HACKER CONVENTIONS
PART 9
Every year various hacker conventions take place around the globe. There are the annual conventions like SummerCon (Summer), Def Con, HoHoCon (Christmas), PumpCon (Halloween), as well as the one off conventions like HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) and HEU (Hacking at the End of the Universe) .
All of the hacker conventions that I have ever attended have been alot of fun. Much of the time (for me anyway) is spent with friends in the closest watering hole. There is generally a lot of socializing going on. There are various speakers some who are pro-hacking and some who are anti-hacking. They speak on a variety of subjects. Anyone from Bruce Sterling (Science Fiction Writer) to Lex Luther (founder of the Legion of Doom) to Gail Thackery (prosecutor in the Operation SunDevil raids) to Dan Farmer (Unix Security Guru) is likely to be speaking.
Individual Cons
HOPE was held in New York City in August of '94 in honour of the 10th year of the publication of 2600 magazine. About 1000 people showed up in the end. At HEU in Holland, (put on by Hack-Tic) there were also about 1000 people that showed up. The interesting thing about that convention was that it was held on a camping site just outside Amsterdam.
"It was a three day hacking congress. There was a camping site and about 700 to 1000 hackers were camping there for 3 days with their tents. We had a really huge tent for podium discussions about phone phreaking, hacking, and the law. We had big volume discussions about networking, alternative forms of networking and then we had smaller workshops: the usual hacker stuff, social engineering, lock-picking, Unix, VMS, well anything." - Hanneke of Hack-Tic
"We had a network connected to the internet to about 200 computers, on a camping site, can you imagine? It must have been the largest outdoor network for non-military purposes. And well alot of people came, and had great fun." - Nonsenso from Hack-Tic
PumpCon is put on by Ixom and held in Philadelphia and its registered trademark is that someone usually gets raided by the authorities. Last year it was nicknamed "PumpCon II - The Bust Continues..." The first year it was held, a guy wired for sound turned up to tape-record everything that went on.
SummerCon is one of the oldest hacker conventions. Originally it was organised by Taran King and Knight Lightning. The first SummerCon was made up almost entirely of users of the MetalShop BBS that Taran King ran. It was such a success that it ran for 8 years, it was always invite only and had no official speakers. SummerCon was a place to exchange information, hang out with your friends and have a good time. After skipping a year, this year SummerCon is being organised by Erik Bloodaxe, the current editor of Phrack, it will be an open convention held in Atlanta.
DefCon is organized by the Dark Tangent. It is held in one of the strangest places on earth, Las Vegas, a good place to hold a hacker convention. The first year there were about 100 people that showed up, a major contingency being from LA. Last year there were many more people, the speaker list included Philip Zimmermann (the author of PGP). DefCon 3 is up and running again this year.
HoHoCon is organised by Drunkfux and is held in Texas. Originally held in Houston, HoHoCon is now held in Austin every year. It takes place around Christmas and usually has a good turn-out. I asked Drunkfux why he put on HoHoCon:
"The reason I put on HoHo Con is because I feel its fairly important to bring together all walks of the computer community. The quote, unquote, hackers and phreakers and security professionals, so they can meet face to face and talk to each other one to one and get to know each other, and get good discussions going. This year I had more than one security professional tell me that they were really glad they came and met the people that they considered to be little rampant anarchists with nothing better to do than to go around and blow stuff up and to break into every system out there. And when they talked to them and found out that they were quite intelligent and they could talk to them, I think that their opinions kind of changed. And so then they go away saying, `I met these kids at HoHoCon and they're really not as bad as we think."
Kingpin was standing next to me when I asked the question. After Drunkfux was finished Kingpin looked at him and said, "Now Jesse, tell her why you really do it!" to which Drunkfux replied "Hell yeah biatch! I do it for the money!"