DEFCON 16: August 8-10, 2008

at the Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas

DEFCON 16 Schedule now on-line!

DEFCON 16 Schedule now on-line! We are proud to present the schedule of speakers and events for DEFCON 16! Thanks to all the new space available at the Riviera Hotel & Casino, we have even more room this year. 4 Full speaking tracks and an additional "Breakout" track filled with cool talks, demonstrations and workshops. We are pleased the amazing list of speakers who really diversified the content this year. Check it out!

DEFCON 16 Badge Hacking Contest Announced! Featured on Hack A Day!

The DEFCON Badge Hacking Contest awards the top 3 most ingenious, obscure, mischievous, obscene, or technologically astounding badge modifications created over the weekend. No longer just a boring piece of passive material, the badge is now a full-featured, active electronic product, and it exists for your hacking pleasure. Read More...

Check out the Hack A Day feature here!

Movie Night with the Dark Tangent

This year on Friday night we will be screening a documentary, "Hackers Are People Too", which will end before the director/producer needs to participate in Hacker Jeopardy. Then we will move on to some Blu-Ray goodness of "Appleseed Ex-Machina" for the latest in cg anime from Japan.

Saturday evening we will go retro with a 25th anniversary screening of WarGames, Followed by a fireside chat with David Scott Lewis, IT & green tech entrepreneur, model for David Lightman (Wired magazine, August 2008). You can find out more on this in the Movie Night forum thread.

Then we'll close with "Three Days of the Condor", where you can see an early Robert Redford deal with spies, telephones, and intrigue. For those who have seen 'safehouse' you'll recognize a scene for scene rip off homage to "Condor".

Final round of DEFCON 16 Speakers chosen!

This is it, Ladies and Germs, the last few DEFCON 16 speakers have been chosen and the Talk schedule is now in it's final stages. Look for the DEFCON 16 Schedule page to be updated this week! For now, check out the speaker page and see what the latest selections are all about!

You can discuss the speakers and talks on the DEFCON Forums at: https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=9496

People's Choice voting is open for the DC16 Artwork Contest!

Go to the DEFCON 16 Artwork Contest Public Gallery to view this year's submissions. Once you have found your favorite go ahead and cast your vote here.

Voting for the People's Choice category will run for one week, ending June 30th at 6pm. You will need a DEFCON Forums account to vote, so if you don't have one, sign up now at forum.defcon.org!

DEFCON 16 Artwork Contest Extended!

Due to late blooming interest in the contest, all entries for the DEFCON 16 Artwork Contest will be accepted up until 5pm PST on Sunday June 22, 2008. You can find the rules here.

Good luck all!

Defcon Goon: Speaker Operations: Call for Volunteers

From Agent X on the DEFCON Forums:
The few, the proud (arrogant?) ,the insane? Yes, that's right Speaker Operations a subset of the Defcon Goon Squad is looking for a few good folks. Speaker Operations goons are the blue shirts that ferry speakers to and from stage, keep the speaking schedule in order, and generally try to make the talks not suck... Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, generally there is beer at the end. In an effort to ensure a healthy supply of goons for future Defcons, I'm holding semi-formal auditions/interviews this year at Defcon 16. Find out more here.

Open CTF Registration is now Open!

Formerly known as Amateur Capture The Flag (aCTF), this contest pits any Defcon attendee against the house (DC949) as well as other contestants. There are a series of challenges of varying difficulty involving a variety of things, including cryptology, stenography, malicious software, and websites (and other services) just waiting to be exploited. Find out more at: http://dc949.org/oCTFIV/.

DEFCON 16 Artwork Contest Reminder

There's only about a week left to submit your creations for the DEFCON 16 Artwork Contest. The Contest info and rules can be found at https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-16/dc-16-artwork-contest.html. Current submissions can be found here

Gringo Warrior at DEFCON 16 NEW!

Participants in Gringo Warrior will have five minutes to free themselves from handcuffs, escape from their "cell", get past a guard, retrieve their passport from a locked filing cabinet, leave through another locked door, and make their escape to freedom. The course will offer a variety of locks representing a range of difficulty, allowing participation by people of all skill levels. Points will be awarded based on the time of completion as well as the difficulty of locks attempted. The best warrior of all wins the grand prize!

Get the full story at: https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=9401

DEFCON 16 Twitter Feed!

DEFCON 16 Now has a Twitter Feed for all you Tweeters out there! Frequent updates will be forthcoming up to and during the con to keep you in the loop for news, contest updates and events. http://www.twitter.com/defcon16

DEFCON 16 CTF Quals Complete

From Kenshoto.com:
See the final results at http://www.kenshoto.com/results.txt!
The first 7 teams on the list have qualified. If any are unable to attend, invitations will be extended to the alternates in scoring order.

DEFCON 16 Slogan Contest Now Open

Do you think you have the wordsmithing skills to come up with he next great DEFCON slogan? The DEFCON 16 Slogan Contest is now up and running, so get on over to http://www.totallybog.us/dc16slogan/dc16slogan.html and submit your literary gems for a chance to be featured in the DEFCON 16 Program!

More DEFCON 16 Speakers online!

The second and third rounds are up, go to the speaker page to Check 'em out!

First round of DEFCON 16 speakers selected!

The first round of speakers have been selected for DEFCON 16, and it looks like we have a great lineup going! The selection process is coming along nicely and we should have the next batch of speakers online by the middle of next week. Check 'em out!

Call for Papers Closed/Speaker Selection has begun!

The time has come to close the DEFCON 16 CFP. Speaker Selection is now underway, and updates to the Speaker list will be frequent as they are chosen. Keep your eyes on the speaker page, the schedule page, and subscribe to the RSS Feed to stay apprised of speaker announcements as they occur!

Call for Papers open through the weekend!

For all you last minute stragglers and super busy folks, we are keeping the Call for Papers open through Monday the 19th. Get on it and send that submission to talks at defcon dot org! Click here to get the form and instructions!

Call for Papers Closing Soon

You've only got a few days left to submit your groundbreaking research to the DEFCON Call for Papers. Go to the CFP Form and get your submission in for the chance to give a talk at DEFCON 16!

DEFCON 16 Capture the Flag Qualification Announcement

Kenshoto will be back this year bringing all out cyber-warfare to DEFCON 16. The qualification round for this year's Capture the Flag contest has been officially announced. Find out more...

DEFCON 16 Artwork Contest now open!

Whip out your favorite medium and get to creating, because the official DEFCON 16 Art Contest is now underway! This year’s contest is a bit different from previous years, and will run now to June 15, 2008. Read More...

DEF CON 16 Announcement - Retro Style

With the passing of "Sledgehammer" I was looking in the DEF CON archives for an old picture of him at the first DEF CON, and came across the first con announcement.

To commemoriate both I decided to announce DEF CON 16 in the same style. How 'bout those InterNets? Read More...

It has begun...

DEFCON is back at the Riviera Hotel, August 8-10, taking over the whole place, no drunk frat meetings or police chiefs conferences to share with!

The wheels are turning on the 16th installment of your favorite hacking conference. Contest and Event threads are up and running in the forums, and now is the time to start suggesting new ideas, or to get involved with an existing event.

Your favorite official contests will be back, including Capture the Flag, the Mystery Box Challenge, DEFCON Bots, and the Lockpicking Contest as well as the unofficial Toxic BBQ, Øwn the Box, and the Phreaking Challenge. See the current state of the official and unofficial contests and get involved at the DEFCON Forums.