Welcome to the DEF CON 30 Homecoming 101 track!
So it's been like a very emotional year.
How many people at the beginning of the year weren't sure if we were even going to be here?
A show of hands.
It's really questionable.
Month after month and the stress.
And so being here and seeing my people is really awesome.
So you're awesome.
Just thought I'd say that.
So for those of you who have not really been to a DEF CON or maybe only a DEF CON virtual
and now this is your first timers, raise your hand.
No shame.
Holy shit.
Well, I mean it makes sense you'd all be in this room at this time.
So that works.
Okay, so you won't get too many of the older references, but that's fine.
I'll just kind of talk for about 10 or 15 minutes and then we're going to pass it off to Melanie
who runs our communications and press and is sort of the consciousness of the CON.
Don't put that on me.
I don't put that on you.
I lean on Mel for a lot of advice.
And then we're going to have this great panel with some new and long time DEF CON goons
and attendees and then we're going to go to the audience and answer your questions.
So before we do that, there's a couple of cliche phrases around DEF CON I just want to address.
One is DEF CON is what you make of it.
And this came about when a lot of people were complaining, hey, I didn't get this one specific experience that I wanted
or I didn't meet this one person that I knew I was supposed to meet if I came or I didn't get to hack the car or whatever.
And other people would say, no, well, I got to do that.
Why didn't you get to do that?
And it quickly turned into there's a million ways to experience this conference.
And unlike some other more corporate conferences, we don't have these pathways totally defined for you.
It's not like you get on the track one, shake the hand with the executive and get the sales briefing.
It's really up to you.
And it can be very chaotic at some times, which causes some stress,
but it's also something that you can do.
It's not super rewarding because it's like a choose your own adventure.
We're in like this unlimited massive multiplayer universe here.
And everybody has had to go through what you're going to go through this year trying to figure it out.
And some people focus on the talks.
Some people sit down with their laptop.
Some people sit in lock picking village for half a day and walk away with a new skill.
And so don't feel that you missed out because it's impossible.
Around DEF CON, I think three, I started hearing stories of stuff that were happening at the con that I was throwing that I didn't know was happening.
And then I realized this is bigger than me and I have to be okay with not knowing everything that's going on.
And that's kind of like if you have children, that's kind of like letting go.
Like please tell me the stories.
Please send me the pictures of her first steps or whatever because I'm not there.
I missed it.
But I'm still there.
And that's what you're going to hear at DEF CON a lot.
Oh, my God, did you see the cabanas flying through the air last night when the storm hit?
Did you see the water raining in on the roof last night?
I guess what I'm getting at is I want you to go make your own path and I want you to not feel bad if you didn't see everything.
So that's sort of the, it is what you make of it.
If you're very introverted, maybe take an attempt to maybe extrovert.
But if you can't, that's okay because probably a third of DEF CON is super introverted.
And when we built the con, unintentionally, I'll take credit for it, but really it's an unintentional action, is we grew by word of mouth.
We don't have a marketing budget.
And so every year, based on people's experiences, they'd tell their friends.
And it grew very organically.
And so there's no attempt to, like, target a market audience and get that market audience to attend.
It is what it is through just organic word of mouth.
And I think that's one of our greatest strengths because the people that are here generally want to be here.
We didn't mind trick them with some Facebook targeted ads or something.
And because of that, people are pretty passionate about it.
They don't care about what they're into or what they want to try to get out of it.
So that's just kind of how we got there, how we got here.
We, in the early days, and even today, we never, I come from the bulletin board days and use net days after that.
And you never knew the gender of the person you were talking to.
You didn't know their age.
You didn't know where they were from.
You didn't know anything about them.
Except what you saw.
You didn't know their messages at 300 baud, at 1200 baud, 2400 baud, right?
And so we would make your decisions on if the person was an idiot or not based on what they said.
And that just carried forward.
We don't give a shit what you look like or what you sound like or anything.
We are interested in what's in your brain.
You should be judged here on your ideas and your compassion and how you interact with other people.
And not what kind of shoes you're wearing, right?
And so that might be important elsewhere.
But here you'll see these people in suits talking with these, you know, teenagers with green hair.
And they're having a great time.
And it's really kind of a surreal experience.
And it's awesome.
So please try to just suspend your eyes and focus on your experience when you talk to people.
We have had, you'll hear some things about spot the fed contest.
We have had a rocky history a little bit with the feds.
But it's always been tongue in cheek.
And I'll tell you a brief story about how that got started.
We were organizing, DEF CON was the first not invite only hacking conference 30 years ago.
And before you had to know someone to get in, to get the invite, to get on the list, to show up the hacking thing.
And I didn't like that because I didn't get invites to some of them.
It's like, well, fuck that.
I'm making my own show.
But when we made our own show, I was like, well, I don't want that experience to happen to other people.
So we invited everybody.
And it wasn't just hackers or phone freakers.
We invited artists and musicians and lawyers.
And basically in those days, there was this whole renaissance sort of like prewired.
The Internet could be anything.
It could be art.
It could be, you know, this utopia.
And so everybody was invited and everybody was trying to figure it out.
And so I had this really eclectic early mix.
And actually a friend I made at the very first DEF CON was a lawyer for Capitol Records.
And that summer I was working as an intern at Capitol Records in Hollywood because of this connection I made.
And so it was a really nice blending.
Well, I knew the feds were going to be there.
Law enforcement and movies were kind of promoting this image of the hackers, this mythical person that could fly and walk through walls and hack computers.
And I sent a fax to the FBI field office here.
And I said, hey, I'm Jeff Moss.
We're doing this hacking conference.
You're invited.
And it just kind of goes into this black hole.
And I sent them to the Secret Service.
And I was trying to like blanket everything so nobody is surprised at the last minute if they hear that there's a hacking conference in Vegas.
Well, the show is getting closer and closer.
And I'm starting to get nervous.
And so I call the field office in Vegas.
And I say, hey, I'm Jeff Moss.
I'm doing this hacking conference.
They say, okay, let me transfer you to the special agent in charge.
And he answers the phone.
Special agent in charge.
And I go into my spiel.
Hey, we're doing this hacking conference.
We'd love to have you there.
We're going to have all these hackers.
We're going to do this.
It's going to be great.
And there's this big long pregnant pause on the phone.
Like I can feel his eyes like lasering me through the phone.
And he says, we are aware of your activities.
And I'm like, oh, great.
So you're coming.
So that's good, right?
And he laughs because he knew he was messing with me.
And he's like, no, no, we're enforcement.
And what you want is like policy.
That's Washington, D.C.
That's not a field office.
You should talk to them.
Okay, no problem.
First DEF CON comes and goes.
Shenanigans happen.
It's over.
It's Sunday.
We're cleaning up.
And a guy comes over to me and he like shows me his badge.
He's like, hey, yeah, good show.
I'm like, you said you were not coming.
And he's like, well, you know.
And it's like, okay, we can do this.
We're looking for you next year.
You know?
And it turned into this sort of cat and mouse game.
And in the early days, if they wore leather loafers, you knew they were feds.
And they got sneakers on.
They got smarter.
The fanny packs with the firearms disappeared.
And they got better and better.
The long story short, though, is that created this kind of more accepting, interactive experience.
And that spot the fed game unintentionally really paved the way, I think, for no animosity between us.
Our communities kind of game recognizes game a little bit.
And so all these unplanned experience have led us to this point.
This crazy blending of games.
Of different communities.
And so when people think that there is a master plan, no, man, there's no master plan.
The master plan is community and getting people together and giving them as many pathways to make connections as possible.
When you have this many people, you'll notice this, and this is intentional, when you get this many people at a conference, it is impossible to not feel lost.
So what do we do?
We fork you off.
Interested in aviation?
You want to go in aviation?
You want to go ICS part of aviation?
And next thing you know, you're sitting at a table with ten other people with your interest and you're talking to them.
And now you don't have to deal with a thousand people.
You just made ten friends.
Right?
You're in the lock picking.
You're in the high security lock picking.
You're in the thing.
Now you've got ten people around you.
And so we're constantly thinking how do we split everybody off into smaller areas of interest and then let you decide where you want to go.
So it does feel big.
But it's also conferences inside the conference inside the conference.
And we're constantly trying to figure out how to do that.
And one of our famous strategies is I give you a lot of rope.
If you want to run, say, the AI village, and you say, I've got this idea for an AI village.
It's like, okay, convince me.
Okay.
You get a space.
Let's see if you fuck it up.
And if you don't, you get more space.
So when you go in there and you see a really large village, it's like they didn't screw it up for you.
They did it for years.
And if you see a small village, a lot of times they're first timer or they're just starting.
They're trying to figure it out.
So your feedback to them could be really valuable because they're just trying to figure out how do they find their way in this community.
And you'll see villages come and go.
It didn't work out or the time was wrong.
Or there's a lot of interest in blockchain and then the interest drops and we repurpose the space to try the next idea.
And so, again, not a master plan, really.
We're just trying to get you all to talk and connect.
And carry on sort of that DEF CON spirit throughout the year.
Because you'll find out that the friendships and the relationships you make here, you'll carry throughout the rest of the year.
And we do some virtual events.
We have a Discord.
We have forums.
But really, man, nothing beats this in-person feeling.
So try to get the most out of that.
One final thing is we the one thing we don't do is we don't do it.
We don't take sponsorships.
And that's a conscious decision.
There's probably a lot of money we've been leaving on the table over the years.
But when we started the conference, there were no sponsorships.
Like nobody was doing this.
And so by the time money arrived in the hacking scene and sponsors arrived, we had already built ourselves to be self-sufficient.
So we really didn't need it.
And we didn't want to be influenced by it.
And so if sometimes you look around and you're like, man, they should just put a link.
They should put an extra video wall there.
They should do this extra thing.
It's like we could if we started taking sponsorships and generating a lot more revenue.
But we don't want to.
That's a pretty intentional decision because we like our freedom and we like the ability to tell vendors or people who might try to intimidate us to not have a talk on an access control system or a voting system.
We like not being able to be pressured through different vendors.
So that's also a little bit of the con history.
It might be in the back of your head, but that is a conscious decision.
Okay.
So that's sort of my opening orientation remarks.
All I do the whole con is I walk and I just orbit and orbit and that's all I do the whole time.
And so if you see me, say hi.
I'm happy to talk to you, but if it looks like my hair is on fire and I'm racing somewhere, just get out of my way.
Please.
Okay.
So I'm going to hand it off.
Where did Mel go?
Oh, there you are.
Okay.
So I'm going to introduce you to Melanie who's going to introduce you to our panelists.
They're going to carry on the conversation and it's going to open up to the audience.
So great.
Thank you, everyone.
All right.
Thanks, Jeff.
A bit of course correction.
I go by Wednesday.
Wednesday.
For strangers.
And you're all strangers.
And you're all strangers.
All right.
So thank you so much, everybody, for joining us today.
I'm really excited about the folks that we've pulled together today.
They all have very different and unique experiences with DEF CON.
So I've asked them to share a little bit of their story and how they got involved in the community to help all of you as you acclimate and find your people and find your little groups within this very large group.
I am the type that I am very introverted.
And I just pretend to be an extrovert for a living.
So if you also feel that way, there are plenty of corners, plenty of wonderful people.
And we want to help you find the folks that you really gel with.
If you are an extrovert, I don't understand where you come from, but there's also a place for you here.
So that being said, a little bit of background about myself.
As Jeff mentioned, I run the press department, the communication strategy here at DEF CON.
I have been a goon for nine years.
So I have seen a lot of the changes that he talked about.
And I actually started by volunteering with what at the time was called DEF CON Kids.
So we used to have a village dedicated to our youngest hackers.
It eventually evolved into something called Roots Asylum.
They have since retired as of this year, but hopefully we'll have something taking its place for next year.
So if that's something that's interesting to you, let me know because we are trying to pull something new together.
But that's how I got started, was just volunteering with one of these villages.
And over time, there was more needs and more things that the team needed help with.
And eventually, I hope nobody actually holds me responsible for the consciousness of DEF CON.
But it is part of my professional training to help organizations be a little bit more empathetic and more empathetic.
And more inclusive.
So with that being said, I want to introduce our amazing panelists that we've brought together today.
I'm going to ask each of you to introduce yourselves.
Let us know what you want to be called.
I know all of you by different names, and I want to be respectful of what you want to be called by this group.
So let us know what you want to be called.
Let us know how you got introduced into DEF CON.
And give us one tip of a do or don't.
That you would share with a newcomer who's here for the first time.
So let's start with you.
My name is Tanisha O'Donohue.
I prefer to be called T.
I got introduced into DEF CON through Black Girls Hack.
This is our first year here.
We have a village called Girls Hack Village.
So yeah.
And do you have a tip for the newcomers on something that you would recommend they do or they don't do?
Plan for the things that you can't plan.
Just keep thinking about all the what ifs and keep planning.
Hello.
My name is Shannon Morris.
I go by snubs on the Internet.
My pronouns are she and her.
And I got introduced to DEF CON back in, I want to say, like, 2009 through a YouTube podcast I do called Hack 5, H-A-K 5.
You can Google it.
It's really good.
Definitely subscribe.
Like and subscribe.
Thanks.
And I guess my main thing would be please, dear God, wear deodorant.
.
Is this on?
Applause out the gate.
Hello.
My name is Steven.
I go by on social stuff there.
I was introduced to DEF CON by some individuals on my team who had been before.
And then we were having, like, a recruiting event.
So I came and I was, like, oh, this is cool.
And one piece of advice that I would say or I guess to do is whatever remotely interests you, go check it out.
Especially if it's your first time.
There might be something that you weren't expecting that is, like, hey, this is actually pretty cool.
For me it was, like, the social engineering community where they, like, were calling.
I was, like, that's pretty cool.
So.
My name is Michael.
Also known as Sparky.
It's he, him.
I started DEF CON 8.
DEF CON 10.
I was brought into the NOC.
And 20 years later I'm sitting on stage.
I guess the one tip I have is look to your left.
Look to your right.
These are your people.
And take a chance and talk to them.
You might not kick off a conversation with them.
But the reality is you might.
And from there you might have a chance.
You might end up in a half dozen other conversations.
And it is the three days out of the year where you're going to have an opportunity to do that.
And don't miss out on that chance.
Awesome.
Thank you.
I want to add my own tip which I'm also sharing on behalf of DEF CON.
Do not fuck with the hotel or the casinos.
I'm being serious.
It is very difficult to find a venue that will put up with our shenanigans.
Please don't make it harder for us to host DEF CON in future years.
Okay?
Do not fuck with our hotels or the casinos that have opened their doors to let our community come in and be together.
So that's my tip.
So one of the things, and Jeff touched on this a bit as well.
But one of the things that I think is so important and is different about DEF CON compared to, you know, what we might consider to be a professional infosec.
There's an example down the road.
Is that DEF CON isn't just a transaction of, hey, we went to this conference and did this thing.
But DEF CON really is a community above and beyond what is going to happen over the next three days this week.
And so I want to ask our panelists here to talk a little bit about what did you do to engage in the community outside of, you know, the three days that we have together.
Every year.
What is some advice that you would share with everybody in terms of how to make DEF CON more than just a transactional event?
I don't think her mic is on.
Is her mic on?
Yeah.
Her mic.
All right.
Can we have somebody else while we try to.
Yeah.
All right.
We'll get back.
Is it on now?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
That's a really good question.
Thanks for making me first.
Connecting with people.
Join organization.
For me, personally, I'll speak from my experience.
I joined Black Girls Hack.
I'm the director of policy over there.
It was easy for me to connect and grow even though we all live across the country with
people in the cyberspace.
And that develops relationships where some of these people are not my friends.
I can call on them.
I have mentors.
I have different people.
If something happens at work, I can lean on.
So, for me, it's continually connecting and share with other people.
The first year I came here to DEF CON was back in, like, 2009.
And it was overwhelming.
And I'll be very transparent with you.
I have crazy imposter syndrome.
And being around so many smart people made me feel like I didn't know enough to be here.
So, when I came home from DEF CON and I started doing shows on YouTube, I decided to really
delve into things and start educating myself.
And the way that I tried to become a part of the community was by introducing tutorials
on things that I was truly, really interested in.
Like Wireshark series and stuff like that.
And by learning those things myself and by delving into it like a noob and, like, completely
just telling people, hey, I'm a noob, too.
It's okay.
Like, it's okay to learn all these things and educate yourself.
Like, that's totally fine.
I learned coming back the next year that everybody else is more than happy to share their knowledge.
And that was the biggest thing that I learned.
What I brought home from DEF CON after going a couple of years was that people are more
than willing and more than happy to teach you new concepts, teach you new techniques
about information security and privacy, hacking in general.
And there's so much more that you can learn when you're willing to get yourself out there
and kind of combat your own imposter syndrome and just tell people, hey, I don't know how
this works.
Can you tell me like I'm five years old?
And by doing that, I really, really felt like a part of this community.
And through the years, it's become stronger and stronger to the point where I came back
this year after being gone for two years and I got ambushed by a few friends in the hallway
and I started bawling my eyes out because I was so happy to see them.
It truly does turn into a family once you find your people here.
And I think it really just takes...
Getting out of your shell and just being willing to talk to people.
For me, this is my second DEF CON.
The first one I went to was like right before the pandemic.
When the first one, I probably just knew people on my team or that I'd worked with directly before.
Since then, the way that I probably had the most interaction with people in this community is like at my local conferences
or just other conferences that I travel to because I imagine you guys probably go to other conferences there.
And then...
Oh, also people that have...
Funny memes on Twitter.
That is...
That's my tribe.
And...
Yeah.
And so now when I come back around here, like I might bump into people or like maybe just through Twitter say,
Hey, are you going to be around?
And then just catching up with people that way.
And that's helped me a lot.
And I feel like I know a lot more people now.
Yeah.
So for me, when I started coming to DEF CON, I was actually the station manager for the world's largest online punk rock station.
And I had bought a computer a year before that.
And I was like, computers, got that.
And so I showed up at DEF CON and I totally rocked the imposter syndrome.
Sat down at the table and had my head completely blown to the point where it was a little panicky, too, because you're like, oh, shit, I'm way out of my element.
After that, you know, I attempted to try to get a press pass.
And was road blocked year after year.
So I eventually found another methodology.
Not by me.
Not by me.
No.
No.
Not by me.
But, yeah, I found a different way of doing it.
I made friends and started talking with those people and handed out cheesy business cards.
And an unfortunate event happened.
And they needed somebody to step in and help out with DCTV.
Yeah.
And I was sitting at the Alexis Park and my two coworkers walked past me and I'm like, what are you guys doing here?
And they're like, oh, somebody reached out to us and asked us to set up DCTV.
And I was like, seriously, I handle the business cards and they get the goon badge.
So I made a stink and invited myself into their team.
And next thing you know, I was hanging APs and, you know, the rest is kind of history.
For me at home, I don't longer live in a large city.
I live in a small town.
I live in a small town that has been transitioning from being a mill town or an industrial town into being a new or trying to reinvent itself.
This small town, they don't embrace technology.
It is very hands off for them.
But I'm opening a maker space.
And I'm getting the community involved.
And we try to learn about the maker community.
And from there, start to bridge that gap.
And start to introduce technology.
And start to introduce, you know, a new mindset to them.
So that's the part I try to give back to the community.
Awesome.
I loved all those ideas and I love all your stories.
The other thing that I will add is that if you aren't really sure where to start and you haven't quite found your group of folks yet, there is an organization called the Lonely Hacker.
So if you want to look them up and connect with them, they do a really good job of helping people, like matching them with folks who share interests and helping you locate certain corners within DEF CON and within the community where you can meet new folks.
So that's a good resource if you're looking for some additional support.
So that being said, I want to give folks time to ask questions.
So you can pick the brains of these really smart people up here.
We do have roaming mics.
So if you have a question that you'd like to ask, just raise your hand and the goons will be bringing the mic to you.
Yes?
I'm just going to say this to start off with.
My expertise is in administrative and operational.
So if you're going to ask me a question about the NOC and where the pixies go, I'll do my best.
But most likely I'll just give you my Twitter handle and I will get you an answer later.
I see a hand back there.
Raise your hand really high so we can see if you have a question.
We can get a mic to you.
Where are the mics?
Oh, make them run.
Make them run.
I see a mic person running.
There he is.
There you go.
Run, run, sir, run.
Thank you.
Yes.
Hi.
Oh, wow.
Hello.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate you asking everyone not to fuck with the casinos and the hotels.
How about each other?
The reputation is that, you know, you enter a DEFCON Wi-Fi and it's toxic.
And why is that okay if that's true?
And if it's not true, please dispel.
I just want to make sure I understood the question.
So tell me if I'm getting this wrong.
The question is why is there not a rule about not fucking with each other in terms of the
Wi-Fi network and everyone's connected devices?
Did I get it?
Okay.
It's a very good question.
And I don't have a 100% definitive answer for you, but I'm going to tell you the way
that we're thinking about it.
This is a hacker conference.
We expect people to hack on things.
We're also very mindful of the fact that members of our community fall along a very long moral
spectrum in terms of what is considered ethical hacking, what is kind of everybody's comfort
and boundary with that.
And we have to be realistic about that because we have anonymous attendance.
I don't actually know who is in this room.
That's on purpose, right?
We don't want governments and other agencies to be able to come and get an attendee list from us.
So there is a little bit, I think, of self-awareness.
Of what kind of environment we're in from a security perspective while we're here.
And so we do try to provide advice on how to protect yourself, how to protect your networks.
We advise you don't bring your corporate devices here.
But at the same time, I want to also acknowledge the fact that in 2022, if you don't feel safe
using technology within the DEF CON space, I think we also need to be talking about how safe our
normal everyday lives are.
So there's a lot of advice about don't bring smart phones, don't use Wi-Fi, don't use all of this
when you come to DEF CON and people are putting all their devices in fair days.
If you are a high-risk, high-target individual where you know nation states are targeting you,
I think that's all applicable advice.
But for most of us, the types of things that I do to protect myself when I'm at DEF CON are the things I do every single day.
Because those threats exist even when the hackers go home.
Right?
So I don't know if that's a satisfactory answer for you.
But that's at least the way that we've been thinking about it in terms of DEF CON.
We hope that everybody is respectful of each other.
But this is also a hacker conference.
And we want people to be able to learn and develop new skills and to be able to find vulnerabilities so that they can ultimately be fixed.
But we can't enforce that that's what people do with the knowledge that they gain.
I don't know if I could add a little bit extra.
Sure.
Mel is 100% correct.
But we do offer, so we have DEF CON open.
It is the wild west.
And a great experience if you have not tried it yet.
And then we have DEF CON, which was formerly known as DEF CON secure.
Right?
And there's tons of information available.
It's available at wifi reg.DEF CON.org.
And I definitely recommend you visit there.
And then, you know, the question about the casino floor.
Yeah, I mean, pardon my French, but don't shit in the pool.
It is, it is, they don't mess around.
Right?
That's a crime.
It is a crime to attack a company, a person, anything.
Right?
And they don't look at it as you being experimenting.
Or there is no, like, three-day free pass in Las Vegas.
You step out of line and they will respond with their full force.
And they brought extra force for this weekend.
So, yeah, like, just, you got a sandbox.
Build castles.
Tear down castles.
Do it in this environment.
Everybody is going to leave happy.
So.
You are the best bad cop to my good cop.
Thank you for adding that.
Any other questions from the audience?
Yeah.
Hey, yeah.
So, most conferences I go to, I leave with, you know, a bag full of stuff.
I come here, everyone tells me I'm at the wrong place.
So, I'm just wondering, is there a place to get free swag anywhere here?
Yes.
Yeah.
Snub should take that one.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
Go to the sticker swap.
You can get so many stickers.
I have a friend who literally throws little rubber ducks at people.
Over and over again.
I had a friend last night that gave me a little action figure for his company.
Like, you can find stuff all over the place.
People are handing out swag all over the place.
Did you introduce me to your friend?
Because I like action figures.
I mean, like, open car.
Open car.
Okay.
Cool.
You can go find them.
Full disclosure.
I am volunteering at the Hack Five booth.
But straight up, like, with a purchase, we're giving out free battery packs.
Like, you can find stuff all over the place.
So, yeah.
Definitely.
Go to the sticker swap.
I'm going to be there.
I'll give you some stickers.
We're having a networking event tonight.
If you come to our networking event, you will have swag bags from me.
So.
Oh, damn.
I know where I'm going.
Is that at the girls' hack, though?
Yeah.
Girls' Hack Village.
Girls' Hack Village.
All right.
In the Flamingo.
Virginia City 3.
Sorry.
It's very long.
So, you guys come there.
We're also having a 90s party tomorrow.
Ooh.
Here in the Caesars Forum.
Oh, there.
So, everyone is welcome.
So, we'll have swag.
So, just come visit us.
Just a small little promo.
Awesome.
But the reason you won't get a DEFCON swag bag when you register is, as Duff mentioned,
we don't have corporate sponsors.
And so, that swag is either going to go to the girls' hack, or it's going to go to
the girls' hack.
So, it's going to come from the vendors who are sponsoring individual villages, or from
attendees who are being very generous and sharing things with the community.
I think one thing to note that I think a lot of first-time attendees may not know is that
DEFCON operates a little bit like a platform where we provide the space for people to create
villages, but the villages run their own content and programming, which means that they may
have sponsors.
But that sponsor only sponsors that room, and their relationship is with the village,
not with DEFCON.
So, you may find this, you may find swag at different parts of conference, parts of DEFCON,
but we don't have just one single DEFCON swag bag, because DEFCON does not accept
corporate sponsors.
Yeah, don't clap that.
That is good.
That's a good thing.
Great explanation.
All right.
Sorry.
I think we had a question over here.
Okay.
Sorry if I stutter, but how would someone go about getting into hacking?
This is coming from, like, knowledge on basic networking and stuff, but how would some teenager
or, hell, even adult go into, like, hacking at all?
You got a makerspace in your community?
Sorry.
I'm, like, shameless plug for makerspaces.
But, yeah, you got a makerspace in your community, you got a hackerspace, you got, you know,
that's a great place to start, because you're going to get direct feedback from people,
and people will engage with you.
There are also local DEFCON groups in a lot of cities all over the world, so that would
be my first place where I would start, was I would, you know, look up online whether
or not there was a DEFCON group in my city.
If not, then I would look at a hackerspace.
There are a lot of even just hacker collectives that exist in a lot of cities, so at least
from my experience, having somebody in my town that I can meet with, you know, in meatspace,
is where I would start and what I would recommend.
But even for kids, there's a lot of free resources online.
Just be really, again, as Sparky was saying earlier, be really careful about the environments
that we're teaching people in, because we don't want to see kids accidentally end up
in legal trouble, because they unknowingly crossed a line.
So look for those resources online that are, you know, giving you a safe environment, rather
than having the kids.
Kids just hack all over the Internet, because we need those skills.
We need that talent.
We don't want to lose them, you know, to the legal process.
I think the goon has a question.
After this one, we have time for one more.
So the one in the back will be the last one.
Hi.
Yes.
So mainly I'm a back-end software engineer.
I mainly write APIs in Go, so I'm not exactly a hacker, but what would be a suggestion that
you give to me to gain some expertise?
Some expertise from the great people here, so that what it is I write is not riddled
with vulnerabilities.
Any particular places I should go?
I just want to note that we found the unicorn, a developer who doesn't want to write insecure
code.
There we go.
Any advice from our panelists?
There's definitely probably some interesting stuff for you in Blue Team Village.
I don't know.
There's also the Cloud Village as well, which could have some interesting stuff for you.
I'll be speaking at the Blue Team Village this afternoon, so come.
And we have different things going on in our village as well, too, so you can come there
as well.
You're welcome.
The other place I'll recommend is the AppSec Village.
So they do a lot of stuff around pen testing, software quality.
So that's another good place to meet other software developers who care about security.
I'll probably definitely plus one the AppSec Village.
You're already like two-thirds of the way there.
The fact that you will stand up publicly and say that you do not want to write insecure
code is the right step forward.
I can't tell you how many dev meetings I'm in where they're like, we'll take care of
it afterwards.
Nope.
Okay.
All right.
Last one in the back.
Yes.
I'm here attending the conference with my wife.
My wife is not here for DEF CON, though.
I only have the pass for me.
Are there any events or meetups or anything of that nature where we can attend together?
That is a good question that I truthfully don't know the answer to, but if you will
come find me after this, and we can exchange contact info.
So I can find out, and I'll let you know, and I'll also have the DEF CON Twitter handle
tweet out whatever I find out.
So if other folks are interested in that information, watch the DEF CON Twitter handle, and we'll
get that out.
But that is a great question.
Thank you for asking that.
That actually brings up a great message that I would love to share.
One year I brought my husband, I got him a badge, and he loved it.
And he's in HR.
Like, he's not a hacker.
But he loved it.
He went in the lock picking village and he sat down for like an hour and he came out
and he was just like, I know how to pick locks.
And I was so proud of him.
I was so proud.
And then I was like, don't tell your boss, because you're HR, you probably shouldn't
know how to do that, but like, bring people who are not hackers to the convention and
share the wealth of knowledge, because oftentimes you can find a village that they will absolutely
love.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
I brought my wife once to DEF CON, and nine months later, my son was born.
So there are other events.
Congratulations.
We aptly named him Flynn, too.
So yeah.
What village was that?
It's invite only.
Yeah, no, there's tons of stuff to do with your significant other.
And that's the beauty of it.
Yeah.
Like, we are a community, as Jeff said earlier, of artists and lock pickers and phone freaks.
And like, there's just so many different things, like, yeah, like, there's always something
to find.
And if you're really, really having a hard time, just go see a fantastic singer.
All right?
There you go.
Right?
Go see a fantastic performer.
There's a lot here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So are you saying DEF CON changes lives?
Oh, damn.
Doesn't it?
Yes.
I didn't lie.
I didn't lie.
Changed your life.
I haven't brought him.
I am hoping for Roots, or sorry, the new version of it.
And I personally believe that DEF CON may have to sponsor my child to attend, you know,
concerns there.
Awesome.
Well, that's all the time that we have for today.
How about a round of applause for our panelists?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So thank you so much, everybody, for starting your DEF CON 30 with us here today.
And welcome to DEF CON.
Half the planet!
Woo!