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24520	29840	Welcome to DEF CON Safe Mode. I'm the Dark Tangent. I'll be your host, along with hundreds
29840	35960	and hundreds of other goons, contest organizers, village organizers, and other creatives, trying
35960	43360	to build you a virtual experience for... I have a placement for... Missing Las Vegas!
44860	49000	Far from Las Vegas, I'm in Singapore, where I've been stuck since February,
49460	52160	so I really am coming at you from the other side of the planet.
52840	55860	Recording this just in case the live connection doesn't work.
56080	62120	So, hopefully I'll be at the end of this recording, available for questions and answers,
62120	65540	but if it doesn't work out, sorry, we tried our best.
66020	72300	So, this is the part of DEF CON where, normally, I talk a little bit about the history of the con,
72300	78500	what can be expected for the new year, some cool surprises, how to get the most out of it,
78500	85240	but really, honestly, I don't really know what to tell you a whole lot, besides we're online.
85720	93120	It's new, exciting, the theme this year is discovery. Our color palette are these nice,
93120	98720	bright pastel colors, and we're trying to evoke sort of a sense of wonder, discovery,
98720	102660	new exploration, and there's going to certainly be a lot of that this weekend.
103420	109080	If you look at what the villages are doing, contests and events, so many different platforms
109080	116720	online, we're really stress testing this environment to see what an online community like ours would
116720	123020	be like. So, I'm really kind of excited to do this, and I'm really terrified at the same time,
123020	130520	because this is a lot of skills that we don't exercise in Vegas, and we're all about real life
130520	137360	and in-person, face-to-face, and this is at a distance with keyboards and video chat and memes.
138460	144040	So, I've been watching everybody on LimeCon for the last week, and some great conversations are
144040	148360	happening. I just don't know what's going to happen when we go live. So, I hope to see you
148360	157860	out there. So, let me talk a little bit about the decision to go live with Discord and a new
157860	164460	platform for us. So, when I decided to cancel the in-person, I mean, if you read my post, it was
164460	171520	pretty clear nothing was going to happen in the States, and we've been totally, totally
171520	176140	borne out that that was the right decision. I mean, everything's canceled in the States, forever, as
176140	182740	far as I can tell. So, online it is. It's going to be online for a while. So, we quickly had to discover
182740	189880	how could we do this? And we made a post on forum.defton.org, talked about a whole lot of
189880	195600	different platforms. Do we want to do VR with cartoon-like characters? Do we want to build a
195600	202720	world? Do we want to have it text-only? In the end, it was pretty much down to Riot, which has been
202720	210640	renamed now, and Discord. And we went with Discord because it had a longer history. Gamers are pretty
210640	214340	abusive, and so their platform has been beaten up quite a bit, and they've got some pretty good
214340	222300	moderation and server stability experience. And it was pretty extensible. A lot of people have built
222300	228980	stuff on top of Discord. So, here we are. Now, in the last three months, Riverside, some of the guys
228980	234600	from Wall of Sheep, some of the DEF CON crew, and others have pulled together and really, in three
234600	239920	months, two months, done about a year's worth of work building this Discord server that you're now
239920	251000	on. Please be gentle. We're in beta. This is like Google beta, I guess. So, there's a lot of different
251000	255080	things to explore here. And I'm just going to give you a quick overview, and then we're going to move
255080	260140	on to talk about some of the cool things happening with the show. So, first off, with Discord,
260140	265440	anybody can report an issue. Everybody on the platform has to comply with the DEF CON Code of
265440	272100	Conduct. And because we're guests on Discord's platform, we also have to comply with the Discord's
272100	278720	Code of Conduct. And there's reporting tools. You can file a report, or a ticket, as we call it, and
278720	285060	get a goon to help. If you see a goon in red there on the right-hand side, you can message them and
285060	291940	ask them for help. And then also, there's Discord moderation that can help. And if you have any
291940	297440	questions during operating hours, just go ask the info booth. They're there to help. They're at the
297440	302100	top in the upper left-hand of your channel selection. And once you learn a couple of tricks,
302100	308280	like Ctrl-K to jump to channels, you should start zooming around, and it'll feel more comfortable.
309900	316960	So, we're trying something new this year. We're taking all the talks, all the videos of the talks,
316960	323720	the presentations, PDFs, the music, album, everything, the original soundtrack, and we're dumping it all at once
324360	331680	on Wednesday. So, by the time you've seen this, Thursday or Friday, I don't even know when we're
331680	336740	playing this right now, by the time you see this, all the videos, all the speeches, everything
336740	341040	will become available. We've never done that before because we've never had the speeches ahead
341040	346180	of time. And what we're hoping to do is allow you to time shift. There's a lot of other villages
346180	352240	and content that aren't doing that. They're going live. And we thought, well, if they're going live,
352240	358380	maybe we go pre-recorded and give you some more options to watch however you want. And then,
358380	365960	what we are doing live, our big risky maneuver, is every day, all day, from Thursday to Saturday,
365960	371660	Sunday, we're having Q&A sessions. So, if you see a talk that you like and you want to interact with
371800	378620	a speaker, you get a half an hour every day on each talk. So, just go to the DEF CON.org website,
378620	388060	look at the schedule, you'll see when the Q&As are happening. So, you'll also notice at the end
388060	394860	of the day, we're operating in Pacific time zone, UTC-7, for those of you not familiar with
395320	401500	Americanisms. We close a lot of the rooms at night. And this is because we don't want to burn out our
401500	407200	moderators and our goons waiting around in rooms where nobody's participating. So, you'll see a lot of
407200	412120	rooms lock at night. You might see some with a tag that says closed. You might see some disappear,
412120	417260	depending upon how they're closing their room. But, in the end, they'll pop back up the next day
417260	426540	during normal hours, Pacific time. So, yeah, pretty excited about this. I've got my refrigerator
426540	432700	stock. I've got my caffeine. I've got my stimulants and my alcohol depressants, depending upon what
432700	439500	situation presents itself. We're recording and capturing as much as we can. A lot of the villages
440220	446460	and contests are recording as well on Twitch or YouTube. And so, after the CON, we'll start
446460	452260	gathering all of this video and content and results, and we'll start sharing it with the
452260	457220	community. So, if you miss something, hopefully, maybe it'll have gotten captured and you'll be
457220	464420	able to see it after the fact. And for those of you who became human pluses to help support us
464420	469880	on the server with a little bit of money, that's really appreciated. We've never done a free event
469880	476060	because there's always costs. But this year, it was such a special occasion, DEF CON is canceled,
476060	481600	that I really wanted to give something back to the community. We're all in a pretty stressful
481600	490940	place with COVID. I mean, everybody has somebody that has been impacted by it. And anyway, I just
490940	495940	wanted to make everything open to our community and make this sort of a time of celebration and
495940	502340	discovery. Get us connected one way or the other, because we can't see each other in person in Vegas.
502540	511280	So, yeah. So, this is the best I can do, and I hope it's enough. Now, to bring you closer
511280	518120	together and make new friends, we always have contests. And one of the contests this year was
518120	525000	the badge contest. So, if you purchased a badge, which was a cassette tape, which was kind of a
525000	532660	play on the last time the Lost Boy did a badge for us. It was a record, if you remember that.
532660	539740	But encoded onto audio, and in the program, liner notes, and in the lanyard, there were clues and
539740	545720	hints. And this is really meant to be a challenge for you to explore before the con. And then during
545720	551440	the con, Lost is deploying one of his super famous mystery challenges. This is a full-blown mystery
551440	557140	challenge. So, things that were on the badge, badge challenge. Don't get them confused with
557140	562260	things you're going to see on the forums, which is the mystery challenge. And Lost is primarily
562260	569020	going to perform the mystery challenge contest on forum.defcon.org. But I'd like to introduce
569020	573760	him next, so he can tell you all about the craziness of making a cassette badge at the last
573760	579080	possible minute. Putting in a puzzle, getting the audio encoded, and then building a mystery
579080	586240	challenge. And what he's trying to get you to do. An experience for this show. So, if you don't know
586240	593140	Lost, he's a longtime super contributor to DEF CON. Sort of a jack-of-all-trades. I think he's
593140	599040	been everything you can be from a school teacher, to a linguist, to a police officer, to super
599040	604320	computer hacker, to cryptographer. He's kind of done a little bit of everything. I'm very envious
605100	614120	of his skill set. But he also has a great inquisitive mind and is very detail-oriented
614120	619880	when he gets into music and puzzles. And so, hopefully you've experienced some of his puzzles
619880	624960	in the past. And if you haven't, hey, this is a great chance for you to get involved and start
624960	630680	either at the ground floor with the badge challenge. I mentioned the badge challenge. If you don't have
630680	636580	the badge, that's okay. All the materials are online for free on the DEF CON media server,
636580	640860	media.defcon.org. So, you can still play along. You just won't have the physical item, but you'll
640860	648040	have all the audio files. Anyway, I'm distracted. Now, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Lost
648040	657580	Boy, if you haven't met him before. And take it away, Virtual Lost Boy. Thank you, Jeff.
658520	666300	Hello, everybody. Welcome to DEF CON Save Mode. I hope everybody is doing well in spite of these
666300	673560	challenging times. First and foremost, I'd like to thank DT for letting us even have a badge
674080	678060	and making that happen and making that possible in spite of the fact that we're in
678720	687360	the wonderful COVID times that we are. I'd like to also thank Neil and Nikita in Darrington for
687360	694560	the help that they put forth on making sure that the badge happened, as well as to NellyBot
695340	703020	for the assistance on the lanyard artwork as well. For those of you who are working on the puzzle or
703020	709040	recognize that there is a puzzle in the lanyard, obviously, you've been focusing on that there.
709040	716360	The only recommendation or hint I could give at this point in time would be to shave a little
716360	721000	closer with Occam's razor. Don't overcomplicate things. Don't make it more complicated than it
721000	726500	needs to be. Some people have already figured out quite a few clever things. I would recommend that
726500	733380	you check out the forums or talk to some folks in some of the chat rooms here on the Discord
734260	739440	for that. Recently, as you can probably see from around me, I've been really into
740320	747140	music and synthesizers, such as this record here, the Happy Moog. And it is Moog, it's not Moog.
747240	753340	There's a modular synthesizer there. It seems that synthesizers in the hacker community have
753340	758700	that Venn diagram. It tends to overlap quite a bit. Same thing with electronics and those that
758700	765680	are building things. I mean, clear back when we had folks like Forest Mims giving us RadioShack
765680	772420	books and showing us how to build electronic music instruments. So along with that, during
773000	780120	my earlier years, one of the things that always meant a lot and was a demonstration of a lot of
780120	786900	thought and emotion behind it was the concept of the mixtape, which I think the younger generation
786900	792120	just won't have a need to understand because you carry all of your music around with you on your
792120	796680	phone or you have access to it or you stream it. But back in the day, you used to have to sit and
796680	805080	listen to the radio for hours and then tape your favorite songs in order to get them so you could
805080	813000	listen to them when you wanted to. The cassette tape was the medium that tended to follow right
813000	819980	after LPs and records. There were other tape technologies such as the 8-track, which was a
819980	824520	continuous loop tape, which is very interesting if you don't know how an 8-track works. The tape
824520	830360	is wound around a single spool and is fed actually from the middle. It goes around the roller and the
830360	833660	tensioner and then gets wrapped back around the outside and it's self-tensioning. That's why an
833660	839640	8-track tape doesn't have any access to the winders or the rollers. I've already seen several
839640	846280	people making reference in the forums and on Twitter about the relationship between a cassette
846280	852320	tape and a pencil. For the younger generation, that's because when the tape would get caught up
852320	859320	or not be tensioned properly, you'd shove a pencil through here and use it to wind the tape or spin
859320	867560	it. This is, by the way, one of the original test tapes for the Defcon tape. This isn't the master,
867940	873180	but it is one of the original test tapes. You can see a clear shell there.
874300	880580	One of the early Goon prototype tapes. Experimenting with different colors. There's
880580	886480	the red one. This one, if you notice, has no tape in it at the time. This is just a shell
887120	895800	and the spindles have the clear take-up tape, which is connected. What the manufacturer will
895800	899840	do is they'll come in and they'll splice that and they'll splice the other tape to it and then
899840	907060	wind it up. That's how these are made. The shells for the Defcon badge this year came from Italy
907600	913280	and the tapes themselves were fabricated and recorded here in the United States,
913280	919480	on the East Coast, actually. What I was starting to say earlier was the mixtape...
920030	928360	you made mixtapes for friends or family or whoever that showed that you went to the effort.
928360	934440	Not only the order of the songs was important and the emotion behind why certain songs were
934440	940480	chosen. I mean, some mixtapes were like somebody were dating. Sometimes it was a romantic gesture
940480	947120	like, look, I spent all this time focused. And the thought behind it is I was thinking about you the
947120	953900	whole time that I made this thing. And oftentimes it would be handwritten on there because it would
953900	960940	be a blank tape that was recorded on home equipment. And there were actually... so we
960940	965880	all now have... you wouldn't download a house. Well, back then they used to have advertisements
965880	971900	would be like, tapes are killing the music industry, which it hasn't. Even the original
971900	980180	Pirate Bay logo, you've all seen the cassette tape with the crossbones because the tape was
980180	987640	really the first medium that allowed us to tape. It allowed us to record our music and create
987640	994840	bootlegs, for example, about the same time you started having videotapes as well. But it gave
994840	1001220	people an opportunity to preserve music and have music. And as we can see, it didn't kill
1001220	1008960	the record industry, unfortunately. I have my own thoughts on that. The human badges this year
1010420	1018340	are the purple color tape there that you can see. We also made two other colors. The artists
1019280	1024780	all got copies in yellow. It's kind of a neon yellow. I like that color.
1024840	1031480	And all of the goons got a solid red tape. So the red tapes are actually very rare because,
1031480	1034680	you know, we only made enough for the goons. Same thing with the artist tapes.
1037580	1041520	The intent was, you know, people are going to be at home.
1042240	1047800	They're not going to, we didn't think, sit and wear them around their neck as a lanyard. But
1047800	1053700	one of the things I wanted to do, and I talked with DT about it, is I want to have kind of a
1053700	1059500	mini contest that we're announcing right now, which hasn't gone public except for when someone
1059500	1066240	on Twitter kind of forced my hand. We're looking for the most creative way that someone attaches
1066240	1076840	their tape to their lanyard. Whether that's 3D printing, sculpting, action figure, clay, model,
1076840	1085840	electronics. Pick a thing. I'm going to be talking in the badge forum about where you can
1085840	1093720	send pictures or video submission about what you've done to me. And myself and DT and a couple
1093720	1100940	other people will vote and we'll see who we think the most creative badge holder creator is. Bonus
1100940	1107000	points if you make it in such a way that can be copied by other people, points for creativity,
1107000	1110800	things like that. But it's kind of a mini contest that I wanted to do live that I didn't want to
1110800	1116900	start until DEF CON actually started. Some other interesting facts about the tapes. So when I was
1116900	1122300	talking to the fabricator, which by the way is the same house that does the tapes for places like
1122300	1128660	Disney, which I thought was interesting, and then I started thinking about it and, well, no, there
1128660	1134380	aren't that many tape fabrication houses anymore. So those that have the capacity to do a large run
1134920	1140000	and do a professional quality run are limited these days. So it made sense that we wound up
1140000	1145680	at somebody who would do something like tapes for Disney or for, you know, we kind of have a
1145680	1153400	resurgence. There's a resurgence in like 80s pop culture interest lately in music too, although
1153400	1158060	certain genres of music have been around for a while. Groups like Gunship seem to become, have
1158060	1164340	become more popular recently, and kudos to them. After a live stream that I did, I do a live stream
1164340	1169260	once a week where I talk about music science and hacking. Immediately following that stream, and
1169260	1174580	I'd like to think I influenced it, although probably not, Gunship announced that you can
1174580	1179100	use any of their music on live streams without worried about being worried about copyright. So
1179100	1185120	kudos to them. They understand the next generation. But the tape, when it's being fabricated, goes
1185120	1192260	through the machine at 60 miles an hour. Think about that. It's faster than most, like, most cars
1192260	1197860	on the freeway when the freeway is jammed up. And the, if you think about the acceleration and
1197860	1202880	deceleration for how fragile the tape itself is, to say that it's going at 60 miles an hour is
1202880	1209760	pretty impressive. You think about how that, what that machine must be capable of doing.
1209760	1215400	The other thing is that there is a six hertz tone that they use to tell where the breaks
1215900	1223260	in the tape should be, as opposed to like the 8-track, who uses an actual piece that is spliced
1223260	1227680	onto the tape. And unlike splicing of audio tape, where you would do it on the back because you
1227680	1233080	wouldn't want it to go over the read head, on an 8-track it actually faces the read head, which I
1233080	1238800	also find interesting. I keep mentioning 8-track tapes because I don't want to show them yet, but
1238800	1246260	the Uber badge for this year is based on an 8-track tape. So there will be very, very few of
1246260	1253560	those that DT will be giving out at closing ceremonies to winners of contests, but we made
1253560	1258780	even fewer than we normally do, just because of the nature of where we're at in terms of COVID and
1258780	1264500	everything else. But I wanted the tape to be something to be representative of thinking of
1264500	1270980	friends, missing friends, wishing we were together, but instead of focusing on that
1270980	1277320	negative aspect of that, something that brings people together. The contest side, the badge
1277320	1285060	challenge, which for those of you who are new to DEF CON, there are often puzzle crypto slash
1285640	1292180	pop culture slash picketh subject, I've probably ventured into it at least a little bit,
1292180	1299360	puzzle challenges that are involved. And some are relatively easy, and some are incredibly
1299360	1304000	difficult. And the range goes all the way from badge challenge up through mystery challenge,
1304000	1310560	which is a separate contest. This year, specifically, if you get to a certain point,
1310560	1315420	I was going to show you just the splash screen of a particular website that you will eventually get
1315420	1358230	to. If you happen to hit that website, you're on the right track. And so you'll know that you're
1358230	1362950	doing something right. If you were looking for other people to play the game with, try the DEF
1362950	1371750	CON forums, or we will have some Discord channels that will be discussing badge challenge. And that
1371750	1376550	might be a place to find other people that you can connect with even remotely to work on the
1376550	1382170	puzzles together. Kind of like the crossword puzzles from the New York Times, right? I always
1382170	1388230	wanted to solve and finish one of those. But again, I'd like to say thanks to DT for letting this
1388230	1394330	happen. I mean, recently in my life, I've started being really interested in music. I mean, recently
1394330	1400410	past like five years or so, I've started carrying around one of these guys with me. This is a Zoom
1401070	1407210	recorder. You'll notice the XY recording head in there. I've been carrying one of these around with
1407210	1415690	me pretty much everywhere I go. And when I hear interesting sounds or things out in the wild,
1415690	1420450	I've been recording them and incorporating them into some music and things that I've been making.
1420750	1427990	Maybe someday I'll start releasing things. I don't know. But again, thank you for coming to DEF CON
1427990	1435470	safe mode. We hope that we can connect with everybody the best we can in these trying times.
1435470	1440730	And let's try and have some fun and focus on some positive for a little while. I think we could all
1440730	1448010	use it. So now back to you, Jeff. So if all went well, we're done with the intro. We're going to
1448010	1453210	move on now to the question and answer session live. If I'm still here and Lasse is still here,
1453210	1459310	you should see us popping up any minute in Discord in the chat. And we're ready to take any
1459310	1465830	of your questions on community, history, why we're doing what we're doing, how you can get more out
1465830	1471310	of the show. And really looking forward to seeing everybody. And thanks a lot for being here.
1475770	1482210	Well, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. Hope you guys enjoyed that video. I am
1482210	1488110	up in the top corner. You've got pasties and we are here with Lost and DT to answer some of your
1488110	1497150	questions now that we've got through the video. Jeff, why don't you get started maybe? Why don't
1497150	1502050	you tell us kind of maybe where you are, how you ended up where you are, and why you're stuck there?
1503050	1509470	Yeah. Hey, everyone. Hey, thanks for watching that. Welcome to safe mode. Thank you for being
1509470	1514770	here. It's been really cool just to be in LimeCon last week and watch everybody chat. It's
1514770	1521290	actually been kind of cathartic to see everybody reconnect with their friends and have conversations
1521290	1527830	that they would normally do in person. So super cool. Unfortunately, it's midnight here. I'm still
1527830	1533790	in Singapore trap, but I've been drifting my time two hours a night. So the last week I've drifted
1533790	1540110	and now this is my morning. It's weird. I get up at 11 p.m. at night to be on Pacific Time.
1540750	1548590	All for the love of DEF CON. And I've got with me Lost. And normally what we do is we talk about
1548590	1553210	the show, but I thought we've got a little bit of time. Let's do some Q&A. I'm sure everybody
1553830	1561590	got questions and doesn't want to hear us talk anymore. So who wants to kick that off first?
1563350	1571130	Let's see. I've got one maybe easy question. Where can we find out more about Lost streaming
1571130	1575430	about music, science, and hacking? Do you have a podcast or something like that?
1576970	1583860	I do live streams twice a week on Twitch. Tuesday nights is Transistor Tuesdays. It's more electronics
1584330	1590950	and hacking focused. Lately, I've been teaching people how to build a 4-bit microcontroller from
1590950	1597250	basic logic gates and or not all the way up to how to program an FPGA. The intention is to teach
1597250	1602090	people where assembly and machine code come from, from a hacker's perspective and why you care,
1602090	1606050	and to teach you the vocabulary to be able to have those conversations.
1606050	1612390	Friday nights, I do a stream show called Down in the Park, which is an homage to Gary Neumann.
1612790	1617950	And on that show, we talk about music and hacking and people that I consider music hackers and
1617950	1624530	things like that. In fact, there will be a DEF CON dedicated Down in the Park crossover tonight.
1626990	1636170	There is a link to Lost's Twitch in the track one DEF CON talk track channel,
1636170	1638610	for anyone that's looking for more information about that.
1640410	1646990	Cool. Let's see. CryptoCactus asks, are there any plans for making DEF CON safe mode an annual thing
1646990	1655840	to happen alongside the physical event? So what you're witnessing right here
1656940	1664760	is like all hands on deck. Everybody on deck for like three months. And there's no way we can do
1664760	1671100	that on top of the main, you know, physical DEF CON. So it's either one or the other. There's just
1671100	1680250	enough people to go around. There's been some talk about we could drastically reduce the Discord
1681030	1687330	and then have reduced rooms and chat and some of the features that we like, but do it in parallel
1687330	1693230	or use Discord as a sort of organizing tool for on site in Vegas. You know, all that is totally
1693230	1698990	possible. It's just we can't have all the villages doing their villages in real life and online at
1698990	1704610	the same time. I hope that answers your question. We're going to be making an announcement at
1704610	1712770	closing ceremonies on what we decide to do with the Discord. Cool, cool. A question for Lost.
1712770	1719130	You mentioned an additional Carl Sagan quote on your stream last night. There's one in plain text
1719130	1724990	on the liner and the one on the site that you just showed in this talk and another in a Pascal case
1724990	1730050	found via the cassette. Is there another one that somebody should have found already?
1730670	1735970	There are more that you can't get to yet and it's kudos for using Pascal case instead of
1735970	1741970	camel case correctly. And a little bit of trivia for you, our badge this year for DEF CON is the
1741970	1748350	cassette. Carl Sagan wrote all of his notes, took all of his notes for all of his creative works
1748350	1754970	on cassette tape. Most people don't know that. He dictated 90. Even the notes that are in the
1754970	1760790	contact, he still did the original dictation and notes for himself on cassette tapes. So the cassette
1760790	1771340	in a weird roundabout sort of way is also kind of an homage to Carl Sagan. So I've got another
1771340	1778780	question about the tapes. Is the audio distortion unexpected? Are the tape contents different?
1778780	1787100	How do we get flax of artist goon? Just go to media.DEFCON.org and we've got an archive of the
1787100	1792640	lossless versions. And if you want to play the badge challenge that Lost created, everything you
1792640	1798620	can have, everything you need to play the game or try to solve the puzzle is in an archive file
1798620	1806220	just on the media server there. Like pictures of the lanyard, the liner notes, and the audio tape.
1807120	1811800	To piggyback on what Jeff just said too and to answer more of the question,
1811800	1816820	the original master tape that we had, it's no secret at this point, I'm sure enough
1816820	1822180	people have talked about it online, if you stereo channel the XY from the tape into an oscilloscope
1822180	1826800	it does draw things and give you some text and some graphics and things like that.
1828260	1832520	The original master tape function is just fine, but the cleanest way to get that
1832520	1839340	is to just go to the DEFCON media servers and get the digital copy. It's just going to work the best.
1840140	1844980	Well we tried to get the best quality audio tape, right? I mean there wasn't a grade of
1844980	1850380	tape higher that we could purchase. Correct, not at this point in time. It manufactured itself
1850380	1855420	during COVID times. There were times when I was on the phone with the fabrication house and they
1855420	1861040	just didn't have people on staff at the time to do things because people weren't going into work.
1864760	1870660	Yeah, that's interesting. There's one place in the world that would make the audio
1870660	1877100	tape shells. There's a couple places to get the audio tape. I mean it's so limited. The supply
1877100	1884040	chain is so optimized, but it's so fragile. And there's no there's no real competition
1884040	1891640	not for mass publication of tapes for duplication. Tell me about the quantity,
1891640	1898980	like how the quantities are so low. So just like when we did the record, because we're using
1898980	1906380	older media and older formats, when we do a run for DEFCON, we actually technically should chart
1906940	1912940	because we pass the normal quantity of production. Like most people are ordering two, three hundred
1912940	1918940	tapes, you know, maybe a thousand, and we're blowing that away. Same thing, like one of the
1918940	1923660	guys that did the record pressing for us the year we did the record said, you made more vinyl this
1923660	1930240	year than Taylor Swift. Wow. Because we did. Because everything's digital distribution or CDs,
1930240	1935900	not vinyl. It's a niche market. It's growing. Same thing with cassettes. Cassettes are starting to
1935900	1941440	make a comeback, mostly for nostalgia purposes. One of the things I was going to throw out to
1941440	1946680	watch people have a geek fight about is the discussion and argument about whether or not
1946820	1954950	a cassette tape is digital or analog. And there is an answer, but I'll leave it as an exercise
1954950	1962670	to the reader. We were going to try to put an RFID chip inside each case as the cases were
1962670	1967590	being assembled, but it just ran out of time. Yeah, they didn't have humans on staff able to
1967590	1972830	do that. So the shells, like Jeff was talking about, in the video you saw, I held up some clear
1972830	1978110	tapes. The intention of that was that we were going to put RFID tags behind that solid piece,
1978110	1983150	but they just didn't have the manpower to crack the tapes and feed them in. So it's not like,
1983150	1987570	and kudos to badge life, but when you're making 200 of something versus, you know, thousands,
1988170	1992150	we just didn't have the resource to do it. And I don't mean in terms of we,
1992150	1996570	like the people just weren't there. It didn't even have anything to do with cost or anything
1996570	1999630	like that. It had to do with the fact that we just didn't have the humans.
2000750	2005990	So continuing along with the questions about the badges, someone wants to know
2005990	2013210	where to submit the badge forum or the badge attachment.
2014910	2019470	So as people who are playing the game know, there are certain websites that have not gone live yet.
2019470	2024310	I'm going to drop that information into the DEF CON forums, actually, after we finish this
2024310	2029870	discussion, but I've intentionally held that back because we wanted that to be a secret contest.
2030150	2034750	And for those of you who follow DEF CON and myself on Twitter, somebody actually started
2034750	2038830	doing it on their own. And they were like, we're going to do a contest for connecting the tapes.
2038830	2044630	And El Cantaro actually did a video of using a rubber band origami thing. And I had to jump in
2044630	2050350	and say, it's really cool. And I don't want to be the jerk guy that steps on you, but we're kind of
2050350	2051470	going to do that.
2053490	2057130	That's super cool, though. I love how the community just kicks off.
2057130	2064330	So watch the DEF CON forums after this and I get something to drink. More Mountain Dew.
2064450	2069510	Or as my daughter calls it, Daddy's Green Drink.
2071610	2074090	So I've got a question for Jeff here.
2075450	2083430	This is kind of a big picture. How has the focus of the CON changed since the CON got started 28 years ago?
2085690	2099890	Well, 28 years ago, we were quite a different crew of people. So I would say the analogy I make is imagine you were playing rock and roll in garages in
2100530	2106610	Haight-Nashbury or wherever in San Francisco. And you're making the music you love to make, grunge and battle, whatever.
2106610	2113290	You're making the music you love to make. You're showing it off to your friends. Your friends are making music. It's awesome.
2113550	2120450	And then somebody shows up in a car with a lot of money and says, hey, you know, you can get on a jet airplane with me and we can go to Europe.
2120450	2125650	And everybody in Europe can hear your music, too. And next thing you know, there's money involved.
2125650	2133930	There's jobs and there's prestige and more ego. And that was I mean, that happened to us, I think, in the early 2000s.
2134010	2140530	And then it went from being your hobby that you loved and do potentially into a career.
2140690	2151110	And that was an interesting mental break for a lot of people. You know, you talk to creative people and they're either professionally creative in the sense that they create nine to five.
2151110	2159170	They either go to Disney and create or an ad agency. And there are those that are not professionally creative. They do it when they feel inspired.
2159650	2166970	And that sort of forks the community a little bit. And so I think what we've seen is just the community growing up.
2167010	2175830	And you can see DEF CON, we're trying to respond to that a little bit over the last four or five years where we keep trying to draw this distinction that we don't want to be info tech.
2175830	2183830	We want to be hackers. And there's a difference there. And it's different. It's not one's good, one's bad. It's just we're different.
2183830	2191310	And we're trying to not be the professionally creative, where it's your job and you have to perform and do the enterprise thing.
2191670	2197670	We want to be you're here because you're trying to do something exciting and interesting.
2197670	2203130	And maybe you fail and the whole thing burns down in front of you. But that sounds fun.
2203130	2205310	I don't know. What do you think, Lars?
2206470	2216370	Yeah, my best memories of DEF CON are always with the folks that, like you said, that are passionate about it and it's more like a hobby.
2216470	2226030	Although a lot of the folks that are like that have found clever ways of hacking even their professional life to incorporate the things that they enjoy.
2226330	2232310	And I would say so many of the volunteers and people who work with DEF CON have done that.
2232310	2236490	They're hackers in every sense of the word, including their own life.
2240000	2248680	Last question for you, Damon from Meyers Circle asks, how many years has it been since the last mystery challenge?
2249020	2255380	Do you think this is kind of the final level? And then they also ask, do you have the glow?
2256300	2257320	Do I?
2258000	2261680	We have the glow. We need the glow to go. We feel the glow.
2261680	2272000	Sure enough. Julius Carey III is who you're referring to there plays, sure enough, in Barry Gordy's The Last Dragon.
2272000	2277220	Yes, my mind holds all of that stuff, not consciously. It just happens to be in there.
2278600	2285540	Mystery challenge in the original incarnation was about eight years ago for the last one.
2285540	2293140	And then we kind of moved over into the badge. We kind of did a resurgence for some anniversary years and things like that.
2293240	2298380	And I wouldn't say final level for the glow. I would say this is more of an iteration.
2298380	2305120	And I think of it as the phoenix, you know, a fabulous bird reborn from the ashes of its former self.
2305120	2310360	Also the tutor of Achilles for those of you who are 2001 and 2010 fans.
2311980	2314280	If you know that reference.
2315740	2323080	Kind of on the on a funnier side, we've got one person asking you if it's milkshake o'clock yet.
2323300	2325460	It's always milkshake o'clock.
2328100	2336800	I can't tell you how many years at DEF CON where we would do milkshake o'clock and then like three hours later, someone else would come up and we wouldn't want them to feel excluded.
2336800	2346220	And so we would do it again. And like one year, I'm sure I'm going to become diabetic in my later life from all of the milkshakes that I've downed.
2346380	2352740	We have like four milkshakes within the space of six hours. It's almost like that's a challenge in and of itself.
2354660	2356640	You're not eating hot dogs.
2358000	2367160	A fun thing to share is for those of you who were on the live stream last night, somebody actually stole a pair of grifter shoes and got them to me.
2367160	2375640	And I got them this week, which is part of an homage to the original Mystery Challenge stuff with grifter playing and people trying to steal his shoes.
2376680	2378260	So that's amazing.
2379680	2393160	Well, good stuff. We are about 10 after the hour. So maybe both of you gentlemen, do you have anything to share with everybody that's come to the Q&A before we get back to the regular schedule?
2394020	2398640	We have to pick one last question. Who's going to be?
2401100	2401900	Hmm.
2405300	2416080	I mean, this one's a little bit intense, but what do you think the future of hackerdom is? We've come so far in 28 years and things have changed so much. When do we hit a critical mass?
2417820	2419040	You want me to go first?
2421700	2437920	I think it's... I don't have an answer for you, but after about 10 years of DEF CON, and by then it was like four or five years of Black Hat, I was pretty certain that there's a finite number of people that will get on an airplane and fly to Vegas.
2438300	2442260	There just is. They care about this stuff. There just can't be that many people in the world.
2442260	2456880	And every year it grew, and it's grown every single year for 20-something years. And so my opinion doesn't really count because I've been wrong every year. Every year I just think, well, that's it. That's as many people as there are in the world.
2456880	2484680	But also living in Seattle, I think every year Amazon hires a thousand people. It's just crazy. So I don't know where the top is, but what I think happens is in the early days, the only people that cared about this stuff was us, and it was network, and then it was banking, and then it was financial and military, and then it was access control, and then it was industrial control systems and physical access control, and then it's robots.
2484680	2509120	It seems to be then it's smart cars. Now it's hack the sea and hack the satellite. So I don't think we've reached the top yet. I think what's happening is everybody's specializing. And so to make a name for yourself and to try to feel like you understand your domain, you're trying to simplify your life and you're trying to specialize to make a name for yourself. And that means we're squeezing out some generalists.
2509860	2527600	So I guess if I do have a call for anything, it's yes, do what you have to do to succeed in your career, but please try to also become a generalist because we're now probably year five or six of hackers becoming involved in policy and now decision makers.
2527600	2544440	Now congresspeople are young enough that they've grown up with computers. And so I think what's going to happen is we're going to have gone from a specialty to just we're like another component, security and health care, security and automotive, security and policymaking.
2544440	2552140	So I think there's plenty of room for us to grow. It's just we have to widen our horizons and think bigger.
2552140	2564720	I think our influence in society and importance in society is just going to grow. I'm sorry if I'm taking a long answer to this, but remember when you first started watching TV shows and the hacker would be there?
2564720	2575400	They'd be like the one hacking character. And the purpose of the hacking character was to type at the keyboard, find me the car. Okay, I'll use the kaleidoscope. Oh, they're in San Diego.
2575400	2590840	And that was the purpose. It's like the MacGuffin. It was to move the plot along. The hacker would type some keys and move the plot along. But now you see with like Mr. Robot, other shows, the hackers or the security people, they're full characters. They're full people now.
2590880	2596380	We're getting baked in. We're not the oddball anymore. I think that'll continue.
2597300	2601920	You know that and when we create the Mentat political party, right?
2605280	2616580	I can't add anything more to what Jeff said from the top down, but what I feel like is my personal mission in life is to go from the bottom up and that is next generation and kids.
2616580	2634940	I think we are quickly as a society getting to the point where we're teaching kids to not be hackers or tinkerers, whether it's making exploration illegal or tinkering. We're teaching kids that electronics are dangerous or expensive and that you don't own your device. Don't open it. Don't learn how it works. Don't explore.
2634940	2662440	And so some of the freedoms that I had as a kid, kids are terrified to do these days because things are illegal or whatever. And I think things like DEF CON helping to get that next generation to open the door. And we live in a magical time too, because now we have the benefit of virtualization, both for hardware and software. And so it's like we should see a resurgence of the tinkerers. And I'm looking for the next Forrest Mimms because I know he or she is out there.
2667200	2672180	So we'll be around. You're going to be around, Lost, in your Mystery Challenge room.
2672180	2675020	Yep, I'll be all throughout Discord.
2675460	2680980	Yep, I'll be floating around. Glad everybody's here. Have a good time.
2681540	2687000	Thank you guys both for joining us. Thank you everyone in the Q&A for asking questions.
2689520	2691980	We will see you guys around.