. I hate gambling. I'd love it if it were in NYC or something. Much easier from Europe too.
- kstrauser 2y agoYou’re not required to gamble. I bet I’ve spent a grand total of $20 on slots over the years of attending Def Con. It’s not my thing.
- MSFT_Edging 2y ago> And most corp trips are to black hat, not def con. not true in the vulnerability research space. Actual engineers are sent to defcon because blackhat talks are advertisements, not educational presentations.
- wkat4242 2y agoOh that's good to hear. I worked in a "blue team" and we would only get travel approvals for black hat. Even though I've never been as I didn't want to and I was hesitant to visit the US. Black Hat doesn't interest me precisely for the reason you mentioned. I don't want sales pitches, I want unrestricted flow of technical information without marketing motives.
- aftbit 2y agoIt's relatively cheap to get there from most places, and they have the space and facilities for conferences of this size.
- morcheeba 2y agoShmoocon had it right providing Shmoo balls.
- malermeister 2y agoChaos Communication Congress is the one worth going to.
- wkat4242 2y agoTrue, especially because it's so much easier here in Europe. The only problem is it's in an extremely expensive period of the year for hotel stays. For that reason I've never actually been.
- CalRobert 2y agoAlready excited for the next Chaos Camp!
- wkat4242 2y agoAnd next year is WHY2025 <3
- CalRobert 2y agoPerhaps I'll see you there! I moved to NL a year ago and have been trying to find my circle.
- iwontberude 2y agoEMF Camp 2026 too!
- noir_lord 2y agoWhen I was young (in the 90s) visiting defcon was a bucket list item. In 2024 not sure I’d really see the point, there are other conferences I’d likely enjoy more and mostly that itch is scratched by YT. The on I’d still like to visit in person is fosdem and given I’m in the UK that one would be much easier.