July 30th - August 1, 2010 at the Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas!

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DEF CON 18 Archive Page is Live!

Posted 8.20.10 by DEF CON

The DEF CON 18 Archive Page is up and running! Currently, we have all of the presentation slides, white papers and extras posted, as well as the DEF CON 18 Program in pdf format! Coming in the next week or so we'll have contest results, press, and even a few early release videos! So check it out and begin reliving the glory that was DEF CON 18!

DEF CON 18 Post Con Update

Posted 8.10.10 by DEF CON

DEF CON 18 was a resounding success! With more contests, events, attendance and talks, this year's show was a fitting end to our years at the Riviera! We'd like to thank the Riv for working with and hosting us for 5 awesome years! We'd also like to thank all the folks who sacrificed time, effort, and resources to contribute to the hacking community, as well as a huge thank you to all the attendees for showing up and learning, growing and participating in all this con has to offer!

We've all had a chance to wind down decompress from all the excitement of DEF CON 18, and all of the results, press, photos, updated materials and other content is rolling in. Starting in the next couple of days and through the next few weeks, we'll be posting all of this info for everyone to enjoy, reflect upon, and learn from. Keep your eyes on defcon.org, the DEF CON RSS feed, our Twitter and Facebook for all the latest updates from the show!

Be the Match at DEF CON

Posted 7.30.10 by DEF CON

Be The Match offers the unique opportunity for you to give a life-saving marrow transplant to someone in need.  Thousands of patients with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases depend on the Be The Match Registry, the largest and most diverse registry in the worlds, to find a life-saving donor. The more potential donors that step forward, more resources are available to patients and more lives can be saved. 

  Description of the donor recruitment drive:
Be The Match will have a booth at DefCon 18 where individuals can register to be part of the Be The Match Registry.  All they need to be is between the ages of 18 and 60, meet the health guidelines and be willing to donate to ANY patient in need.  At the recruitment drive, you will fill out a consent form with contact information and a short medical evaluation.  You will receive more information about what it means to be a donor and then you will swab the inside of your cheeks.  Your tissue type will be listed in the Be The Match Registry until your 61st Birthday.  If you are a match for someone in need, then you will be contacted for donation.

DEF CON 18 SECURE WIFI

Posted 7.29.10 by DEF CON

This year we are offering 802.1x/WPA-encrypted wireless access for Internet access. In order to access the "DefCon-Secure" wireless network, you will need to create login information for yourself. We have setup a self-registration website.

https://wifireg.defcon.org

Go to this site to register a username & password.
You can hit it from your phone, WWAN, or the open DefCon wireless.

We have also included a copy of the SecureTrust CA root certificate in case your device does not have it in its default certificate trust chain (many systems do, some do not).

SSID: DefCon-Secure
or DefCon-SecureA for 5.0GHz devices (iPad, newer Macbooks)

Network Authentication: WPA2
Data encryption: TKIP or AES
Authentication EAP Type: PEAP
Authentication Mechanism: EAP-MSCHAP v2

Social-Engineer.Org CTF Update – Awareness Abounds

Posted 7.21.10 by DEF CON

Check out the update on social-engineer.org

The Heat is On!

Posted 7.17.10 by DEF CON

There's a ton happening leading up to DEF CON 18 in just twelve more days!

The Mystery Challenge is heating up! Check out the Mystery Challenge forum for the latest hijinks!

We have some bad news, unfortunately the Geo Challenge will not be happening this year. You can read more about this on the Geo Challenge forum. Our sympathy goes out to the organizers for what promised to be a great contest. Definitely look for it next year!

There are some exciting new offerings that have surfaced recently! Among them are:

Dark Tangent is busting out the Tamper Evident Contest, in which you debunk the phrase "Impossible to reseal or re-use", and document how you did it!

The Backdoor Hiding Contest, in which you test your skills at hiding and finding backdoors.

Capture the Packet is a cool new network scavenger hunt. Look for clues, solve puzzles and win prizes!

Crack Me If You Can: 53,000 password hashes, 48 hours, nuff said!

PCB PWNage is a mini contest from the Hardware Hacking Village to find out who can design the coolest PCB!

The Twitter Hunt: Follow @TheSuggmeister and watch for the clues that lead to prizes!

For all the latest info on contests and events at this year's DEF CON, check out the DEF CON Forums!

DEF CON 18 Artwork Contest Winners!

Posted 7.17.10 by DEF CON

Congratulations to the Winners of the DEF CON 18 Artwork Contest! We had a bunch of great entries this year, But we could only pick a few!

First Place and People's Choice vote win goes to "18 & Legal" by Mar! (Pictured above)

Second place goes to "DEF CON Boy" by oshu!



Third Goes to "Her" by emtag!



Congrats to all the winners and a big thanks to all who entered! To view and download all the wallpapers from this year's contest got to the DEF CON 18 Artwork Contest Public Gallery!

Artist pages are live!

Posted 7.17.10 by DEF CON

You can now view all the bios and samples from the killer line-up of artists performing at DEF CON this year! Check them out on the Entertainment page.

DEF CON 18 Speaking Schedule is Live!

Posted 7.3.10 by DEF CON

Do we need to say much more than that? Check out the DEF CON 18 Speaking Schedule.

The DC18 Speaker List is Still Growing!

Posted 6.29.10 by DEF CON

Here's another twenty-four hot-n-fresh new DEF CON talks. Feast.

Exploitable Assumptions Workshop
Joe "Crazy" Foley, Eric "Unlocked" Schmiedl, Zoz

The Law of Laptop Search and Seizure
Jennifer Granick, Kevin Bankston, Marcia Hofmann, Kurt Opsahl

Advanced Format String Attacks
Paul Haas, feakk

Tales from the Crypto
G. Mark Hardy

Decoding reCAPTCHA
Chad Houck

0box Analyzer: AfterDark Runtime Forensics for Automated Malware Analysis and Clustering
Wayne Huang, Jeremy Chiu

Hardware Hacking for Software Guys
Dave King

These Aren't the Permissions You're Looking For
Anthony Lineberry, Tim Wyatt, David Richardson, Sr.

Multiplayer Metasploit: Tag-Team Penetration and Information Gathering
Ryan Linn

App Attack: Surviving the Mobile Application Explosion
Kevin Mahaffey, John Hering

Searching for Malware: A Review of Attackers’ Use of Search Engines to Lure Victims
Dave Maynor, Dr. Paul Q. Judge

Getting Social with the Smart Grid
Justin Morehouse, Tony Flick

Electronic Weaponry or How to Rule the World While Shopping at Radio Shack
Timothy "Mage" Otto

WiMAX Hacking 2010
Pierce, Goldy, aSmig

Industrial Cyber Security
Wade Polk, Paul Malkewicz, J.Novak

Improving Antivirus Scanner Accuracy with Hypervisor Based Analysis
Danny Quist

Search & Seizure & Golfballs
Jim Rennie, Eric Rachner

pyREtic - In-memory Reverse Engineering for Obfuscated Python Bytecode
Rich Smith

Stratagem 1 - Deceiving the Heavens
to Cross the Sea
Jayson E. Street

Breaking WPA-TKIP: Decrypting All Traffic
Mathy Vanhoef

Go Go Gadget Python! : Introduction to Hardware Hacking
Nick Waite, Furkan Cayci

The Night The Lights Went Out In Vegas: Demystifying Smartmeter Networks
Barrett Weisshaar, Garret Picchioni

Panels

PCI, Compromising Controls and Compromising Security
Jack Daniel, Joshua Corman, Dave Shackleford, Anton Chuvakin, Martin McKeay, Alex Hutton, James Arlen

Meet the EFF
Kurt Opsahl, Eva Galperin, Kevin Bankston, Jennifer Granick, Marcia Hofmann,

That's Right. More Talks Posted.

Posted 6.24.10 by DEF CON

Here's a new list of speaker adds You're probably not even finished absorbing the last one. That's just how we do. Deal with it.

Mobile Privacy: Tor on the iPhone and Other Unusual Devices
Marco Bonetti, sid77

Who Cares About IPv6?
Sam Bowne

masSEXploitation
Michael Brooks

Google Toolbar: The NARC Within
Jeff Bryner

WRT54-TM, Media Center and Network Sniffer
John A. Colley

IPv6: No Longer Optional
John Curran

Function Hooking for Mac OSX and Linux
Joe Damato

Breaking Bluetooth By Being Bored
JP Dunning

An Observatory for the SSLiverse
Peter Eckersley, Jesse Burns

How Unique Is Your Browser?
Peter Eckersley

Hacker Community (around) the Corporate World - Part II
Luiz "effffn" Eduardo

Be A Mentor!
Marisa Fagen

The Anatomy of Drug Testing
Jimi Fiekert

FOE‚ The release of Feed Over Email, a Solution to Feed Controversial News to Censored Countries.
Sho Ho

Exploiting Digital Cameras.
Oren Isacson, Alfredo Ortega

How I Met Your Girlfriend
Samy Kamkar

Bypassing Smart-card Authentication and Blocking Debiting: Vulnerabilities in Atmel Cryptomemory-based Stored-value Systems
Jonathan Lee, Neil Pahl

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges: Hacking Electronic Door Access Controllers
Shawn Merdinger

Letting the Air Out of Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems
Mike Metzger

Open Source Framework for Advanced Intrusion Detection Solutions
Patrick Mullen, Ryan Pentney

Antique Exploitation (aka Terminator 3: Point One One for Workgroups)
Jon Oberheide

Build Your Own Security Operations Center for Little or No Money.
Josh Pyorre

Operating System Fingerprinting for Virtual Machines
Nguyen Anh Quynh

Lord of the Bing: Taking Back Search Engine Hacking from Google and Bing
Rob Ragan, Francis Brown

Social Networking Special Ops: Extending Data Visualization Tools for Faster Pwnage
The Suggmeister

Getting Root: Remote Viewing, Non-local Consciousness, Big Picture Hacking, and Knowing Who You Are
Richard Thieme

INSECURITY ENGINEERING OF PHYSICAL SECURITY SYSTEMS: Locks, Lies, and Videotape
Marc Weber Tobias, Tobias Bluzmanis, Matt Fiddler

Build your own UAV 2.0 - Wireless Mayhem from the Heavens!
Michael Weigand, Renderman, Mike Kershaw

Crawling BitTorrent DHTs for Fun and Profit
Scott Wolchok

And the Talks Keep Coming!

Posted 6.22.10 by DEF CON

We're working feverishly to get the talks finalized and posted - here's the most recent batch. Keep your eye on this space for piping hot update goodness.

WPA Too!
Md Sohail Ahmad

Evilgrade, "You Still Have Pending Upgrades?"
Francisco Amato

Exploitation on ARM - Technique and Bypassing Defense Mechanism
Itzhak "Zuk" Avraham

Resilient Botnet Command and Control with Tor
Dennis Brown

Open Public Sensors and Trend Monitoring
Daniel Burroughs

Bad Memories
Elie Burzstein, Baptiste Gourdin, Gustav Rydstedt

Kartograph : Finding a Needle in a Haystack or How to Apply Reverse Engineering Techniques to Cheat at Video Games.
Elie Burzstein, Jocelyn Lagarenne, Dan Boneh

Token Kidnapping's Revenge
Cesar Cerrudo

Hacking Facebook Privacy
Chris Conley

Physical Security : You're Doing It Wrong!
A.P. Delchi

Hacking with Hardware: Introducing the Universal RF Usb Keboard Emulation Device - URFUKED
Monta Elkins

Trolling Reverse-Engineers with Math: Ness... It hurts...
frank^2

Mastering the Nmap Scripting Engine
Fyodor, David Fifield

Live Fire Exercise: Baltic Cyber Shield 2010
Kenneth Geers

Making the DEFCON 18 Badge
Joe "Kingpin" Grand

Legal Developments in Hardware Hacking
Jennifer Granick. Matt Zimmerman

How To Get Your FBI File (and Other Information You Want From the Federal Government)
Marcia Hoffman

The Chinese Cyber Army - An Archaeological Study from 2001 to 201
Wayne Huang, Jack Yu

Ripping Media Off Of the Wire
HONEY

Malware Migrating to Gaming Consoles: Embedded Devices, an AntiVirus-free Safe Hideout for Malware
Ahn Ki-Chan, Ha Dong-Joo

Training the Next Generation of Hardware Hackers -- Teaching Computer Organization and Assembly Language Hands-on with Embedded Systems
Andrew Kongs, Dr. Gerald Kane

ChaosVPN for playing CTFs
mc.fly, vyrus, ryd

FPGA Bitstream Reverse Engineering
Lang Nguyen

Kim Jong-il and Me: How to Build a Cyber Army to Defeat the U.S.
Charlie Miller

Big Brother on the Big Screen: Fact/Fiction?
Nicole Ozer, Kevin Bankston

Practical Cellphone Spying
Chris Paget

Extreme-range RFID Tracking
Chris Paget

My Life As A Spyware Developer
Garry Pejski

Implementing IPv6 at ARIN
Matt Ryanczak

Exploiting WebSphere Application Server's JSP Engine
Ed Schaller

Gaming in the Glass Safe - Games, DRM & Privacy
Ferdinand Schober

You're Stealing It Wrong! 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles
Jason Scott

Browser Based Defenses
James Shewmaker

Drivesploit: Circumventing Both Automated AND Manual Drive-by-Download Detection
Caleb Sima, Wayne Huang

Your ISP and the Government: Best Friends Forever.
Christopher Soghoian

Weaponizing Lady GaGa, Psychosonic Attacks
Brad Smith

From "No Way" to 0-day: Weaponizing the Unweaponizable
Joshua Wise

Pwned By The Owner: What Happens When You Steal A Hacker's Computer
Zoz

Panels

Hacking The Future: Weaponizing the Next Generation
James Arlen,Tim Krabec, Tiffany Rad, Leigh Honeywell, James Costello,

oCTF: 5 years in 50 minutes
DC-949 Panel: Adam, CP, Frank^2, Jeffball, Merlin,Vyrus,

DEF CON 18 Contest Madness!

Posted 6.19.10 by DEF CON

Over the past week or two, we've had a flood of announcements for new contests! Check them out below!

Dark Tangent's Tamper Evident Contest
There are various tamper evident technologies out there, including tape, seals, locks, tags, and bags, to name a few. This contest will test your ability to perform "defeats" (Described below) against a range of inexpensive commercial low to medium security products.

Backdoor Hiding Contest
Two in one Backdoor Hiding/Finding Contest (participate in either or both): In the first stage, hiding participants provide a source code hiding a backdoor, in the second stage organizers mix the source codes with non-backdoored (placebos), and then ask finding participants to spot the placebos. Hiding participants get hiding points for being voted as a placebo and finding participants get points for spotting the placebos and negative points for false positives.

KoreLogic's "Crack Me If You Can" Contest
As a part of an authorized penetration test of a large corporate network, you have captured a large number of passwords hashes. The hashes are from Active Directory, UNIX systems, LDAP servers, routers, etc. As part of your analysis, your client has asked for password complexity statistics, what their users are doing right and/or wrong related to generating passwords, and identification of weak passwords. You only have 48 hours to complete this effort.

CTF Quals Official Results

Posted 6.13.10 by DEF CON

Congratulations to the qualifying teams for DEF CON Capture the Flag 2010! Official Quals info is live on ddtek.biz, so check it out for standings, correct and submitted answers by team and much more!

Qualified teams:
1. VedaGodz (CONFIRMED!)
2. European Nopsled Team (CONFIRMED!)
3. TwoSixNine (CONFIRMED!)
X. Uberminers (deadline expired)
4. lollersk8erz (CONFIRMED!)
5. GoN (CONFIRMED!)
6. painsec (CONFIRMED!)
7. ACME Pharm (CONFIRMED!)
8. Routards (CONFIRMED!)
X. Nibbles (CAN'T PARTICIPATE)
9. shellphish (CONFIRMED!)
10. teambfe (CONFIRMED!)
alt. Plaid Parliament of Pwning (CONFIRMED!)
X. int3pid pandas (CAN'T PARTICIPATE)
alt. HackerDom (CONFIRMED!)

Photo by nateOne (source)

CFP Closes, More Talks Posted!

Posted 6.4.10 by DEF CON

Here's another great batch of talks for DEF CON 18! Stay tuned, we got tons of last minute submissions, so there's a bunch more more coming down the pipe in the next couple of weeks!

Internet Wars Panel
More info to come.

Cyber[Crime|War] Charting Dangerous Waters
Iftach Ian Amit

Seccubus - Analyzing Vulnerability Assessment Data the Easy Way...
Frank Breedijk

Exploiting SCADA Systems
Jeremy Brown

Katana: Portable Multi-Boot Security Suite
JP Dunning

Making the DEF CON 18 Badge.
Joe "Kingpin" Grand

How to Hack Millions of Routers
Craig Heffner

Powershell...omfg
David Kennedy (ReL1K) and Josh Kelley (Winfang)

Like a Boss: Attacking JBoss
Tyler Krpata

Blitzableiter - the Release
Felix "FX" Lindner

Changing Threats To Privacy: From TIA To Google
Moxie Marlinspike

Attacking .NET Programs at Runtime
Jon McCoy

Securing MMOs: A Security Professional's View From the Inside
metr0

Wardriving the Smart Grid: Practical Approaches to Attacking Utility Packet Radios
Shawn Moyer and Nathan Keltner

The Games We Play
Brandon Nesbit

ExploitSpotting: Locating Vulnerabilities Out of Vendor Patches Automatically
Jeongwook Oh

Sniper Forensics - One Shot, One Kill
Christopher E. Pogue A.K.A "Big Poppa ReverShell"

Toolsmithing an IDA Bridge, Case Study For Building a Reverse Engineering Tool
Adam Pridgen

A New Approach to Forensic Methodology - !!BUSTED!! Case Studies
David C. Smith and Samuel Petreski

Web Application Fingerprinting with Static Files
Patrick Thomas

VirGraff101: An Introduction to Virtual Graffiti
Tottenkoph

An Examination of the Adequacy of the Laws Related to Cyber Warfare
Dondi "SpookDoctor06" West

Reg Open For SE Contest

Posted 6.3.10 by DEF CON

The folks at social-engineer.org have taken the reigns of the DEF CON 18 Social Engineering Contest, and Registration is Open! This promises to be an exciting addition to this year's DEF CON, and has some pretty cool prizes, including an iPad and a spot on the Social Engineer Podcast for 1st place. Check out the contest description and official rules at http://www.social-engineer.org/blog/defcon-social-engineering-contest/.

CFP Closing Soon!

Posted 5.28.10 by DEF CON

Only a few more days to submit your CFP to speak at DEF CON 18! Call for Papers will officially close Tuesday June 1, so get those submissions in to share your cutting edge hacking research with the world!

Check out the official announcement for details, and then fill out the Call for Papers Form.

News from the Summit

Posted 5.21.10 by DEF CON

For immediate release:

MiniBosses (http://www.minibosses.com/) have signed on as an official act to perform at theSummit on Thursday July 28th during DEF CON . They are the second act to confirm a performance spot at this years Fundraiser. At ShmooCon in February, DualCore announced that they will return again for this years event for the 4th consecutive year and 3rd year as the headlining act.

Follow Us on Twitter for Event and Feature Guest Updates:
www.twitter.com/effsummit
Coming to event? Make your presences known on the Facebook Event Page:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=112161832149640

About Mini Bosses:

Four mid-20's guys from Phoenix got togeather for one common cause...Recreate the NES hits you all know and love in real-time on stage for everyones enjoyment pleasure. They consider all Bossies to be their groupies from the costs of Toyko to the midlands of Michigan. If your into 8-bit power cords, get ready to ride the midi wave of Awesome!

About EFF:

Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations.

About Vegas 2.0:

A transient, a local or a weekend Vegas Warrior, however you peg us, we are THE Las Vegas InfoSec group. Our members are long time DEF CON and Computer Security Industry avant guards. When we are not planning theSummit, we spend are free cycles conjuring up Social Engineering, Web and Windows attacks. We are always looking for new locals to Las Vegas OR frequent visitors to stop by our labs conveniently located in North Las Vegas for a beer and some InfoSec foo!

Contest & CFP Action Required!

Posted 5.19.10 by DEF CON

The vortex is swirling folks. There's sense of urgency in the air, you can't quite put your finger on it, but it's beginning to make you a little nervous and a little excited. Can you feel it nagging the back of your mind? That little voice saying, ever so quietly, "Less than 2 weeks left to submit a talk!", and "CTF Quals reg ends tomorrow!". Or maybe you hear, "write a short story", "Figure out LosT's puzzles" or "enter the Art Contest".

That voice is actually us reminding you that all of these things are coming up or going on within the next two days to three weeks. So if you want to participate, you better get moving! Keep up on current events, as always, on the DEF CON Twitter, DEF CON Facebook, DEF CON RSS Feed and here on defcon.org!

More DEF CON 18 Speakers!

Posted 5.12.10 by DEF CON

Here's another fresh batch of delicious Speaker goodness for you! Enjoy!

Exploiting Internet Surveillance Systems
Decius

The Search for Perfect Handcuffs... and the Perfect Handcuff Key
Deviant Ollam

Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines Redux
Barnaby Jack

The Power of Chinese Security
Anthony Lai, Jake Appelbaum and Jon Oberheide

Repelling the Wily Insider
Matias Madou and Jacob West

You Spent All That Money And You Still Got Owned...
Joseph McCray

Cyberterrorism and the Security of the National Drinking Water Infrastructure
John McNabb

HD Voice - The Overdue Revolution
Doug Mohney

DEF CON Security Jam III: Now in 3-D?
David Mortman, Rich Mogull, Chris Hoff, Rsnake, Dave Maynor, and Larry Pesce

"This Needs To Be Fixed" and Other Jokes In Commit Statements
Bruce Potter and Logan Lodge

Airport Body Scanners and Possible Countermeasures
Paul F. Renda

Injecting Electromagnetic Pulses Into The Electric Grid
Paul F. Renda

SHODAN for Penetration Testers
Michael "theprez98" Schearer

SMART Project: Applying Reliability Metrics to Security Vulnerabilities
Blake Self, Wayne Zage and Dolores Zage

Hacking Oracle From Web Apps
Sumit "sid" Siddharth

So Many Ways to Slap A Yo-Ho:: Xploiting Yoville and Facebook for Fun and Profit
strace

Attack the Key, Own the Lock
Schuyler Towne and datagram

Balancing the Pwn Trade Deficit
Valsmith, Colin Ames and Anthony Lai

Keep your eyes on the DEF CON 18 Speakers Page and the DEF CON Twitter for new speaker announcements!

DEF CON 18 Speakers Posted!

Posted 5.8.10 by DEF CON

Here we go! Here is the first of many batches of DEF CON 18 talks to be posted! Expect more early in the week!

FOCA2: The FOCA strikes back
Chema Alonso and José Palazón "Palako"

Connection String Parameter Attacks
Chema Alonso and José Palazón "Palako"

SCADA and ICS for Security Experts: How to avoid cyberdouchery
James Arlen

Web Services We Just Don't Need
Mike "mckt" Bailey

Our Instrumented Lives: Sensors, Sensors, Everywhere...
Greg Conti

Cloud Computing, a weapon of mass destruction?
David "VideoMan" M. N. Bryan

The keys to running a successful DEF CON Group by DC612
David "VideoMan" M. N. Bryan and Jared Bird

Programmable HID USB Keystroke Dongle: Using the Teensy as a pen testing device
Adrian Crenshaw

Constricting the Web: Offensive Python for Web Hackers
Nathan Hamiel and Marcin Wielgoszewski

Hardware Black Magic: Designing Printed Circuit Boards
Dr. Fouad Kiamilev, Corey 'c0re' Lange and Stephen 'afterburn' Janansky

DCFluX in: Moon-bouncer
Matt "DCFluX" Krick

Air Traffic Control Insecurity 2.0
Righter Kunkel

"This is not the droid you're looking for..."
Nicholas J. Percoco and Christian Papathanasiou

Malware Freak Show 2: The Client-Side Boogaloo
Nicholas J. Percoco and Jibran Ilyas

Build a Lie Detector/Beat a Lie Detector
Rain and j03b34r

Keep your eyes on the DEF CON 18 Speakers Page and the DEF CON Twitter for new speaker announcements!

New DEF CON 18 Site!

Posted 5.4.10 by DEF CON

Check out the new site for DEF CON 18! It's got the most basic info for now, so keep your eyes peeled as all of the great talks, contests and events solidify!

You can expect the first round of accepted speakers to be posted very soon! We're also working on a page to guide those new to DEF CON where to look for pertinent information. You will be able find all of the scheduling and entertainment info here as well as it becomes available, so be sure to follow us on the Twitter or Facebook feeds to stay up to the minute as we post new data!

Wander around, get familiar, and be sure to check back for frequent updates to the madness that is DEF CON 18!

New DEF CON 18 Short Story Contest!

Posted 4.30.10 by DEF CON

This contest is new this year and we are hoping it goes over well. Lots of you out there are avid writers and some just have an incredible imagination that when put to paper it blows your mind. Speaking from several years of reviewing white papers and slide decks, you guys are hilarious. We'd like to see your flair for creative writing put to another use and reward you for a (*cough*troll*Cough*) job well done. Good Luck! Check out all the details on the Short Story Contest Forum!

DEF CON 18 Updates

Posted 4.24.10 by DEF CON

Do your hear it? The whir of the gears of DEF CON planning reaching operating speed? All around us events are springing into action!

HighWiz has stated intention to bring back DC101, a primer for those new to attending DEF CON. Not many details yet, but you can stay tuned to DC101 on the DEF CON Forums to stay up to date with details as they become available!

We've also noticed that The Summit will be back this year, hosted by Vegas 2.0 to benefit the EFF! You can find details on the Summit Facebook page!

We also can't fail to mention recent activity on LosT's Mystery Challenge. He says it's going to be the last year, so you better pay attention if you want to participate! You can follow the Mystery Challenge Forum and the Official Mystery Challenge Site at ten-five-seven.org.

There is also a new forums based contest, called "What's in Neil's Pants", wherein Nikita asks a trivia question every week for the chance to win fabulous prizes from the things Neil leaves in his many pockets when he throws his pants in the hamper.

You can also look for the DEF CON 18 Website to launch by the end of the month with an announcement for the DEF CON 18 Artwork Contest to be released in early May!

As always, keep your eyes trained on the DEF CON Twitter for Updates as they occur!

EFF Proudly Presents the First Annual Defcon Getaway Fundraising Contest!

Posted 4.13.10 by DEF CON

From EFF.org:

As the winter snows begin to melt, revealing a landscape full of promise and hope, a hacker’s thoughts turn to flights of fancy: specifically, the thought of being in Las Vegas during the last weekend in July.

If you’re one of those hackers and you love digital freedom, EFF would like your help spreading the word about our efforts to protect and defend coders’ rights by encouraging your friends and neighbors to join you in supporting us. In return, EFF wants to help the best EFFvangelists enjoy Defcon 18 in style! Read more...

DEF CON 18 Event/Contest Update!

Posted 4.9.10 by DEF CON

Contest and event planning is starting to heat up! A few more have surfaced (marked in white) and some others have begun conversation! Check out your favorite DEF CON Contest or Event link below for more info!

10,000¢ Hacker Pyramid: Call for Help
Artwork Contest: Coming in May
Badge Hacking Contest: Forum Active
Be The Match Foundation - Bone Marrow Drive: NEW! Forum Active
Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest: Forum Active
Cannonball Run: Forum Active
Capture the Flag: Quals Announced
DEF CON Shoot: Forum Active
Geo Challenge: Forum Active
Social Engineering Contest: No Posts
Goon Band — Recognize: Forum Active
Forum Meet: Forum Active
Hacker Jeopardy: Forum Active
Hacker Karaoke: Forum Active
Hardware Hacking Village: Forum Active
Lockpicking Contests: Forum Active
Mystery Challenge: Forum Active
Official DEF CON DJs, Music, and Events: Call for DJS, Forum Active
Open CTF: New Organizers, Forum Active
QueerCon: No Posts
Scavenger Hunt: Forum Active
Spot the Fed:Forum Active

Keep your eyes on the DEF CON Twitter, DEF CON Facebook, DEF CON RSS Feed and defcon.org for updates!

DEF CON 18 CTF Quals Announced!

Posted 4.1.10 by DEF CON

Defense Diutinus Technologies Corp (ddtek) is pleased to announce the round of qualification for DEF CON 18 CTF.

Stock up on Red Bull, put the pizza delivery on speed dial, polish up your fancy shellcodes, and replenish the duct tape supply. The competition for these coveted spots will be held over 55 non-stop hours 21-24 May. When the dust clears only the 10 best will be invited to join us this summer in sin city for the annual DEF CON deathmatch. Read More...

Open CTF: DC949 Passes the Torch

Posted 3.31.10 by DEF CON

DC949, the creators of the Open CTF Contest (formerly Amateur CTF), after five long years have decided to step down as organizers. DEF CON would like to thank them for all of their hard work over the last five years in making a contest that was not only fun, but also open to all who'd like to test the waters of Capture the Flag type competition.

They have passed the torch to a team that has competed in their contest many times, TubeWarriors. Welcome TubeWarriors, we wish you luck!

You can read more in the Open CTF thread on the DEF CON Forums, as well as DC949's Farewell Thread.

DEFCON 18 Badge Call-for-Integration

Posted 3.25.10 by DEF CON

With the electronic DEFCON badge now in its fifth incarnation, we've decided to try something different. We're opening our kimono (just slightly) for DEFCON attendees, groups, villages, or contest organizers who want to integrate some piece of information or hide some piece of data in the badge to help further their cause during the con. For example, maybe your contest wants to hide a clue on the badge and then contestants have to find it in the code or press a certain button to reveal it... Read more on the DEF CON Forums. Submissions are due by April 1, 2010.

Be The Match Foundation - Bone Marrow Drive @ DEF CON 18

Posted 3.22.10 by DEF CON

As some of you may know, One of our speakers Thomas Wilhelm was recently a bone marrow donor from the Be the Match program. He contacted us about setting up a registry drive at Defcon 18. We like that Idea and are going to do what we can to make sure they have the space they need in order to grow their donor registry. You can Read More on the DEF CON Forums, and keep your eye on that forum for further details as they develop.

Want To Be A DJ or Band At DEF CON 18?

Posted 3.15.10 by DEF CON

The Artist Bookings for DEF CON 18 Bands and DJs are currently open! If you are a DJ or a Band that would like to play at the Black and White Balls, by the Pool, in the Chill Out area, or various other DEF CON events, now is the time to submit your application! DJ Great Scott will be accepting submissions up until May 3rd, 11:59pm (23:59) CST (US CENTRAL). You can find his post announcing this on the DEF CON Forums and fill out the application form. Good Luck!