BlackHat wrap up
I hate to say it, but it’s true. The Blackhat Briefings have devolved to “Infosec/Compsec 101” – or possibly “Hacking for Dummies (and non-technical people)”. It was frankly depressing. I’m sorry that I can’t say better than that… and honestly, I think Jeff Moss predicted that would happen (to a greater or lesser extent) when he sold the brand to CMP Media LLC. There’s nothing wrong with Jeff’s decision to sell… and honestly, nothing wrong with the direction that the Blackhat Briefings have taken.
This does create a bit of a question of “the new hierarchy of hackish cons” — anyone care to comment on what they consider to be the “must see” event of the year? I’m leaning towards dropping the briefings from my travel schedule (maintaining DEFCON just because it’s the grand old con).
I will probably go again, if only for the chance to stir around with some of the movers and shakers – determine if I’m completely off-side in the work that I’m trying to do in my part of the infosec world.
DEFCON wrap up
DEFCON this year was (it hurts to say this…) a little disappointing. There are a number of reasons, none of which qualify as anything more than the usual timbre of whining that you all are accustomed to hearing from me. In no particular order:
- the lack of appropriate matching of speakers to the size of audience they normally draw (Dan Kaminski in Track 5??????)
- insufficient number/training of goons. The goon-puppy outside of track 5 on sunday was… cute. And completely in-effective.
- some change is needed to talk structure – the “Intro” or “Topic 101” sections MUST BE MOVED – when I sit down for a talk on vulnerabilities on MQ Series, I do not expect to listen to 40 minutes of “this is what MQ Series is”
- more “displays” in the chillout or skybox hallways… room for people to show off their latest shit
- large scale hacker spaces (the chill out is splitting into two purposes – the ingestion of SHITTY food for SHITTY prices – and the cool hang out) with the tools of the trade more available (only one *tiny* modding space available in the vendor room and it was totally clogged all weekend)
- goons issued “poseur” stickers that they can slap on anyone misbehaving
- a “the history of DEFCON” talk – as Mouse said in the Boom-Stick-Foo session – “We don’t mind n00bz as long as they are polite” – and helping them to learn their way into the culture would be magnanimous of all us old farts
- decouple the blackhat and defcon registrations — the majority of the blackhat attendee population can either figure out how to lay 5 crisp $20s on the desk, or they should stay home – too many old codgers trying to figure out the badge while staring at the little gothlings (in fear) while wearing something from the Arnold Palmer Collection.
Beyond all of the limp dick criticism, Dark Tangent and the rest of the DEFCON volunteers do something rather amazing every year. In the words of “Agent X”, they pull this huge show off with just one con call and about 12 hours of focused working together. The level of commitment on the part of anyone with a goon or uber badge is beyond reproach. They are committed to this in a way that the attendees simply are unaware of. The sad part is that they’re still very much the monarchy and collected court and it is difficult to break into that circle – even if you’ve got the ski11z.
[tags]blackhat, blackhat 2007, defcon, defcon15, wrap-up[/tags]