Vegas Postmortem

Aug08
by berry on August 8, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

I’m at the airport! I packed my notes, so my DefCon day 3 post will have to wait until I get home.

All in all I had an awesome time, but I can’t wait to see my sweet and the kids and the bump. Getting out of the reality distortion field will be good as well.

I’ve been here since the 29th; it’s exhausting to keep going for so long, especially with the booze and food and 3 hours of sleep a night and crowds. Were it up to me, I’d just go to DefCon, as I get the most out of it, but my company has a policy of no conferences without training. Annoying, but there you go. Might be easier in the future now that DefCon has workshops. The only issue is that the workshops are at the same time as the talks.

Good times. I did things I wanted to do, got to see P&T, met awesome people, an had an all around good time. Rio fits DefCon well, and I’m glad that it’ll be there next year. Too bad I won’t. The announced dates are at the tail end of our trip to Croatia next year. Unless we fly directly to Vegas from Zagreb… Hmm, probably not. 2013 then!

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Seen in the men’s room at Gold Coast

Aug07
by berry on August 7, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Important detail is the drink holder at the kid urinal. Just in case little Bobby Tables is double fisting his brews on the way in…

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A Guide to Awards Voting

Aug07
by berry on August 7, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Here are Marissa Lingon’s thoughts on voting for awards.

Bottom line is: just do it.

Hat tip to John Scalzi for the link.

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Defcon Day 2

Aug07
by berry on August 7, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

I forgot to close my curtains when I went to bed, mostly thanks to the abrupt way I went to bed. Thanks to that, I woke up to blazing sunshine. Ahhh. Good thing too, as my sweet called me a few minutes hence.

I managed to find food and then sat through four consecutive talks before the urge to move got to me, and I ended up at the outlet mall looking for Papillio sandals for my sweet and general bribes^h^h^h^h^h^h gifts or the little ones.

Highlights:

Went to two talks about web services which were pretty good, an Litchfield’s talk which is always good. After that it was weaponizing cyber-psychology which while fun in places, I don’t think they got their point across well, as my buds were a bit, “so what?” by the end of it.

Trip to the mall took too long, and I was too late to get into an insider’s look at cyber security threats and trends but I used my ability to watch things on tv to catch it. Go me! I watched the next talk live, and fell asleep. Oops!

After that food, then beer then Penn & Teller. Lotsa fun, and they played up to the Conners. Totally wiped by the end of it, so I didn’t go to the pool party, though I might as well have. The pools are right below me, and the music pumped til at least 12:30. I ended up watching hacker jeopardy on the tube, and concluded that I had to get in on that next time. I knew all the answers!

Finally, at two am the fire alarm ( or something ) went off for a good five minutes. Fun! I’m up now, posting this during the PIG talk, but I am not here yet.

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DefCon day 1

Aug06
by berry on August 6, 2011 at 1:37 pm
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BlackHat was good to us this year. Instead of standing in the 10000 strong line with my DefCon voucher for a few hours, I picked mine up between talks at BlackHat in roughy 13.6 seconds.

I love DefCon. I don’t know why I don’t just come here every year regardless of whether work sends me. It’s super cheap, and always a good time. Hopefully my phone hasn’t been pwned, but I have tried to keep my comms secured. We’ll see. Highlights:

• Twenty minutes after the DOS talk yesterday, all POS, hotel registration, and phone card systems went down. Coincidence?

• Despite knowing that over ten thousand people would be descending on the casino, the operators maintained their regular Friday schedule, meaning that most restaurants weren’t open until four. Garrr! Hacker hungry!

• Talk are a mixed bag, all of the super-hot talks on day one I saw at BlackHat already. Of the ones I saw, I enjoyed “Familiarity Breeds Contempt” the most.

• Did the obligatory trek to Hofbrauhaus, a trip that used to be so easy when the con was in Alexis Park. Oh well. Ate schnitzel, drank huge beers, took part in the stein holding contest. Came in sixth, better than I expected. Came home, posted that last post and immediately fell asleep on the couch, missing the black ball. Oh well. White ball is tonight, maybe I’ll manage that one!

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