Defcon is no longer a counterculture conference, and arguably hasn't been for a while. It's a place for security professionals to go to hang out in Vegas for a few days on their company's dime, or to extend their stay after Black Hat.
The conference has gotten too big for its own good. It now inhabits the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is less convenient than when it was in one of the hotels (or multiple hotels clustered together). The one positive of the LVCC is that it has a ton of room but there are still issues with things like sound equipment that plague the villages and their talks/workshops.
px43 · 59m ago
This was my 23rd DEFCON, and was just as counterculture as it was decades ago if you know where to go, and don't get distracted by the big pretty signs. DEFCON has always been about feds, policymakers, corpos, kids, and straight up black hat criminals partying together and shaping the future of infosec.
The author of the article decided to wander down the Military Industrial Complex track, and seems to be complaining that it had too much Army stuff. I didn't see any of that this year, because that's not what interests me. I met up with a large number of cipherpunks and activists that I don't get to see very often, and had some extremly productive conversations regarding various projects we're working on for the next year.
busterarm · 24m ago
As a longtime attendee myself, this is absolutely true.
Also, DEFCON and DT specifically have not shifted anywhere. A large demographic of attendees shifted hard to the left, mirroring our culture in general. They are also not "counterculture" as these are mainstream/televised points of view.
I had to stop dealing with certain parts/people of DEFCON and infosec in general because of this intense noise. That's not pegging myself as being on the right, it's just that my DEFCON experience has always been about expanding my worldview and fun... this very loud and influential group isn't about either of those things.
tedivm · 1h ago
Once they scared off the people running the Sky Talks, which were always awesome, and messed with groups like the lockpicking folks ability to fundraise, I think the idea of it being a hacker con really died and it turned into just another corporate convention.
px43 · 44m ago
Skytalks happened this year and was better attended than ever. Getting a seat was extremely competitive, people lined up for several hours for a single talk token. I would have loved to go to some, but unfortunately there was a ton of other stuff I wanted to see so I didn't have time to stand in line.
They were a side conference to a side conference, but the structure let them run things the way they wanted, which is important.
jayess · 26m ago
That Skytalks still requires masking is absurd. I saw the organizers at DEFCON walking around with no masks. The last skytalks at DEFCON a couple of years ago was pretty bad anyways, really disappointing.
ferguess_k · 1h ago
Would CCC and Recon be better? TBH I never understand why people (not companies) need to go to Vegas. It's expensive, corrupting and hot during the summers. Montreal is a much affordable place.
__alexander · 1h ago
CCC would be better but REcon is kind of niche because it’s focus is reverse engineering and not “hacking”in general.
aakkaakk · 39m ago
CCC still have this crazy way of selling tickets, where you cannot know more than month in advance if you will be able to get a ticket, i.e. impossible to book hotel/flight that late.
tete · 27m ago
To be fair CCC is theoretically primarily a German club with an event that is overbooked by so so many people, all of that is done by people NOT being paid for anything (from security to health emergency to infrastructure, ticket checking, audio, recording, etc.).
I wouldn't call it crazy that a pure volunteer event that constantly has to switch places because they use up ALL available space of their venues does have a ticketing system that is still better than the one of a lot of big pop stars.
It probably also keeps commercialization down to a minimum.
Yes, sucks that what you describe isn't possible, but I think in perspective it's not exactly "crazy".
It's still always sold out with whole conference areas and more used up.
ecshafer · 1h ago
Vegas (and Orlando) are probably the two cheapest places to travel to in North America. Hotels and flights are both plentiful and cheap. Before Covid you could get like $60 a night hotels on the strip and $150 flights.
ferguess_k · 1h ago
Ah I don't about know about that, thought it is extra expensive. Guess summer is actually the low season due to weather?
woodruffw · 49m ago
Strictly speaking, I don't think Vegas has a low season. It's cheap to visit and stay in because they bilk you on everything else.
Kirby64 · 44m ago
The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is historically slow. Not much going on then, and things are quite cheap usually. Weather is also not miserable.
Fomite · 1h ago
Getting people to Vegas is heavily subsidized under the assumption that while they are there they will spend rather freely.
chupasaurus · 51m ago
The summer is a "dead" season for that specific reason.
sugarpimpdorsey · 1h ago
Something something discreet hookers and a company credit card.
ferguess_k · 1h ago
I thought they are more into techs.
dogleash · 48m ago
Defcon went fed when Jeff Moss went fed. But the crowd size has done way more to change the vibe. The 30% crowd post-covid year was a short return to old defcon.
ramesh31 · 1h ago
>Defcon is no longer a counterculture conference, and arguably hasn't been for a while.
This happens to literally every convention ever, not surprising at all. The broader question is is something like the original spirit of DefCon even still possible? The industry (and the stakes) are so much higher now that it seems impossible.
sylens · 1h ago
It is but you have to intentionally keep it small and limit tickets. I think one of the issues that Defcon has is that they just don't cap tickets; historically they could not, because you could only buy a badge with cash so there was no way of predicting how many people would show up.
woodruffw · 1h ago
I don't think it's really a matter of limited attendance. Smaller hacker conferences in the US are not much different in terms of baseline acceptance of government/defense presence. It's more of a cultural thing, and not a new one.
(That's not to say that there aren't conferences that are explicitly anti-MIC, because there are. But if you just sample by size, I suspect you'll find no correlation there.)
ajsnigrutin · 55m ago
You do 10 things at a small conference, everyone says "we need more of X{0}..X{9}", you have more things next year, more people, everyone wants more of whatever, more people, more problems with more people (security, cost, sponsors,..), more attention of mainstream media, more people next year, more push for politics, more people, more issues with more people, etc., and in the end, you get a boring business conference like many others.
I'm pretty sure that each of the niches could make their own conference now, at some small venue where a 100, 200, 500 people would come... SNES hacking and development? Sure, a small, really nice conference... but then someone would want NES too, and N64, and sega, and PS1, and corporate sponsors, and you end up with E3 instead of 50 retro developers and 150 curious people doing interesting stuff.
CalRobert · 1h ago
Maybe What Hackers Yearn or CCC?
AndrewKemendo · 1h ago
CCC might be able to survive because it’s European and multi lingual
adornKey · 32m ago
Not sure about that. I recently organised a workshop on a CCC-Event. I think there were more transsexual DJs on the Event than people interested in professional IT.
There are still some hackers left, but CCC events are more and more turning into events of the gay party scene.
It's a bit harsh to say that the CCC-scene is going insane - but it's a solid fact that last year on the event people gave more talks about their mental illnesses and feelings than about real hacker-stuff...
sunaookami · 1h ago
CCC is not counterculture for ~10 years now. They have also become way too big and the vast majority of presentations are (extremely left-leaning) politics.
shazbotter · 59m ago
Hacker culture has always been left leaning, lol. Open source is a grand anarchist experiment.
You expect hackers to be like, "we love capitalism! We love strong hierarchies!"? Don't be daft.
busterarm · 13m ago
I've been in this scene 40+ years and for every Emmanuel Goldstein-type there's also a Dale Gribble.
At least dale never fucked kids.
ecshafer · 49m ago
We are on a message board run by a VC firm.
krapp · 43m ago
Those aren't hackers, those are the capitalists that hollowed out hacker culture and are wearing it like a skinsuit to blend in among real humans.
BolexNOLA · 30m ago
Whenever I see vitriolic comments like this describing the board the user is posting on, I legitimately wonder why they are sticking around. It can’t be that bad without you implicitly saying “…which is fine.”
krapp · 22m ago
I stick around for the remnant of actual hacker culture and what's left of the interesting non-startup non-AI conversations to be had around here. It's fine for the moment.
tekla · 8m ago
> Hacker culture has always been left leaning
No it hasn't. It started as counterculture. 90's hacker ethos might as well make you a fascist these days.
esseph · 36m ago
> (extremely left-leaning) politics
This is like complaining about water being wet. Hacker culture has always been anti-right wing.
sneak · 1h ago
> This happens to literally every convention ever, not surprising at all.
The CCC would never.
Europe, for all its authoritarianism and infringements of human rights (even in relatively liberal places like Germany) still seems to be trying to not backslide into full-on military-industrial complex like the US is/has.
lenerdenator · 1h ago
If you honestly think that they're not either backsliding into the full-on military-industrial complex or benefiting from the American military-industrial complex, I have some nice ocean-front property in Kansas City to sell you.
EDIT:
If you don't believe me, ask the USMC about their nice new H&K service rifles. Did we need to do that? No, we could have thrown a nice piston upper on M16 lowers, but that doesn't keep the bier flowing in Oberndorf am Neckar. Or ask someone in the Pentagon about their partners at BAE.
sugarpimpdorsey · 1h ago
That's easy to do when you have the US on speed dial.
orwin · 1h ago
I mean, in the last 50 years, US called Italy, Germany more than the reverse. And if you don't count logistical units, US has France on speed dial, not the reverse. The one time France asked the US something military-wise, Obama refused.
okasaki · 1h ago
To do what? Blow up our pipelines? Use us as staging for bullshit invasions?
colechristensen · 1h ago
I went, while I enjoyed myself this year I feel it's gotten too big and too disorganized. Also I went to a couple of talks that would seemingly have been bread and butter talks for defcon that were very sparsely attended and I just wondered where everybody was.
This might just be FOMO with the organizers. It's probably time for DefCon to drop in person registrations, get smaller, and return to a hotel. Villages and village talks need to be better curated and basically the focus needs to be tightened up.
busterarm · 8m ago
DEFCON talks are for watching on Youtube when they get uploaded weeks/months from now. It's always been about contests/challenges and partying. It's a con of cons.
Articles like this are a stark reminder of just how disconnected the internet is from reality. Survey 100 people at random and you'd be hard pressed to find a single one who would be offended if their employer partnered with the military. But the internet is filled with loudmouths who insist there's no reason to have a military and that anybody who partners with the military in any capacity is an evil fascist.
zachrip · 25m ago
Where are you getting this claim from?
ixtli · 13m ago
This isnt anywhere near my experience at all. People don't like empire and if you look around your life and think everyone you see would be pleased to do military contracts you're in a ( really disconcerting ) bubble.
busterarm · 6m ago
Everyone living in a western nation today is a direct beneficiary of empire.
Ask them to swap their standard of living with that of someone living without the influence of empire and you'll get nothing but hard stares.
esseph · 33m ago
Hacker culture is and has always been anti-fascist and anti-capitalist by nature, at least the version that grew in the west. It was an offshoot of hippie culture in the 60s, grew in the 80s phreaking scene, and highly entangled with open source in the early to mid 90s.
ixtli · 11m ago
Exactly: we live in a capitalist society which has been in decline into fascism for generations which makes the counter culture the opposite of those things.
I get the sense that because people can think of a few examples of mercenary security people or a few white supremacist groups that "hack" that this is somehow a refutation. It's not. You know about these people because 1) they usually are mean and suck and 2) they are outliers.
As you say: the phreaking / hacking / hobbist subcultures have always been collectivist by nature and the product of those subcultures will always chafe at the profit motive.
shazbotter · 1h ago
Damn, DEF CON used to be a real one. It's a damn shame to see this happen to a group of hackers.
I'm sure other venues and community events will take up the mantle given time, but it's still a bummer to see an event that used to be so fiercely independent out here cheering on the feds.
cushychicken · 1h ago
Is it really surprising that DEF CON went where the money was?
Most cybersecurity work in the US, by volume, rolls up to one of about five organizations - all of whom are US government entities.
Most cybersecurity work has nothing to do with keeping Russian bot farms out of outdated WordPress installs.
theginger · 36m ago
The x files def con was always a defense conference
cess11 · 1h ago
It's not exactly new. Mudge is the current CIO of DARPA, and other people around the L0pht went on similar trajectories. Feds openly participating in DEFCON is itself a rather old flashpoint.
Way back in the times of hippies and yippies many were subsequently recruited by the empire. While he was troubled in other ways Abbie Hoffmann was, as far as I know, a notable exception.
OrvalWintermute · 30m ago
There are two key truths:
Hackerdom has always had a relationship with Defense, Intelligence & LE.
Most hackers are deeply benevolent and care greatly about the world, and insecurity at large, mostly fostered by Business.
Building relationships with defense & intel are often the best avenues towards moving towards a more secure future, working within the system for positive change. Our way of life, and our freedoms are not secure with imminent threats on the horizon.
Please, disabuse yourself of the notion that Mainland China is not weaponizing their hackerdom against us simultaneously.
stickfigure · 1h ago
I can't help but think that Putin and Xi must feel very happy about the Western strain of extreme pacifism that encourages smart hackers to eschew military applications entirely. European hackers in particular can just look east to get a glimpse of the future.
The world has changed.
mathandstuff · 1h ago
The issue isn't software developers working with the military. It is a matter of offensive U.S. military operations and the associated self-serving geopolitics being treated as countercultural.
asoneth · 41m ago
> Western strain of extreme pacifism
While there certainly are some Western hackers who eschew all military applications because of their extreme pacifism, the examples in the article (e.g. pro-Palestinian activists) are not necessarily pacifist. I'd describe them more as out of alignment with their country's current governments, or perhaps actively aligned against them.
And given recent (and not-so-recent) behavior of the US government, I don't think it's irrational for hacker in the US to conclude that their own government presents a greater threat to their freedom than Putin or Xi. (I don't necessarily agree, I just don't think it's an irrational conclusion.)
chupasaurus · 41m ago
Guess who cooperates with any security conferences in Russia that aren't abysmal and how many smart hackers attend those.
The world hasn't changed.
sebstefan · 1h ago
>Western strain of extreme pacifism that encourages smart hackers to eschew military applications entirely
Not what people are saying. There would be little noise if there were talks at defcon about Ukrainian cyberwarfare or hacking Russian military infrastructure.
This is about the united states military industrial complex. Can you even point out a military that did more harm to the world at large in the last 50 years? How many dead? How many human right violations?
The head of the NSA as well, post-snowden? Come on.
psunavy03 · 14m ago
The only reason there still is a Ukraine is the US so-called "military industrial complex." And guess who the ooga-booga scary NSA is probably giving intelligence products to, or at least probably was until January?
sebstefan · 6m ago
The flimsy support for Ukraine doesn't erase 50 years of catastrophic effects of USA interventionism
You can cherry pick a few good things. Ukraine, Kosovo, Korea, maybe Libya, the first Gulf war, the Berlin air-lift
Then you come back to reality. The war on terror, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Laos, arming the Saudis, Irak, Afghanistan
If you engage in 50 or so interventions and all except one fail miserably, often in horrifying ways that result in the deaths of millions of people, it’s really hard to maintain that that’s a good record.
ecshafer · 36m ago
Who do you think are the ones actually supporting Ukrainian cybersecurity and hacking Russian military? Ill give you a hint they are the ones sitting in office parks in maryland writing software for the NSA and DOD.
sebstefan · 31m ago
It doesn't erase the last 50 years
Broken clocks, all that.
State of the clock pending what's going to come out in the news about Orange guy's meeting with Putin where they are discussing the surrender of Ukrainian territories without Ukraine's opinion.
tete · 33m ago
Ah yeah that "extreme pacifism" that has grotesque ideas like people shouldn't murder other people just because their governments think so.
How dare them being opposed to that poor military sector, that nobody ever speaks up for. Completely forgotten by politics and media, nobody ever takes their side and see how in reality they make the world a much better place.
After hundreds of thousands of deaths and daily news about one war crime chasing another by all sides, daily uncovered cruel lies, essentially all wars being illegal and not defensive according to UN laws. Laws that the very countries that now break them established. Only not being sanctioned because of vetoes by these countries.
And all of them being lobbied against by some nerds meeting in their spare time to follow their interests. Those horrible, horrible extreme pacifists!
The conference has gotten too big for its own good. It now inhabits the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is less convenient than when it was in one of the hotels (or multiple hotels clustered together). The one positive of the LVCC is that it has a ton of room but there are still issues with things like sound equipment that plague the villages and their talks/workshops.
The author of the article decided to wander down the Military Industrial Complex track, and seems to be complaining that it had too much Army stuff. I didn't see any of that this year, because that's not what interests me. I met up with a large number of cipherpunks and activists that I don't get to see very often, and had some extremly productive conversations regarding various projects we're working on for the next year.
Also, DEFCON and DT specifically have not shifted anywhere. A large demographic of attendees shifted hard to the left, mirroring our culture in general. They are also not "counterculture" as these are mainstream/televised points of view.
I had to stop dealing with certain parts/people of DEFCON and infosec in general because of this intense noise. That's not pegging myself as being on the right, it's just that my DEFCON experience has always been about expanding my worldview and fun... this very loud and influential group isn't about either of those things.
They were a side conference to a side conference, but the structure let them run things the way they wanted, which is important.
I wouldn't call it crazy that a pure volunteer event that constantly has to switch places because they use up ALL available space of their venues does have a ticketing system that is still better than the one of a lot of big pop stars.
It probably also keeps commercialization down to a minimum.
Yes, sucks that what you describe isn't possible, but I think in perspective it's not exactly "crazy".
It's still always sold out with whole conference areas and more used up.
This happens to literally every convention ever, not surprising at all. The broader question is is something like the original spirit of DefCon even still possible? The industry (and the stakes) are so much higher now that it seems impossible.
(That's not to say that there aren't conferences that are explicitly anti-MIC, because there are. But if you just sample by size, I suspect you'll find no correlation there.)
I'm pretty sure that each of the niches could make their own conference now, at some small venue where a 100, 200, 500 people would come... SNES hacking and development? Sure, a small, really nice conference... but then someone would want NES too, and N64, and sega, and PS1, and corporate sponsors, and you end up with E3 instead of 50 retro developers and 150 curious people doing interesting stuff.
It's a bit harsh to say that the CCC-scene is going insane - but it's a solid fact that last year on the event people gave more talks about their mental illnesses and feelings than about real hacker-stuff...
You expect hackers to be like, "we love capitalism! We love strong hierarchies!"? Don't be daft.
At least dale never fucked kids.
No it hasn't. It started as counterculture. 90's hacker ethos might as well make you a fascist these days.
This is like complaining about water being wet. Hacker culture has always been anti-right wing.
The CCC would never.
Europe, for all its authoritarianism and infringements of human rights (even in relatively liberal places like Germany) still seems to be trying to not backslide into full-on military-industrial complex like the US is/has.
EDIT:
If you don't believe me, ask the USMC about their nice new H&K service rifles. Did we need to do that? No, we could have thrown a nice piston upper on M16 lowers, but that doesn't keep the bier flowing in Oberndorf am Neckar. Or ask someone in the Pentagon about their partners at BAE.
This might just be FOMO with the organizers. It's probably time for DefCon to drop in person registrations, get smaller, and return to a hotel. Villages and village talks need to be better curated and basically the focus needs to be tightened up.
And he seems really well loved, as evidenced by https://www.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1mlaw4s/comment/n7p...
Ask them to swap their standard of living with that of someone living without the influence of empire and you'll get nothing but hard stares.
I get the sense that because people can think of a few examples of mercenary security people or a few white supremacist groups that "hack" that this is somehow a refutation. It's not. You know about these people because 1) they usually are mean and suck and 2) they are outliers.
As you say: the phreaking / hacking / hobbist subcultures have always been collectivist by nature and the product of those subcultures will always chafe at the profit motive.
I'm sure other venues and community events will take up the mantle given time, but it's still a bummer to see an event that used to be so fiercely independent out here cheering on the feds.
Most cybersecurity work in the US, by volume, rolls up to one of about five organizations - all of whom are US government entities.
Most cybersecurity work has nothing to do with keeping Russian bot farms out of outdated WordPress installs.
Way back in the times of hippies and yippies many were subsequently recruited by the empire. While he was troubled in other ways Abbie Hoffmann was, as far as I know, a notable exception.
Hackerdom has always had a relationship with Defense, Intelligence & LE.
Most hackers are deeply benevolent and care greatly about the world, and insecurity at large, mostly fostered by Business.
Building relationships with defense & intel are often the best avenues towards moving towards a more secure future, working within the system for positive change. Our way of life, and our freedoms are not secure with imminent threats on the horizon.
Please, disabuse yourself of the notion that Mainland China is not weaponizing their hackerdom against us simultaneously.
The world has changed.
While there certainly are some Western hackers who eschew all military applications because of their extreme pacifism, the examples in the article (e.g. pro-Palestinian activists) are not necessarily pacifist. I'd describe them more as out of alignment with their country's current governments, or perhaps actively aligned against them.
And given recent (and not-so-recent) behavior of the US government, I don't think it's irrational for hacker in the US to conclude that their own government presents a greater threat to their freedom than Putin or Xi. (I don't necessarily agree, I just don't think it's an irrational conclusion.)
The world hasn't changed.
Not what people are saying. There would be little noise if there were talks at defcon about Ukrainian cyberwarfare or hacking Russian military infrastructure.
This is about the united states military industrial complex. Can you even point out a military that did more harm to the world at large in the last 50 years? How many dead? How many human right violations?
The head of the NSA as well, post-snowden? Come on.
You can cherry pick a few good things. Ukraine, Kosovo, Korea, maybe Libya, the first Gulf war, the Berlin air-lift
Then you come back to reality. The war on terror, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Laos, arming the Saudis, Irak, Afghanistan
If you engage in 50 or so interventions and all except one fail miserably, often in horrifying ways that result in the deaths of millions of people, it’s really hard to maintain that that’s a good record.
Broken clocks, all that.
State of the clock pending what's going to come out in the news about Orange guy's meeting with Putin where they are discussing the surrender of Ukrainian territories without Ukraine's opinion.
How dare them being opposed to that poor military sector, that nobody ever speaks up for. Completely forgotten by politics and media, nobody ever takes their side and see how in reality they make the world a much better place.
After hundreds of thousands of deaths and daily news about one war crime chasing another by all sides, daily uncovered cruel lies, essentially all wars being illegal and not defensive according to UN laws. Laws that the very countries that now break them established. Only not being sanctioned because of vetoes by these countries.
And all of them being lobbied against by some nerds meeting in their spare time to follow their interests. Those horrible, horrible extreme pacifists!