DEF CON Hacking Conference

Link Roundup: DEF CON 23

Posted 3.5.15

Lots of news today:

The Thursday track DC101 is back for DEF CON 23 and they have an open CFP! If you’ve got a good talk in you that can help people optimize their con experience or expand their general knowledge base, this might be a great opportunity to get your feet wet as a DEF CON speaker. You can find out what they’re looking for and apply on the dc101 page.

For those of you of a literary disposition, you should know that the DEF CON Short Story contest is open and accepting entries. The theme is “The 23 Enigma: A Hacker Noir”. You know, sleepless streets with a million blind alleys and rules that won’t stay put. Pleasures that can only be bought with pain. The pulsing digital cords that bind us together but keep us from getting too close. The spreading darkness the hackers see first, before the grazing genpop has any idea what’s coming.

And if you’re looking for puzzle challenges to hold you over until con, the good folks at Queercon have one or you at this link. Give it a shot and keep your puzzle muscle strong. DEF CON 23 will be here before you know it.

New FTC Contest, Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back

Posted 3.5.15

Rachel from cardholder services is back and there's a price on her head.

Fresh off the popular 'Zapping Rachel' contest at DC22, the FTC is returning to DEF CON this summer with a brand new contest and a big wad of prize money. Called 'Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back', it challenges you to create a tool that allows mobile and land-line users to identify and block robocalls or deflect them to a honeypot for great justice.

The qualifiying round is open now and closes June 15. Qualifiers compete at DEF CON 23 for cash prizes, including $25,000 for the winner. You can find all the rules and regs on the contest website.

http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/contests/robocalls-humanity-strikes-back

Contests, Events, & Villages, Oh My!

3.4.15

We're a little past the halfway point between cons, but DEF CON 23 is already taking shape nicely! Cool stuff with intention to return for DC 23 includes:

Contests:
Black Bag
Crash and Compile
Capture the Flag
DEF CON Bots
Darknet Project
Scavenger Hunt
Short Story Contest
Schemaverse

Events:
SkyTalks
DEAF CON
DEF CON Shoot
Ham Radio Exam

Villages: Crypto/Privacy Village
Hardware Hacking Village
Lockpick Village
Packet Hacking Village
Tamper-Evident Village
Wireless Village
Social Engineering Village

And there's lots more to come.

In the coming days, we'll be highlighting different individual contests, events and villages in this space, so keep an eye out. If your favorite thing isn't yet on the confirmed list, you can keep tabs in the Contests & Section of the DEF CON forums. It's never too early to start planning how you're gonna get involved this year.

New Policy Page!

Posted 3.3.15

Today we’re launching a brand new policy page at defcon.org, and we’d love for you to take a look at it, and only partly because of the emotional validation it will provide for our lawyers. There’s also a lot of useful information on the page for everyone who plans to visit our conference or our website. As of today, there are three documents up there:

Privacy Policy
We make a real effort to protect whatever pieces of your identity pass into our hands, and we want you to have an understanding of what we can and can’t do to keep that data secure.

   

Transparency Report
It’s reasonable to wonder if sites you visit frequently have been served with a court order demanding logs and information. The transparency report is how you’ll know if it happens to DEF CON.

Black Badge Policy
Wonder if that Black Badge on eBay will render you ‘uber’ at the next DEF CON? There are rules, and we wrote them down for you.

As other policies are finalized, we’ll update the policy page. If you need another reason to check it out, consider this: every time someone reads a privacy policy all the way through, a lawyer gets their wings. Or a lawyer does 1d4 of smoke damage. It’s one of those.

Server Security Upgrades - DT's Blog

Posted 3.2.15

After moving all of the DEF CON hardware (because the building was scheduled to be demolished – go figure), we started a pretty rigorous set of security upgrades.

HPKP support on the webservers? Check. DNSSEC support all around? Check.

In an effort to keep you informed about what we're up to, security-wise and to maybe inspire everyone to get up to date, DT has started a blog on the DEF CON forums about the upgrade process.

Check it out, and feel free to leave a comment!

DEF CON 23 Crypto and Privacy Village CFP is Open!

Posted 2.17.15

Attention: The Crypto & Privacy Village CFP for DEF CON 23 is live now!

PS - Word on the street is there's even a puzzle in the CFP!

Crypto And Privacy Village CFP

DCG 719 Presents: 3D Printing

Posted 2.13.15

DEF CON doesn’t just happen once a year in Las Vegas. It’s happening all around you, all the time. There are hundreds of DEF CON Groups all over the world that have regular meetings, put on talks and collaborate on projects of all kinds. You can be part of the one in your area, and if there isn’t one you can start one - it’s free and the information is available at https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-groups/dc-groups.html.

This week we’re sharing a talk on 3D printing given at DC719, the DEF CON Group for the Colorado Springs area. Dana G. Neilson presents on the history and uses of 3D printing and shows how they made a pretty cool DEF CON ring as a handy example. More importantly he shows that what ever sector you work in or what ever you want to make, if you can visualize it, draw it and either CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) it or have someone else CAD it, then your ideas can become physical object. There are endless possibilities with this growing technology, become part of its growth and then share what you know.

If you’re in the Colorado Springs area and want to learn more about DC719, they’re online at dc719.net. Introduce yourself.

If you’re part of a DC Group that has something they want shared by DEF CON, drop us a line at sleestak [at] def con dot org.

New Speaker's Corner!

Posted 2.12.15

Sharing is our jam. We make an effort to get our product to everyone who can learn from it via all kinds of channels: YouTube, BitTorrent, direct download and even eMule. But security is also our jam. (We have multiple jams - deal with it.) So we’re putting a lot of thought into ways to make all that sharing more secure.

This post from the Dark Tangent is the first of several addressing the topic of more secure sharing, and it deals with BitTorrent.

Resource Updates and a Call for Feedback.

Posted 2.5.10

We've added some links to the DEF CON website resource section: Some movies to watch, social media accounts to follow, hacker culture sites and technical books to get you on your way - today we're asking for music recommendations.

What do you listen to when you're sitting in the dark, making faces at your monitor? We want to compile a playlist of tunes to code/learn/fall into an internet rabbit hole by.

Strong enough to keep you typing into the darkness, subtle enough to stay out of your way when the big thinking happens — Send your suggestions to sleestak at defcon dot org!

New Speaker's Corner!

Posted 1.20.15

The long-silent creature begins to stir! We have a new post in the Speaker’s Corner of the DEF CON website. It’s from DEF CON alum Paul Renda and it concerns future presentation ideas that involve Robots, AI and Tesla coils. Straight out of the DEF CON dream journal. You can read it here: https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-speakerscorner.html#renda-emp

If you’re a past DEF CON speaker who has something to share with the DEF CON community, please get in touch (@_defcon_ , Facebook.com/defcon). We’re interested in what you’re thinking about and we’d love to help get the word out.

More Upgrade News!

Posted 1.16.15

We're rolling out a major upgrade to the forums next week. New coat of paint, improved functionality, general up-leveling across the board. But wait - there's more! As soon as we've sorted out the new setup, we'll be releasing a mobile app version for Android and iOS. Stay tuned!

DEF CON 22, now on YouTube!

Posted 1.15.15

Good News, Everyone! The DEF CON YouTube channel now contains the full slate of presentations from DEF CON 22!

Delivered on Thursday to help you get a jump start on your knowledge-binge weekend, we’ve got over 100 presentations ready to jump across your face-brain barrier. Don’t know where to start? We’ve included a handy playlist option so you can hit play once and not come up for air for a few days. For those who wish to watch in furtive silence so as not to arouse the pointy-headed boss, there are captions.

You might want to consider taking a personal day.

Please enjoy and spread the word. Share the videos with people you think can learn from them. Pass it on.

Server Move Completed!

Posted 1.13.15

Thanks for bearing with us during the last week or so, as defcon.org was migrated to a new location! We are currently getting the Forums and Media servers buttoned up, and moving on toward DEF CON 23. Look for the Call for Papers to open in the next week or two!

Server Move Approaching

We’re moving to a new office in a few days, so please excuse any availability issues for the near future. We’re going to do our best to keep the site and the forums running smoothly through the whole transfer, but if you notice hiccups please know that we’ll be back to normal very soon.

In the meantime, if you need up-to-the minute news about what’s going on in the world of DEF CON, please visit us at Facebook.com/defcon, @_defcon_ on Twitter or our Google Plus page.

Happy New Year from DEF CON!

DEF CON had a pretty great year, thanks to all of you. It takes a huge effort from so many people to create the kind of magical hacker summer camp that DEF CON has become, and we want to thank all of you for the parts you play:

   • The geniuses who create the talks and the geniuses who review and select them.

   • The mad zealots who dream up and carry out the contests and events.

   • The dedicated army of goons who descend upon a nondescript Vegas hotel every summer and turn it into a hacker utopia by sheer brute force and guile.

   • The attendees whose love, devotion and enthusiasm keeps this whole enterprise aloft.

DC22 had our biggest attendance ever. So big that some of the villages are probably bigger than the first several DEF CONs. So big, in fact, that DEF CON 23 will be in two hotels. Imagine that!

We will be occupying both Bally’s and Paris for DEF CON 23. More space, bigger villages, shorter lines. Like always, we’re counting on DC’s volunteers and the community at large to fill all that new space with ideas and ingenuity. It’s the greatest thing about running this type of conference - no matter what new ideas we throw out there, the community never fails to push it further than we imagined.

Thanks to everyone who made 2014 so great, and let’s get amped for an epic 2015.

Social Media Cleanup

As part of our social media housekeeping for the new year, we're leaving LinkedIn. As much as we like the service, we couldn't help but feel that we weren't using it to its potential, and that we were doing more to harvest spam than to communicate with all of you.

If you're one of the people who connected with DEF CON on LinkedIn, you should know that we won't do anything hasty. We'll leave everything where it is through January 2015, to give everyone time to collect whatever they need from our LinkedIn presence.

More importantly, we hope that you'll check out our other social media options. We have an active presence on G+, Facebook and Twitter and we're going to spend more time hanging out in r/defcon in the days ahead as well.

We have big plans for DEF CON 23, and we want your input.

DEF CON 22 Live Music!

The season of DEF CON 22 Torrents continues! This time it’s a torrent of some of the great live music from this year’s con. Not available in any stores, this compilation includes live performances from:

DJ Spooky
Alba T Ross
djdead
Ctrl
YT Cracker
MC Frontalot
VJ Q Alba
Jackalope
Floor Kode
Elite Force
Zebbler Encanti Experience
Kriz Klink

That’s hours and hours of pure hotness, and it can all be yours for the low, low price of FREE. Act now, seeders are standing by. Offer good while supplies last. Side effects may include loose booty, headphoneitis and increased bounce rate. Ask your doctor if the DEF CON 22 Live Music torrent is for you.

https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 22 live music.torrent

Capture the Flag qualifying events announced!

Begun, the DC23 CTF has!

Legitimate Business Syndicate, the shadowy organization that provides the hustle and the muscle behind the DEF CON CTF tournament, has announced its list of qualifying contests for the 2015 showdown in Las Vegas.

If you have the team, the drive and the raw skills, it's time to start making plans. To pluck the flower of eternal glory from the Nevada desert, you must first prove yourself in the crucible of a qualifier.

Assemble. Register. Qualify. Prevail. The road to victory is now open.

https://blog.legitbs.net/2014/12/announcing-def-con-ctf-qualifying.html

More Video torrents from DEF CON 22!

We've got two more versions of the DC22 talks available for your torrenting pleasure. We've got slide only video, with the audio and slides uninterrupted by speaker face. We've also got talking head video, which is audio and speaker face uninterrupted by slides.

If either one of those is your preferred flavor, then your moment has arrived. As always, we ask only that you enjoy them and seed them so others can enjoy them as well.

It's us against the derp, people. Let's spread the knowledge.

DEF CON 22 Video and Slides Torrent Update!

Torrent update: 12 of the talks were missing from the first DEF CON 22 video/slides torrent, due to some unicode mishaps in their file names. We've corrected the links - this updated torrent file will complete your collection. As always, enjoy and pass it on.

https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 22 video and slides.torrent

DEF CON 22 Audio Torrent is Live!

Waiting for the DEF CON 22 audio-only torrent? Wait no more! Every talk in one juicy torrent. Slurp them, seed them and load them into the noise-producing device of your choice. Feel the commute flying by - embiggening your brain painlessly as you go!

Enjoy, and share the love.

DEF CON 22 audio torrent

Call for Feedback and Resources Updates!

What's your favorite recent (2000 and later) tech/hacker/geek fiction?

The update of the DEF CON resources section continues. This time we're looking for your favorites in the area of fiction. What tales of geekery and hackerdom have captured your attention in recent years? In our hemisphere, the onset of winter brings with it a craving for meaty tomes to sustain us in our long hibernation. Share your favorites with us! Send suggestions to sleestak [at] defcon ]dot[ org!

We've updated the site's 'Resources/Book List' and 'Resources/Links We Like' with some of your suggestions, but if you have something to add to those lists, we're always listening.

DEF CON 22 Video and Slides Torrent!

Time to fire up your netslurpers - the DEF CON 22 video and slides are available for your datasuction. All the speakers, all the slides, in convenient Torrent form. Please enjoy them, share them, and seed if you are able. There's a lot of good stuff in there - you might want to block off a couple of days if you're a binge watcher.

Prefer a lighter download? Audio-only torrent should be live tomorrow. By the end of the week we'll have the slide-only and talking-head only versions too, if that's your thing.

The wait is over. Download 'em, seed 'em and spread the word.

DEF CON Swag now on eBay!

We've launched an eBay store for DEF CON swag and collectibles. Right now, there's only three items, but we're stocking the e-shelves right now. Stay tuned!

http://stores.ebay.com/defconcommunications

Happy Thanksgiving!

As you dig into the turkey, and enjoy the company of friends and family, we at DEF CON want you to know we’re thankful for you, the hacker community. You put so much into our conference, and make it something special! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

DEF CON 23 Theme Announcement!

We’re announcing the theme for DEF CON 23 early. Like, hella early. Right now early.

The theme will be ‘The 23 Enigma - a Hacker Noir’.  Fedoras and rain-slicked streets. Smoky back rooms and numbers that show up too often for coincidence.  While the good people of Everytown dream away the dark hours, the data wars rage without ceasing. Sleepless vigilantes fight for the users, though the users may never know. No matter. A bottle of the good stuff, a fast connection and the room to do a righteous night’s work, that’s enough. It’s gotta be. It’s all that’s left.

Hackers, start your imaginations.

The Dark Tangent’s announcement is here: https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=14096

Upcoming DEF CON Groups Meetings!

If you haven't gotten yourself involved in a DEF CON group, there's no time like the present to make some new friends, contribute to some cool projects, and generally help make the world a more hacker-friendly place. You can find information about DCGroups on the defcon forum, and in the groups section on defcon.org. Can't find one nearby? Start one!

Here's a short list of some of the US DCGroups meetings going on in the next few days:

Wednesday, November 12

DC214 (Dallas/Fort Worth) 7pm at Lakewood's First and 10 - contact (dc214.org)

Thursday, November 13

DC412 (Pittsburgh) 7pm at SEI Building, Oakland PA (rsvp at http://www.meetup.com/Steel-City-InfoSec/events/)
DC612 (Minneapolis) 6pm at Elsies Bar and Bowling Alley - event page (dc612.org)

Friday, November 14

DC719 (Colorado Springs) 7pm CTU Room 112 (dc719.net)
DC801 (Salt Lake City) 5pm at 801 Labs (dc801.org)

DCG POCs - got something going on you don't see here? let us know!

Link Roundup: Onymous Edition

Last week 'Operation Onymous' - a Law Enforcement sweep of Tor hidden services websites - netted about 400 takedowns and 17 arrests.

The Tor blog has a post summarizing what happened, offering suggestions and soliciting feedback. The operator of seized hidden service site Doxbin has released his logs in hopes of helping find how the network was compromised.

For anyone looking for a discussion of the Tor network, what it can and cannot do and what users must do to maximize its effectiveness, we offer a talk from the Tor Project's Runa Sandvik from DEF CON 21.

http://youtu.be/qWr5D2RoXoo

https://blog.torproject.org/blog/thoughts-and-concerns-about-operation-onymous

http://gizmodo.com/here-are-all-the-dark-net-markets-seized-in-operation-o-1656541553

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Onymous

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/operation-onymous-dark-web-arrests/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/09/torpedod_dev_dumps_doxbin_files_after_police_raids/

Link Roundup: Assault on Mobile Privacy

We've mentioned it before, but the news about government spying sort of drowns it out: the commercial entities tracking your digital footprints are just as determined to capture all of your data and use it against you.

This week's big corporate data collection story was about Verizon and the 'unkillable' 'perma-cookies' they've been injecting into their customer's web traffic. It's certainly more the rule than an isolated example of service providers getting all up in your KoolAid, but it's generated interest because Verizon is huge and they are going out of their way to circumvent privacy measures built into your mobile devices.

This link roundup is about the Verizon story, but it's also a general reminder of the hard work that many, many digital middlemen put into unraveling your privacy sweater for power and profit. It's also a reminder that we have to be loud about these intrusions if we want them to stop. Companies like Verizon are not going to voluntarily give up all that sweet data unless they know they're going to lose subscribers.

We close the roundup with a link to a turbo talk from DC 19 about one man's work toward unveiling the methods of some major corporate browser history snoops.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/11/04/verizon-wireless-under-fire-for-ad-targeting-program/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2841793/twitters-mopub-ad-exchange-grabs-verizon-tracking-cookies-and-more-may-follow.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/10/29/verizon_perma_cookie_mobile_carriers_are_officially_out_of_control.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/28/find-out-whether-this-privacy-killing-super-cookie-is-on-your-phone/

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/att-tracks-mobile-users,news-19848.html

http://youtu.be/BAdtXkus-Xc

Feedback Requested

We're updating the DEF CON website's resource recommendations, and we'd love some suggestions from you. We're starting with computer reference books. We want to know which ones you find yourself going back to, which ones changed the way you think. What computer reference book has been indispensable to you? Send your suggestions to sleestak at defcon dot org!

We'll be asking for lots of other types of recommendations in the coming weeks.

Speaker's Corner!

We present to you, today’s featured DEF CON Speaker! The greatest ever! Ermahgerd look at it amplifry! What a work horse! Never tires! All it’s bass…

Don’t like this? Do something about it.

If you’re a DEF CON Speaker (past or present) and would like to write a post to become featured here, on the Speakers Corner section of defcon.org, please send an email to Talks (at ) defcon (dot) org with your story. Drop us a line, let us know what you’re working on or what you’d like to share. DEF CON Groups members and speakers that also includes you! What’s your group been up to these days? Topics can vary from discussions on latest buzzword, walkthroughs, attack & defense, bio hacking, tips for improving certain skills, opinions on the state of affairs, etc. The possibilities are endless, and we are looking for content that fits in the spirit of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers'_Corner

Link Roundup: Crypto Wars Reloaded

In September, Apple and Google both announced that they were going to ship their new devices with encryption turned on by default.  

This has caused some concern in the Law Enforcement community. James Comey, current Director of the FBI, went on 60 Minutes to urge manufacturers to reconsider. He believes that if the good guys don't have a 'golden key' to everyone's mobile device, the bad guys can 'go dark' and gain an advantage will lead to terror, child abduction and ‘threatens to take us all to a very, very dark place’.

There are a lot of problems with this logic. For example:

Evildoers always have the option of ‘going dark’, regardless of how much privacy we give up.

The 'golden key' isn't the only way for LE to get the data they want.

 

Most importantly, it's not possible to create a back door that can be entered only by the pure of heart. If the righteous can squeeze in today, the sketchy will, inevitably, squeeze in tomorrow. Later today, most likely.

 

Threatpost:
https://threatpost.com/edward-snowden-and-the-death-of-nuance/103902

Schneier on Security:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/10/iphone_encrypti_1.html

NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/us/politics/fbi-director-in-policy-speech-calls-dark-devices-hindrance-to-crime-solving.html?_r=0

Gizmodo:
http://gizmodo.com/why-the-fbi-director-is-wrong-about-encryption-1648334901

Just Security:
http://justsecurity.org/16503/security-front-doors-vs-back-doors-distinction-difference/

DEF CON 22 Materials Archive RSS is Live

Greetings, DEF CON community. Today, we bring you another update to our growing online archive for DEF CON 22 - all the links to the presentation materials, wrapped in a pretty little RSS bow for your convenience. All the presentation slides, links to all the tools and extras, all by grabbing the link below. Perfect for every occasion, and excellent as a holiday gift for the hard-to-buy-for geeks in your life. Because we love you. Watch this space for more DC22 video soon.

DEF CON 22 Materials RSS

DEF CON 22 Badge News

Sure, you love your DC22 badge. You love its sleek design and its powerful S guts. You swoon for its enigmatic symbols and breathtaking adaptability. But deep down, you worry that you could love it a little more if there was badge code available in C.

Worry no more. Instead, rejoice! Head over to the Parallax Forums and get to hacking that badge, C-style. If you do something awesome, let us know.

Hacker Jeopardy Night Two at DEF CON 22!

Because we love you, a midweek treat: enjoy the thrilling conclusion to DEF CON 22's Hacker Jeopardy Competition. For those of you playing along at home, good luck. For those of you attempting to listen in a public space, be warned there is foul language shouted at weather-altering volume. Headphones suggested.

Enjoy, share, and begin assembling your team of heroes for DC23!

Hacker Jeopardy Night One at DEF CON 22!

For your enjoyment, we offer you Night One of our long-running hacker trivia gameshow 'Hacker Jeopardy'. Match wits with our champions by playing along at home (beers optional). If you play along at work, remember the headphones. Salty language and lots of shouting.

As always, enjoy and share. The exciting conclusion later this week.

DEF CON 23 Hotel Block Link is Now Live!

The DEF CON rate is available at the following hotels: Paris, Bally's, Ceasars Palace, Planet Hollywood, Flamingo and Quad.

To get in on this rate, you'll need to use this link.

https://resweb.passkey.com/go/SBDEF5

Do not worry if the form doesn't immediately show the discounted rate. To verify that you're getting our price you can mouse over the dates you've selected or begin the checkout process.

If you prefer to use the telephone for this kind of thing, here's the list of participating hotels and the relevant Group Codes:

Ballys
800-358-8777
SBDEF5

Paris
877-603-4389
SPDEF5

Caesars
866-227-5944
SCDEF5

Planet Hollywood
866-317-1829
SMDEF5

Flamingo
888-373-9855
SFDCC5

Quad/Linq
866-523-2781
SQDEF5

We are excited about all the new space, and we hope you'll be able to join us.

More Torrents for You!

Another couple of torrents for your edification and delectation.

First, the X-Hour Film Contest:

This was a first year contest that asked entrants to script, shoot, edit and submit a short film in 48 hours, in the middle of DEF CON. Seven teams entered, four teams submitted a final film and the winner was announced by celeb guest judge Brian Knappenberger (director, 'We are Legion' and 'The Internet's Own Boy'). They're also available to watch on the DEF CON YouTube channel.

https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 22 x-hour film contest.torrent

Second, Volume 1 of the Official DEF CON 22 Photo Feed:

This is the first batch of pictures we've gotten in from our official Photo Corps. Stay tuned for Volume 2.

https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 22 pictures v1.torrent

DEF CON 21 Music is up!

Tired of listening to your mp3 collection? Looking for a way to spice up that ho-hum hard drive? When's the last time you and your music stash really... connected?

Take care of your ears. Hot DJ sets have been shown in clinical trials to help treat the symptoms of boredom, malaise and sickofmycollectionitis. Side effects may include stupid grin, periodic head nodding and uncontrolled shaking in the booty region. If symptoms persist for more than four hours you should probably drink some water.

Ask your doctor if DEF CON 21 Music Torrent is right for you.

The DC22 torrent flood rolls on!

First up for your next leech 'n seed, we have the video for all the Wireless Village talks. That's three days worth of talks about subjects like Software Defined Radio, Bluetooth and yes, the Pineapple. Get on it, and you could have a significantly higher Wi-Q by Monday.

Wifi Village Talks at DEF CON 22 - Torrent

Capture the Flag Archive Updated!

We’ve updated the CTF page on the DEF CON website. In addition to being the new permanent home for the torrent link to CTF packet capture Valhalla (170 gigs of that uncut raw), it’s also home to a small but hopefully growing number of walkthroughs and write-ups. As we get them in, we’ll put them on.

That’s what we are doing for you, for loving the CTF tournament. What you can do for us is seed, seed, seed and spread the word.

Torrential Downpour!

Your half-full drives are vulnerable. The webs are just looming there, waiting to pump your memory full of bad music, dumb videos and pictures of other people’s unremarkable pets. Protect yourself. Fill up that dangerous unused space with DC-related goodness.

So far, we’ve got six new and updated torrents up:

DEF CON 22 Speaker Materials:
Updated Speaker Materials: Torrent

DEF CON 22 Music:
Music CD: Torrent

DEF CON 22 Badge:
Collection of files related to hacking the DEF CON 22 Badge: Torrent

Collection of Hacker Documentaries hosted on defcon.org (Updated): Torrent

Collection DEF CON Hacking Conference Con CD/DVDs (Updated): Torrent

Collection DEF CON Hacking Conference Programs (Updated): Torrent

We’re going to be adding to that list in the coming days. Together, we will fight back the secret scourge of disk encruftment.

DEF CON 22 Closing Ceremonies!

For today’s #defconflashbackfriday we’re going all the way back to August of 2014 and serving up the DEF CON 22 closing ceremonies. So if you were at the show but didn’t make it to the end credits,or you haven’t been to a DEF CON and want to get an idea of the sheer scope of the event, this flashback is for you.

As always, enjoy it and pass it on.

Complete Packet Captures from DEF CON 22 CTF!

Do we ever have a treat for you analytically inclined individuals. The complete packet captures from the DEF CON 22 Capture the Flag competition are now available for your leeching pleasure!

That’s right: 170 glorious gigabytes, packaged up in a handy torrent for your convenience! All of the traffic from the World Series of hacking contests, now yours to fold, spindle and mutilate to your heart’s content.

Enjoy, share, and if you can, seed this data. Packet captures taste better when they’re shared.

Read All About It!

Every year, we collect and share a sampling of the published reports from the press that covered DEF CON. It's interesting to see what gets the most interest, and it's gratifying to see that every year there are less stories about how scary hackers are and more stories about the incredible things hackers create and what we can learn from investigating the technology that surrounds us.

Transportation security, digital privacy, and the unexpected musings of eccentric AV software titans seemed to top the list in 2014. You can peruse the whole thing at your leisure on our press archive page.

For Early Release - Dark Mail

Ladar Levison and Stephen Watt are working on the future of secure email. For your Thursday, we offer you the peek into their work on DIME that they shared with us at DEF CON 22. It's a very interesting talk, with a lot of information and acronyms. There's a lot to learn about how email security is broken, and a lot of ideas about how it could be fixed in the future.

As always, pass it on.

DEF CON 22 Video from Source of Knowledge!

Maybe you weren’t able to attend the the hacker playground that was the 22nd DEF CON. Perhaps you did, and just didn't get to pick up all the bleeding edge research our speakers were throwing down.

Take heart, hacker brethren and sistren, our friends at the Source of Knowledge record it all, and you can purchase those presentations for frame by frame forensic dissection in HD video format! In fact, they also offer a streaming option for those that like to keep it online.

Check out all of the purchase options at defcononline.com!

DEF CON 22 Archive is Now Live!

Good news, everyone! The archive page for DEF CON 22 has opened for business. It feels like DC was only a couple of weeks ago, but you can already see the slides and extra materials from all the main-track talks.  We’ll eventually be adding audio and video as well, so keep an eye on this space. In the meantime, bum rush these Power Points to your heart’s content.

As always, pass it on.

For Early Release - The Internet of Fails

Early Release! More video from DEF CON 22! This time it's a presentation from Zach Lanier and Mark Stanislav about the many ways the Internet of Things isn't ready for prime time, security-wise, and some insight into the work being done to make it safe to connect your various 'Things' to the IoT. Enjoy, think carefully about how much you need your SlapChop all up in the cloud, and share. http://youtu.be/WHdU4LutBGU?list=PL9fPq3eQfaaBCdjbKFYjosh1s1EkaYdsQ

Contest Results Page — Now Live!

We had a lot of incredible contests at DEF CON 22. So many contests that they could have seceded and formed the People’s Republic of Contestia. So many, in fact, that the results are still coming in over a week later. To keep you informed, we’ve created a Contest Results Page on defcon.org. Check out who won, find links to the contest websites for further information.

If you don’t see your favorite contest, let us know @_defcon_ or contact the contest organizer and ask them to submit their results.

For Early Release - AM I Being Spied On?

The way I see it, Thursday is the Friday of the middle-week. So for your Thursday enjoyment, here's a talk fresh off the presses from DEF CON 22 - Dr. Phil Polstra speaking on low tech methods for detecting high-tech surveillance. Enjoy, take the info that works for you and pass it on. Share with everyone. http://youtu.be/Bc7WoDXhcjM?list=PL9fPq3eQfaaBCdjbKFYjosh1s1EkaYdsQ

ICS Village PCAPS from DEF CON 22!

More DEF CON 22 goodies for you - the packet captures from the ICS Village are available for you to download and dig through at your leisure. Also, if you have pics from the ICS Village, please share them with @ICS_Village on Twitter.

For Early Release: War Kitteh

One of the popular talks from DEF CON 22 - "Weaponizing Your Pets: The War Kitteh and the Denial of Service Dog" by Gene Bransfield. Enjoy, and share. http://youtu.be/DMNSvHswljM

Keep it going all year!

So you've been home from DEF CON for a week now - probably settled back into your normal routine. In the back of your mind, though, there's probably a little voice that wishes you could have DEF CON-style hacker camaraderie and learning opportunities all year long.

The good news is, you can. You can join a DC Group in your area. If there isn't a DC Group in your area, you can start one. The instructions for starting a group are at the link below, as well as a listing of the hundreds of groups that already exist around the world.

And when you get involved, be sure to keep in touch with us on social media. Let us know when you're meeting and we'll share it. Tape your presentations and we'll share those, too. Let's make this the fastest trip from one DEF CON to the next by keeping the ball rolling all year.

https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-groups/dc-groups.html

DEF CON 22 CTF Results Are In!

Legitimate Business Syndicate has placed the final results of the DEF CON 22 CTF Finals on their website.There's scores, some shout-outs and even an explanation of their fancy radio badge and the cool contest visualization they debuted this year.

Congratulations to all won the right to participate, and extra respect to Plaid Parliament of Pwning, HITCON and Dragon Sector for taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

https://legitbs.net/2014/

DEF CONversation with Major Malfunction - The RFIDler returns

What a difference a year makes. At DEF CON 21, Major Malfunction and Zac Franken created a Kickstarter for the RFIDler in a room at the Rio. At DEF CON 22, they returned with a mature and very impressive tool and even bigger plans for the future.

In this video, Major sits down with DT to talk about the RFIDler project.

DEF CONversation with LosT, DEF CON's Mindbender-in-chief

One of DEF CON's secret weapons is LosT, our resident Puzzle Master and Lord of the Badge. You can see his work all over DEF CON, from the insanely hackable badges to the secret codes and messages hidden all over the program and the venue.

Dark Tangent interviews him here about all of his various DEF CON activities, his process and even gets a few hints dropped for next year's puzzles.

Here come the updates...

This was an amazing year, and we've got a lot to share about it. Tons of stuff coming down the wire very shortly. In the meantime, enjoy this VERY thorough walkthrough of the DEF CON Badge Challenge from Team PotatoSec (Warning: Spoiler alert for those still trying to solve):

http://potatohatsecurity.tumblr.com/post/94565729529/defcon-22-badge-challenge-walkthrough

And just so you know, DEF CON 23 will be held August 6-9, 2015, at Paris/Bally's on the strip in Las Vegas!

CONversations at DEF CON 22

CONversation between DT and Ladar Levison, who spoke at this year's DEF CON on Dark Mail and the future of secure email.

News from the Front!

The hackening is in full swing at DEF CON 22. The Rio is abuzz with all manner of high-octane geekery. If you're here, you're probably too busy leveling up to keep an eye on the press surrounding the event, so we bring you this mini-roundup of press links to see what the rest of the world is saying about us.

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/defcon-2014-badges-revealed/

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/08/telsa-invites-hackers-for-a-spin/

http://www.scmagazine.com/defcon-traffic-control-systems-vulnerable-to-hacking/article/365416/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/09/technology_and_market_forces_will_defeat_surveillance_society_claims_crypto_king/

Quick Update Roundup!

DEF CON is in full swing - so there’s a million things going on. Here’s a few recent news items to tide you over while we get the party set up.

If you’re one of those people that enjoys being entertained by entertaining entertainers, you’re going to want to check out our newly minted ‘Entertainment’ page. So much music - it’s like Coachella for people who people smart enough to test out of Coachella.

https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-entertainment.html

For lawyers, judges and law students, there’s a Lawyer Meetup this year. DEF CON General Counsel and Chief Legal Raconteur Jeff McNamara invites all with a connection to the practice of law for a relaxed low-key meet up followed by a spirited trip to the Voodoo Lounge.

Don’t forget to stop by Track 3 at 9pm on Friday and Saturday for Movie Night with Dark Tangent. Friday we’re showing ‘The Internet’s Own Boy’ - a moving bio of internet hero Aaron Swartz. Director Brian Knappenberger and Aaron’s brother Noah will be in attendance for Q&A.  Saturday, we’re showing ‘The Signal’. Directed by Will Eubank (who will also be in attendance), ‘The Signal’ is a mind-bending new scifi film that starts with some hackers on the road to DEF CON.

A few pro tips: stay hydrated, remember to eat and sleep. Keep the program handy - it’s like the Galactic Encyclopedia of DEF CON. Bring extra socks. Make new friends. Hack 100% of the things.

Zapping Rachael at DEF CON 22!

Reminder: The 'Zapping Rachel' contest has $17K in Cash Prizes up for grabs - so you can strike a blow against Robocallers and then try a new game: 'Escape from Vegas with Most of Your Winnings!'

The second one is probably harder.

http://www.ftc.gov/zapping-rachel

New Challenge in the Tamper-Evident Village - 'The Box'!

The challenge? Defuse a bomb. I feel like I don't have to say a lot more than that. Bring your own tools, have an action hero moment for yourself.

Reg begins Friday in the Tamper-Evident Village, and it's probably wise to expect a bit of a queue.

Full info in the Forum:
https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=13947

SomaFM at DEF CON 22!

One week, people. All that stands between all of us and DEF CON is a few measly days. To help get you amped up, we offer the SomaFM preview stream. Like last year, SomaFM will be manning the chill room and providing luscious, rejuvenating audio delights whenever you're looking for a recharge or a welcoming nook amidst the chaos.

Fire up the stream and close your eyes. It's like you're already at DEF CON.

http://somafm.com/defcon/ One week, people!

For the Kids: Rootz Asylum at DEF CON 22

Rootz Asylum (formerly DEF CON Kids) has a full schedule of goodness planned for your padawan hackers. Learning, competition, fellowship with other hackish youth. It's pretty great. Back-to-school will definitely be cooler for the kids who spent their summer vacation winning DEF CON. http://www.r00tz.org

Movie Night With Dark Tangent: ‘The Signal’

The sci-fi mind bender ‘The Signal’ centers around hackers on a road trip to DEF CON, so we can be forgiven for being a little biased in its favor. But from that promising starting place, the escalating weirdness and suspense take the movie everywhere but where you might expect. We don’t want to spoil anything - you’re gonna thank us if you go in with a clean slate. We’re proud to have ‘The Signal’ for Saturday’s ‘Movie Night with the Dark Tangent’, and we’re prouder still to have director Will Eubank on hand for Q&A after the screening. The last reel will definitely make you want to talk to Mister Eubank. Make it a point to be there!
Saturday the 9th at 21:00, Track 3

DEF CON MEDIA HARD DRIVE DUPING STATION!

For even faster leeching pleasure of the conference media server we have invested in hard drive duplication towers, and next year DT plans to launch the Data Duplication Village.

Too busy to pick and choose what you want from the server and want it all?? This year we have three sets of 4TB drives that contain the same data as the media server, just split up and color coded. If you want to duplicate a particular drive you need to show up at the INFO BOOTH with your drives at the start of each day. First come First server. It will take about 8 hours to dupe a 4TB drive so a set will start in the morning and a set in the evening, to finish overnight.

There should be six 1:11 duplication towers (If they show up in time), with two for each drive color. That means we can dupe 66 drives at a time. Once enough people show up to fill a station the duplication process starts.

As of this writing it is sorted like this:

BLUE Drive = Conference Archives 1 of 2, including DEF CON
GREEN Drive = Conference Archives 2 of 2
ORANGE Drive = Podcasts, Cryptome, 1.5T of the Hak5 archives, FOSS Operating Systems, all other content

There will be an updated list at the infobooth.

Want in on it? Go buy some 4TB SATA II 7200 RPM drives (internal drives, not usb). Buy three if you want to try for the complete collection this year. I'd do it in advance, I think the local Frys will sell out! Duping should start Thursday!

DEF CON 22 Music Announcement: THE ORB

You better have just done that spit-take. That's right. Electronica/Trip-Hop/IDM/dub music classics and pioneers: The Orb. They're here. They're kicking. And on the 3rd day of DEF CON (Saturday night/Sunday morning 00:00-01:00) their divine presence shall bless the glorious attendees who... attend their glorious and divine performance. Those who do not attend will be forsaken and cast into the dystopian landscape known as "the rest of Las Vegas." And so this event shall henceforth be written into the Dark Tangent's Book of DEF CON, Volume 22 - also referred to by some as "the conference program." So say we all.

• The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds
• The Orb - Toxygene
• The Orb feat. Lee Scratch Perry - Fussball
• The Orb feat. Lee Scratch Perry - Soulman
• The Orb - A Huge Evergrowing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld (Orbital Dance Mix)

Social links:


• The Orb Official Site
• The Orb's Facebook
• The Orb's Twitter

DEF CON 22 Music Announcement: DJ Spooky (That Subliminal Kid) a.k.a. Paul D. Miller

A major announcement right here. We're bringing you the legendary DJ Spooky (That Subliminal Kid), a.k.a. Paul D. Miller. His CV runs deeper than the Mariana trench and is more Renaissance than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles combined. Perhaps originally and best known for his artisinal music crafting (collaborating on projects with Meat Beat Manifest, Slayer, Chuck D.) and turntablism , he's become a university music professor (EGS, Switzerland), author (too much stuff to list), and an executive director of Origin Magazine. He's had his works featured in major museums like the Warhol, The Whitney, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), blahblahblahblah the pseudo-anonymous writer of this announcement could go ad infinitum. The point is, he's attained legendary-levels of awesome, and is coming to DEF CON to drop some hip-hop (perhaps with orchestral accompaniament) on Thursday Night in Track 1 (22:00-23:00)!

• DJ Spooky live on Engadget TV (Oh right, he's recently been on an Antarctic expedition that was used for his latest album)
• DJ Spooky's Music Mixing/DJing iPad/iPhone app (... and is involved with app development)
• Spooky's upcoming book with MIT Press on apps (... ... ...)

Social links:


• DJ Spooky / Paul D. Miller Official Site
• DJ Spooky's Facebook
• DJ Spooky's YouTube

DEF CON 22 Music Announcement: Elite Force & MC Frontalot!

A favorite from DEF CON XX (he dropped the killer set after The Crystal Method), we're bringing the near-mythical adrenaline-inducing Elite Force back for another sonic pummeling. Many of you may also recognize one of his prior projects, Lunatic Calm, which had music featured on films like The Matrix, Mortal Kombat: Annhilation, Drive, and tooons of others. We're extraordinarily excited to have Elite Force back, and we'll all need to be sure to keep our collective cholesterol levels in check to ensure we can survive his performance. Catch him Saturday night in track 1 (23:00-00:00)!

Here. Take a gander at some choice recent Elite Force cuts:


• Elite Force - Gamechanger (WARNING: BASS MAY MELT FACES OFF)
• The Prodigy, Physical - Firestarter (Elite Force RVMPD) (WARNING: SEE PREVIOUS WARNING)

Social links:


• Elite Force Official Site
• Elite Force Soundcloud
• Elite Force Facebook
• Elite Force YouTube

Another throwback to DEF CON XX, we're bringing back one of the grandmasters of Nerdcore hip-hop, MC FRONTALOT. His prolific lyrical stylings have been proverbially known to knock socks off, so shoes (as always) are encouraged (we'll let sandals slide too). He's also the star of the acclaimed documentary Nerdcore Rising. Catch him Friday night in Track 1 (23:00-00:00), alongside other hard-hitters and partners in nerdcore-crime Dual Core and ytcracker!

Gorge yourself on his flow and become a better person for it:


• MC Frontalot - Nerd Life
• MC Frontalot - I'll Form the Head (feat. Dr. Awkward and ZeaLouS1)
• MC Frontalot - Zero Day (feat. Dual Core and ytcracker)

Social links:


• MC Frontalot Official Site
• MC Frontalot Facebook
• MC Frontalot YouTube

DEF CON Entertainment Presents: Anamanaguchi!

Today we announce eccentric retro electro video game chip-tune-inspired dance-rock that is purveyed by ANAMANAGUCHI. Not only is their music video game-inspired, their music actually HAS appeared on video games (like Rockband and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World). The real deal! Check 'em out at the Friday festivities in track 1. (set time: 00:00, Saturday AM)!

Also be sure to check out their totally rad and typically incredibly neon music videos:

• Anamanaguchi - Endless Fantasy (See pizza get launched into space!)
• Anamanaguchi - Meow (Neon black light explosion. More pizza.)

Social links:


• Anamanaguchi Official Site
• Anamanaguchi Soundcloud
• Anamanaguchi Facebook
• Anamanaguchi YouTube

DEFCON 22 Music Announcement: Zebbler Encanti Experience

Do you remember the giant projection-mapped DEF CON exploded face? Or maybe the dragon installation? Or how about the DEF CON sign installation in the chillout lounge last year? These are the epic works of Zebbler's design team, who have also developed installations for the likes of Shpongle, EOTO, and a number of other class acts. But Zebbler doesn't just excel at design. He also excels, along with his comrade Encanti at music. Together, they form an incredible audiovisual duo that goes by Zebbler Encanti Experience, and they will be purveying this experience to you at DEF CON 22! Take delight in their glorious bassy weirdness at DEF CON's official Saturday evening event in track 1 (set time: 01:00, Sunday) !

Most of their music is free/pay-what-you-can too! Check it out:

• Freakquency, their latest album has just dropped
• Altered Projections is a killer recent remix release (free/pay-what-you-can)
• Psychic Projections is their debut album (free/pay-what-you-can)

Calling All Accepted Speakers!

Attention all accepted DEF CON speakers! The deadline for getting your materials in for inclusion on the conference CD is Tuesday, July 15. Pencils down. Pass your paper to Nikita. Thank you.

Capture the Packet Registration Open!

Registration is now open for those willing to push their Cyber Traffic Analysis skills to the limit, you can compete in the latest Cyber Analytics and Network Forensics Challenge. Now in its fifth year ! Capture the Packet has brought more APT’s, Trojans, Malware, Web and Red team attacks, network issues and sneaky covert channel coms to one event ! Do you know when important data is leaking out of your network and who is doing it - Can you handle the Advanced Persistent Threat ? Can you spot that nasty bug your neighbors workstation contracted from visiting an infected website ? Can you spot a networking configuration issue with routing, spanning tree, BGP or OSPF ? Do you know how to count your IPV6 lucky stars ? Do you speak VOIP, MGCP or H323 ? We welcome everyone to try their hand at the most intense live network traffic analysis and forensic challenge, who knows you could be our next grand finals winner. You must bring your own laptop/computer to compete in this challenge, remember while this is not an attack game, it is a hostile network.

Details:

This year, the completion is handled in three Challenging phases:

Pre-Qualifying Rounds Start Thursday August 7th at 1:00pm and End Friday August 8th at 1:00pm
Those that have the highest scores “overall” from all rounds combined, essentially 40 teams will move on to the qualifying rounds

The Qualifying rounds are held starting Friday August 8th at 2:00pm and end on Saturday August 9th at 1:00pm
The top 10 teams from the Qualifying rounds with the highest over-all move on to the finals held on Saturday at 6:00pm

The Final round will consist of the top 10 scoring teams to survive the qualifying rounds,
These 12 teams will compete in a two hour long finals competition to determine the winner

Register your team of two – at https://www.capturethepacket.com/ctp_dc_signup.html, or sign-up onsite.

Capture The Packet will be hosted in the “Packet Hacking Village” at the DEFCON Entrance Area !

DEF CON 22 Schedule is LIVE!

Just a little over a month until we rendezvous at the Rio for DEF CON 22! Are you ready? We hear it's eleventy-one degrees there today, so bring weapons-grade sunscreen if you're one of those 'goes outside' kind of hackers.

You'll also want to know who's talking about what and when so you can plan your DEF CON experience. To that end, we proudly present the DEF CON 22 Speaker Schedule! Get yourself familiar, people. The key to maximum DEF CON is maximum planning. Or no planning. The key to maximum DEF CON has been in your heart all along. SCHEDULE IS LIVE!

https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-schedule.html

DEF CON 22 CFP Review Board Revealed!

‘This talk is amazing!’ You say this to yourself (inside voices) while watching someone awesome say and demonstrate awesome things. ‘How does DEF CON consistently pick so many great talks? They must have a team of borderline superheroes slogging through hundreds and hundreds of proposals for months! Who could those paragons of determination and insight BE, exactly? How could I learn their handles and perhaps show my appreciation by buying them many beers?’

Here’s an answer key to these questions you’re asking yourself:

1.)This talk probably is amazing. Not really a question.
2.)Lots of caffeine and eyestrain. Also dedication and love.
3.)They do have a team of borderline superheroes, and there is no DEF CON without them.
4.)They are known as the DEF CON CFP Review Board.

You can check out their page here. And maybe show them some love.

Get VIP Tickets for the 10th Anniversary of theSummit!

The 10th Annual EFF fundraiser, hosted by Vegas 2.0, has VIP tickets to event on sale now!  Get early access to an intimate meet and greet with the Speakers of DEF CON!  Also, get special schwag and extra raffle tickets exclusively for VIP guests!

https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/thesummit-10-year-anniversary-vip-tickets

Last round of DEF CON 22 Talks are Live!

This is it. The speaker list for DEF CON 22 is now locked and complete. This means two things: DEF CON is really almost here, and we are now hard at work creating the Tracks and the Schedule (watch this space, buckaroos). We're very proud of the lineup we've assembled, and we think you will find a lot of good stuff to choose from. Whether you're coming to Vegas or not, we'd love it if you'd take some time to check out the speaker list and give us some feedback about what talks have you the most excited.

55 days, people. Get psyched!

New for DC101

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Panel - Diversity in Information Security
Jennifer Imhoff-Dousharm, Sandy “Mouse” Clark, Kristin Paget, Jolly, Vyrus, and Scott Martin

New Presentations

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The Cavalry Year[0] & a Path Forward for Public Safety
Joshua Corman and Nicholas J Percoco

Mass Scanning the Internet: Tips, Tricks, Results
Robert Graham, Paul McMillan, and Dan Tentler

Hack All The Things: 20 Devices in 45 Minutes
CJ Heres, Amir Etemadieh, Khoa Hoang, and Mike Baker

Raspberry MoCA - A recipe for compromise
Andrew Hunt

Home Insecurity: No alarms, False alarms, and SIGINT
Logan Lamb

Dark Mail
Ladar Levison and Stephen Watt

Attacking the Internet of Things using Time
Paul McMillan

Open Source Fairy Dust
John Menerick

Generating ROP payloads from numbers
Alexandre Moneger

Panel: Ask the EFF: The Year in Digital Civil Liberties
Kurt Opsahl, Nate Cardozo, Mark Jaycox, Yan Zhu, and Eva Galperin

Panel - Surveillance on the Silver Screen- Fact or Fiction?
Nicole Ozer, Kevin Bankston, and Timothy Edgar

Measuring the IQ of your Threat Intelligence feeds
Alex Pinto and Kyle Maxwell

Secure Because Math: A Deep Dive On Machine Learning-Based Monitoring
Alex Pinto

Detecting and Defending Against a Surveillance State
Robert Rowley

Advanced Red Teaming: All Your Badges Are Belong To Us
Eric Smith and Josh Perrymon

The Internet of Fails: Where IoT Has Gone Wrong and How We're Making It Right
Mark Stanislav and Zach Lanier

Domain Name Problems and Solutions
Dr. Paul Vixie

DEF CON Secret Media Server Project Revealed!

RED ALERT TOP SECRET WIKI LEAK SN0DEN LEAK GAMMA GAMMA ZF0 P0SSE DOC DROPPER

The previously sooper seekret media.defcon.org server project has leaked out on the twitter and the face book. No use hiding behind our press secretary any longer, It's better to just admit it and let everyone make up their own minds.

WHAT LEAKED? The Dark Tangent is collecting as much open source security conference footage, training materials, podcasts, white papers, videos, and anything else haxors may be interested in. He plans to make it all available at DEF CON 22 in August and let anyone download it, or even direct HD copy it.

WHO LEAKED THIS SECRET PROJECT? The Dark Tangent. Oops.

WHAT NOW? A huge burden has been lifted off of DT and he no longer has to live two lives. He can now focus on getting as much content as possible from the community.

That's where you come in.

HOW CAN I HELP?
Send links to content you think everyone should have access to that is related to the hacking and infosec scene somehow. It can be an rss podcast, a .torrent of academic journals, and ftp link to text files, a web site to mirror full of source code, an svn operating system repository, a YouTube channel, whatever!

Send your links in an email to dtangent@defcon.org, or tweet them to @thedarktangent and he will start the leeching.

HOW DO I GET MY HANDS ON THE DATA?
At DEF CON 22 you will be able to get to the gigs in a couple different ways. The con Wi-Fi network (at 802.11g speeds), through wired switches on 1 gig links in different areas, or by bringing your own 4TB SATAII or III hard drive(s).

We will have HD duplicators running all con copying drives for people who just want to drop off a drive and pick it up later.

Please help out with links, and we'll see you at con!

Registration Now Open for Crash and Compile

Do you think you can code? Do think you can code while drinking? We're not talking about coding in the warm safe confines of your cubicle. No, this is programming for sport. It's live competition, against the clock, and the other teams. And we don't make it easy. Have the smarts to solve our programming challenges? Good. We want you to show us that programming is not only about laying down some sweet sweet code, it's about the style in which you do so. Sound fun? We think it is.

Crash And Compile is a ACM-style programming contest crossed with a drinking game, where teams of two people try to solve as many programming problems as they can. As teams compile and run their programs, each time their code fails to compile, produces the incorrect output, or seg-faults, the team must drink. Meanwhile, our lovely Team Distraction will be doing what they can to make the job of programming while intoxicated all the more difficult and/or enjoyable.

Registration is now open. Sign up over at https://dc22.crashandcompile.org

Big 'Ol Batch of Talks!

It’s getting pretty real, people. The speaker selection process is almost complete, the party and event planning is in full swing - DEF CON 22 is just a little over two months away!

To celebrate, another round of speaker announcements. Twenty-five more abstracts to help you create your DEF CON battle plan. We anticipate one more round of announcements before the roster is locked, but by now you should have a pretty good idea how much good stuff we have on tap.

DEF CON 101 Presentations

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Detecting Bluetooth Surveillance Systems
Grant Bugher

Dropping Docs on Darknets: How People Got Caught
Adrian Crenshaw

Is This Your Pipe? Hijacking the Build Pipeline.
Kyle Kelley and Greg Anderson

Home Automation and Defensive Security Measures
Chris Littlebury

Instrumenting Point-of-Sale Malware: A Case Study in Communicating Malware Analysis More Effectively
Wesley McGrew

Android Hacker Protection Level 0
Tim Strazzere and Jon Sawyer

Presentations

---

I am a legend: Hacking Hearthstone with machine learning
Elie Bursztein and Celine Bursztein

Hacking US (and UK, Australia, France, etc.) traffic control systems
Cesar Cerrudo

NSA Playset: DIY WAGONBED Hardware Implant over I2C
Josh Datko and Teddy Reed

Check Your Fingerprints: Cloning the Strong Set
Free and Lachesis

Shellcodes for ARM: Your Pills Don't Work on Me, x86
Svetlana Gaivoronski and Ivan Petrov

Blowing up the Celly - Building Your Own SMS/MMS Fuzzer
Brian Gorenc and Matt Molinyawe

Deconstructing the Circuit Board Sandwich: Effective Techniques for PCB Reverse Engineering
Joe Grand (Kingpin)

Panel: Ephemeral Communications: Why and How?
Ryan Lackey, Jon Callas, and Elissa Shevinsky

NinjaTV - Increasing Your Smart TV’s IQ Without Bricking It
Felix Leder

Catching Malware En Masse: DNS and IP Style
Dhia Mahjoub, Thibault Reuille, and Andree Toonk

Old Skewl Hacking: Porn Free!
Major Malfunction

A Survey of Remote Automotive Attack Surfaces
Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek

Learn how to control every room at a luxury hotel remotely: the dangers of insecure home automation
Jesus Molina

Acquire current user hashes without admin privileges
Anton Sapozhnikov

Impostor — Polluting Tor Metadata
Charlie Vedaa and Mike Larsen

Manna from Heaven: Improving the state of wireless rogue AP attacks
Dominic White and Ian de Villiers

The Open Crypto Audit Project
Kenneth White and Matthew Green

Practical Aerial Hacking & Surveillance
Glenn Wilkinson

Don't Fuck It Up!
Zoz

DARPA announces its 2-year Cyber Grand Challenge, Final Tournament at DEF CON 24

The Cyber Grand Challenge asks some simple questions - can you create a fully-automated system to detect, thwart and mitigate network attacks? Can you build one so effective that it can win an all-computer tournament without human intervention? Would you like 2 million dollars?

If you have a great proposal but lack the funds for a 2-year competition, you can pitch DARPA for funding - they’re already backing seven of the registered teams. Teams that survive the quals in June 2015 are eligible to compete in the final tournament at DEF CON in 2016. Grand prize is $2 million dollars.

Competitors will need a dizzying array of skills and an encyclopedic understanding of every form of network kung-fu. They will also need a pretty serious amount of free time, but the winner gets a nice check and an answer to the question of what to put first on a resumé.

We believe that such a team must exist in the DEF CON family. If you think you’re up to the challenge, more information awaits you at the DARPA CGC page.

http://www.darpa.mil/cybergrandchallenge/

Vote for your Favorite short story!

The DEF CON 22 Short Story Contest is now closed. Time for you to head over to the forums and vote for the People's Choice Awards. You're the people. Get in there. Be somebody.

https://forum.defcon.org/forumdisplay.php?f=796

Enormous Speaker Update! First DC101 Talks Revealed!

Posted 5.23.14

Hot off the presses - more speaker selections. Several of them are for the DEF CON 101 Track, newly expanded for DC 22 and running all the way through the con. The rest of the presentations listed here fall into the other tracks, and if we do say so ourselves, this is shaping up to be quite the year, hackwise. You’re definitely going to want to make sure you have a seat for some of these. The titles alone should tell you we’re coming correct in 2014.

New Presentations

---

The Simple Route to Backbone Routers
Luca "kaeso" Bruno and Mariano "emdel" Graziano

Summary of Attacks Against BIOS and Secure Boot
Yuriy Bulygin, Oleksandr Bazhaniuk, Andrew Furtak, and John Loucaides

Saving Cyberspace by Reinventing File Sharing
Eijah

Secure Random By Default
Dan Kaminsky

Masquerade: How a Helpful Man-in-the-Middle Can Help You Evade Monitoring.
Ryan Lackey and Marc Rogers

Just What The Doctor Ordered?
Scott Erven and Shawn Merdinger

NSA Playset : GSM Sniffing
Pierce and Loki

Don't DDoS Me Bro: Practical DDoS Defense
Blake Self and Shawn "cisc0ninja" Burrell

"Around the world in 80 cons” - A Perspective
Jayson E. Street

DEF CON 101 Presentations!

Now running Thurdsay through Sunday!

The DEF CON 101 track is a series of talks aimed at attendees who are not yet internationally-recognized infosec experts. This is not the n00b track. But if you're interested and engaged in the hacker community, these sessions are right up your alley. From Sysadmins & NOC Jockeys to College Students & IT Professionals, everyone exploring the world of Information Security can expect to feel welcome, not intimidated. We have grouped the sessions by interest area, so you're not spending all day bouncing between talks.

DEF CON 101 - The Talk
HighWiz, Lockheed, Pyr0, Roamer, and LosT

Protecting SCADA From the Ground Up
AlxRogan

Hacking 911: Adventures in Disruption, Destruction, and Death
Christian “quaddi” Dameff, Jeff “r3plicant” Tully, and Peter Hefley

How to Disclose an Exploit Without Getting in Trouble
Jim Denaro and Tod Beardsley

NSA Playset: PCIe
Joe FitzPatrick, Miles Crabill, and Dean Pierce

Oh Bother, Cruising The Internet With Your Honeys, Creating Honeynets For Tracking Criminal Organizations
Terrence Gareau and Mike Thompson

The Monkey in the Middle: A pentesters guide to playing in traffic.
Anch

Investigating PowerShell Attacks
Ryan Kazanciyan and Matt Hastings

Screw Becoming A Pentester - When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Bug Bounty Hunter!
Jake Kouns and Carsten Eiram

Meddle: Framework for Piggy-back Fuzzing and Tool Development
Geoff McDonald

One Man Shop: Building an Effective Security Program All By Yourself
Medic

Rf Penetration Testing, Your Air Stinks
RMellendick and DaKahuna

Touring the Darkside of the Internet. An introduction to Tor, Darknets, and Bitcoin.
Metacortex and Grifter

USB for All!
Jesse Michael and Mickey Shkatov

ShareEnum: We Wrapped Samba So You Don’t Have To
Lucas Morris and Michael McAtee

An Introduction to Back Dooring Operating Systems for Fun and Trolling
Nemus

Standing Up an Effective Penetration Testing Team
Wiseacre

Data Protection 101 - Successes, Fails, and Fixes
PTzero

Anatomy of a Pentest; Poppin' Boxes like a Pro
PushPin

Practical Foxhunting 101
SimonJ

Blinding The Surveillance State
Christopher Soghoian

Bug Bounty Programs Evolution
Nir Valtman

Client-Side HTTP Cookie Security: Attack and Defense
David Wyde

Submissions Now Open for 'From Dusk Til Con'

Posted 5.22.14

You’ve had the thought: “DEF CON is super fun, but how much cooler would this be if there was a little corner devoted to my weird niche interest?” ‘From Dusk Til Con’ is your chance to realize that overly specific dream.  Got a mini-village idea? Want to run an Inception style Con-within-the Con? Want to play strip Settlers of Cataan? Shoot us your ideas for themed mini-events on the Crawl and we’ll make the best ones happen.

Find out more and how to submit at: https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-fdtc.html

DEF CON 22 CTF Quals Roundup!

Posted 5.21.14

The DEF CON 22 CTF Qualifiers are in the books. Challenges were faced, and bested. Points were accumulated. Bedtimes were missed. It’s all over but the paperwork.

So here’s a roundup of writeup links. IF you participated, read and see how other people approached the same problems. If you didn’t, read and get an idea of how the CTF process works and consider signing up next time. You lose 100% of the CTFs you don’t enter.

If you enter, you could still lose 100%. That’s just math. But you’ll have a story. An awesome, glorious, highly technical story to share with the tiny slice of humanity who can understand this sort of thing.

There’s also a bonus link to a GitHub collection that looks like it might end up pretty comprehensive.

https://hackucf.org/blog/category/writeups/defcon-quals-2014-writeups/
http://blog.spiderlabs.com/2014/05/defcon-22-ctf-qualifiers-writeup.html
http://balidani.blogspot.com/2014/05/def-con-quals-2014-100lines-writeup.html
http://ahack.ru/write-ups/defcon-quals-14.htm
http://zepvn.com/blog/defcon-ctf-quals-2014-100lines.php
http://zepvn.com/blog/defcon-ctf-quals-2014-byhd.php
http://sigint.ru/writeups/2014/05/19/defcon-2014-quals---zombies/
http://sigint.ru/writeups/2014/05/18/defcon-2014-quals--polyglot/
http://endgame.com/blog/defcon-capture-the-flag-qualification-challenge-1.html
https://github.com/ctfs/write-ups/tree/master/def-con-ctf-qualifier-2014

On your mark... Get set...

Posted 5.16.14

T minus 3 hours - DEF CON 22 CTF Qualifications are upon us! To read up on the setup for this year, you can check out the Legitimate Business Syndicate blog:

https://blog.legitbs.net/

The road to glory begins here. We at DEF CON applaud all of the brave warriors who've accepted the CTF challenge. Godspeed. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Big New Batch of Talks Incoming!

Don’t look now, but it’s already the middle of May. DEF CON 22 is just over the horizon, a little less than three months away. Preparations are in high gear.

Today, we bring you  more talks - 15 more, to be exact. You can check out the abstracts and speaker bios on the DC22 speaker page. We think you’ll like the choices - there’s everything from shortwave radio steganography to mischief with car firmware.

There’s more coming, of course, so keep checking back with our speaker page as we flesh out the roster.

https://www.defcon.org/../defcon-22/dc-22-speakers.html

The new selections are:

The Secret Life of Krbtgt
Christopher Campbell

The $env:PATH less Traveled is Full of Easy Privilege Escalation Vulns
Christopher Campbell

Why Don’t You Just Tell Me Where The ROP Isn’t Suppose To Go
David Dorsey

Steganography in Commonly Used HF Radio Protocols
Paul Drapeau and Brent Dukes

Weird-Machine Motivated Practical Page Table Shellcode & Finding Out What's Running on Your System
Shane Macaulay

The NSA Playset: RF Retroreflectors
Michael Ossmann

Attacking to Cisco Hosted VoIP Networks
Fatih Ozavci

Abusing Software Defined Networks
Gregory Pickett

Am I Being Spied On? Low-tech Ways Of Detecting High-tech Surveillance
Dr. Phil Polstra

You're Leaking Trade Secrets
Michael Schrenk

Zends Dead baby
Dr Steven Seeley

I Hunt TR-069 Admins: Pwning ISPs Like a Boss
Shahar Tal

Optical Surgery; Implanting a DropCam
Patrick Wardle and Colby Moore

PoS Attacking the Traveling Salesman
Alex Zacharis

Playing with Car Firmware or How to Brick your Car
Paul 0x222

More Accepted Talks!

We’re hard at working choosing the best of the CFP submissions, and today we have five more confirmations to announce. Watch this space for more speaker announcements in the coming weeks. It’s shaping up to be a pretty fascinating roster.

Getting Windows to Play with Itself: A Hacker's Guide to Windows API Abuse
Brady Bloxham

Girl… Fault-Interrupted.
Maggie Jauregui

Elevator Hacking - From the Pit to the Penthouse
Deviant Ollam, Howard Payne

Hacking the FBI: How & Why to Liberate Government Records
Ryan Noah Shapiro

The Only Way to Tell the Truth is in Fiction: The Dynamics of Life in the National Security State
Richard Thieme

You can watch the conference taking shape on the DEF CON Speaker Page:
https://defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-speakers.html

Art Contest Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the DC 22 Art Contest:

1st Place: Alice in Hackerland by Tess Schrodinger
2nd Place: Helicopter Parents Weren’t This Bad by Amit Yehuda
3rd Place: Bleed by Joey Strine

People’s Choice: Alice in Hackerland by Tess Schrodinger

And of course, thanks to everyone who submitted work. There is no end to the hidden talents of the DEF CON massive. You can check out the winning artwork on the DC Art Contest page:
https://defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-artwork-contest.html

And a gallery of all the entries at:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a....

Also, don’t let the contest ending stop you - if you have the urge to create some on-theme artworks between now and the show, we’d be happy to share them with the world. You won’t win anything beyond our love and gratitude, but that’s not exactly nothing.

Vote for People's Choice in the DEF CON 22 Artwork Contest!

The DEF CON 22 art contest has closed, and it’s time to start picking the winners. In the ‘People’s Choice’ category, that means it’s time for YOU to cast a vote. Check out the Artwork Contest Entries Gallery on Facebook and cast a ‘Like’ for your favorite.

The winner gets free admission to DC22, $25 credit at the Swag Booth and inky immortality in the DC22 printed program, so it’s kind of a big deal. The theme was ‘Behind the Curtain’, and the winning work should in some way capture the sense of the hidden world behind the world that is seen. Cast your votes wisely.

And as always, we thank everyone who participated in this year’s contest. If you didn’t submit and you’re feeling a little jelly, we offer the wise words of Socrates, who said to his students, “He is not wise who playa-hates; the truly wise participate. This mimosa is terrible.”

DEF CON 22 Vendor FAQ and App is Now Live!

Posted 4.18.14

Attention Entreprenerds!

DEF CON 22’s Vendor Area is a great opportunity to get your geek-centric product in front of a highly focused, upwardly mobile and possibly drunk audience of over 10,000 vacationing tech enthusiasts. Share your business with people passionate about technology, make sales, even make friends.

To sign up, head over to the vendor site, read the FAQ and get the forms filled out. Don’t delay - August is closer than you think.

http://defconvendors.com/

Call for Papers — Only Two Weeks Left!

Posted 4.16.14

Friendly reminder - the DEF CON 22 CFP closes in two short weeks. Your submission has to be in by May 1. It’s go time, people.

To see what we’ve accepted so far, you can check the speaker page:
https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-speakers.html

The rules and regulations are here:
https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-cfp.html

If you’ve got a great idea, put it in the ring. You can’t win if you don’t play.

Speaker Page Posted, Check Out the First Round Accepted!

Posted 4.10.14

It's official. CON season is really upon us.

DEF CON HQ is proud to announce the first round of accepted speakers! Take a look, let us know what you think and what you're looking forward to most. We'd also love it if you kept your eye on the speaker page, because we'll be posting the rest of the accepted speakers as they are selected. On the speaker page you can watch DEF CON 22 taking shape, and you can weigh in here or @_defcon_.

We think you're gonna like the choices so far. Get excited - the countdown has begun!

SECTF Registration is Live!

Posted 4.8.14

The Social Engineering Capture the Flag contest is back for DEF CON 22 - this time with a Tag Team Twist! Spread the word and get signed up if you're ready to test your SE skills in Vegas!

Faces of DEF CON

Posted 4.7.14

Our community never fails to amaze. With no prompting from anyone, Eddie the Yeti has been making these beautiful portraits of DEF CON's better known faces and sharing them with the subjects.

He makes them with materials like soy sauce and coffee, wine and lime juice. He makes them insanely fast, but he still manages to get across the best of the subject's personality.

Check out his Faces of DEF CON series on DeviantArt. Check out the rest of his work, too. He's as good an advertisement as there could be for why you should come hang out with us in the desert. Brilliant, generous and doing it for the love.

Thanks, Eddie.

http://eddietheyeti.deviantart.com/gallery/

Pilgrim, another DEF CON regular, has made a tribute site to the series as well, at

http://www.facesofdefcon.org/

The DEF CON 22 site is open!

Posted 4.4.14

Good news, everyone!

It’s hard to believe, but we’re already two-thirds of the way to DEF CON 22.

As we come down the home stretch, the DEF CON 22 site will be your one-stop information center for everything DC22. We’ll be constantly updating the site with talks, contests, events, entertainers and announcements to help you get the most out of your con.

Throw us a bookmark and keep checking back. Make us a regular part of your balanced media breakfast, and we’ll keep you up to date on everything you need to know.

DEF CON 22 CTF: Registration is Open!

Posted 4.1.14

Good news, everyone!

Registration for the DEF CON 22 CTF season is open! To accomodate international competitors, the qualifying weekend has been moved to May 17-19.

It is time to assemble your champions. Sharpen them to a fine point. The doors to the arena open May 17. Fortune looks kindly upon boldness and skill. Failing those, she also seems pretty okay with treachery and subversion.

The information you require can be found at https://blog.legitbs.net/ . You can register at https://2014.legitbs.net/.

Step forward and meet your destiny.

The DEF CON 22 Contests, Events and Villages RFI is Now Open!

Posted 3.31.14

Got an idea for a game-changing contest or event? Maybe you have the expertise to run a village on a compelling topic we've overlooked? This is your moment. Submit your idea on the DEF CON CnE website - we'll partner up with the best ideas and help make them happen.

The rules and guidelines are available on the CnE website. Check them out, and get yourself involved. We look forward to hearing your ideas.

http://defcne.net/

DC22 Artwork Contest: Only Two Weeks Left!

Posted 3.26.14

We know that art takes time. We know that artists like to paint themselves into deadline corners, waiting until the last minute for inspiration to strike. If that's you, please bear in mind that the minutes run out in about two weeks. If you want to have your work considered for the contest, it has to be in to us by April 10. No exceptions.

Also, if you know a creative soul who might enjoy the opportunity, be sure to share this with them. We'd really love to showcase a lot of cool work this year.

Relevant data is all here:
https://defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-artwork-contest.html

Be the Match returning to DEF CON 22!

Posted 3.19.14

For the 4th year, 'Be the Match' is returning to DEF CON. It's your opportunity to register as a Bone Marrow Donor, and maybe someday save a life. There are lots of ways to hack your body, but this one doesn't slow you down at airports or make you look sketchy.

It also makes you kind of a hero.

To find out more about how 'Be the Match' works, you can check them out at these links:

Twitter: @bethematch
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeTheMatch
The InterTubes: http://bethematch.org/

DEF CON 22 Artwork Contest!

DEF CON Art Contest is back!

The theme of this year's art contest is "Behind the Curtain". Secrets. Lies. Alibis. The magic shades in 'They Live'. The world behind the world, where all the hidden gears are turning.  The code and subterfuge employed by the adept to sneak knowledge past the sleeping and the uninitiated.

Cool, right? If you can put together a jaw-dropping variation on that theme in the next 30 days, prizes and glory could be yours. Free admissions to DEF CON 22, credit to burn on DEF CON Swag, maybe even a T-shirt with your art on it.

There are Categories and Rules, of course. And a Deadline. All of these are important.  These things make it a contest. But you, my undercover artist friend, you make it epic. Pencils up and good luck.

Call for Musicians/Artists/DJs application is LIVE!

If you're a musical performer, a DJ or an ambient Esperanto slam poet* who dreams of performing at DEF CON, this is your moment. We're beginning to select music acts for DEF CON 22, and we might very well need YOU.

Extra slots for Chillout/Ambient/Downtempo types this year, so you lower-BPM types should make sure to apply.

Your road to rocking DEF CON starts with reading the rules.

https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=13776

Then, if you think you have what it takes to entertain the DEF CON massive, fill out this form. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1N0K...jAIWk/viewform

*I'm pretty sure I made that up, but I would be happy to be proved wrong. I will make you a Facebook star.

DEF CON 22 Capture the Flag
Pre-Qualification Events!

Continuing the tradition of recognizing strong performance in Capture The Flag events through the year, Legitimate Business Syndicate is proud to announce the following events as DEF CON 22 CTF pre-qualification events:

• Event
• Date
• Organizers
• Qualified Team

• DEF CON 21 CTF
• August 1-4, 2013
• by Legitimate Business Syndicate
• Plaid Parliament of Pwning

• RuCTFe
• December 14, 2013
• by hackerdom
• More Smoked Leet Chicken

• Ghost In The Shellcode
• January 17-19, 2014
• by Men in Black Hats + Marauders
• Dragon Sector

• Olympic CTF
• February 7-9, 2014
• by More Smoked Leet Chicken
• penthackon

• Boston Key Party
• February 28 - March 2, 2014
• by Boston Key Party
• ???

• Codegate Finals
• April 1-2, 2014
• by Codegate
• ???

• PHDays
• May 21-22, 2014
• by phdays
• ???

• SecuInside
• Unannounced
• by SecuInside
• ???

Twelve more spots will be available to teams wishing to play at the DEF CON 22 Capture The Flag through our own open qualifiers, hosted May 17-May 19.

All qualifying teams will receive eight "Human" badges for admission to DEF CON 22 this year, as well as two hotel rooms at the Rio Las Vegas, for the duration of the event.

DEF CON Future Dates!

Sure, you know that DEF CON 22 rolls around August 7-10, 2014. Everyone knows that. But do you know the dates for DEF CON 23? DEF CON 24?

Probably not, because we're announcing it right now. DEF CON 23 will be August 6-9, 2015, and DEF CON 24 will be August 4-7, 2016.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Bank error in your favor!

When we announced the discount room rates for the Rio last month, there was some kind of glitch in the Matrix. The first 200 signups were granted a rate even lower than our block rate. The Keymaker at the Rio has agreed to honor this rate for those lucky registrants. He had the Architect explain it to me, but he droned on so long I lost the plot. What I can confirm is that the 200th registration was reached, the anomaly was smoothed over and real-world rates have returned.

 

As ever, Fortune favors the bold.

 

The corrected rate (based on occupancy of up to three per room and taxed at 12%) is:
Sunday -Thursday   $119.00
Friday & Saturday $129.00

They charge an extra $30 a night if you add a fourth. Sometimes it's worth it. We don't judge.

Even that rate won't last long – the DEF CON block is about 40% sold. To book now and get the block rate, follow this link. See how deep the rabbit hole goes.

https://resweb.passkey.com/go/SRDEF4

NEW! Announcing the DEF CON 22 Call for Services!

Got something cool to share on the DEF CON network during DC22? Could be almost anything - a game, a stash of vintage K-Rad textfiles, whatever you think Con goers might wanna download. Submit your idea online, and if it's approved you'll get a couple of bonded gig ports and some promotion in the program and on the site. Sharing is kinda our thing - and we're counting on you to add some fun content. Apply today. Operators are standing by.*

* actual operator count may be as low as zero.

DEF CON is Now on Google+!

Posted 2.10.14

We're starting up a presence on G+. We've got some interesting plans for the specific technologies they employ over there. If you're on G+ (and you probably are), come on over and add us to your circles. We can be found at https://google.com/+DefconOrgplus.

DEF CON 14 Video now on YouTube!

Posted 2.7.14

Can't stop, won't stop! New playlist up on YouTube, this time the entirety of DEF CON 14. Over 80 presentations. You can fire it up right now and be edutained for the next two weeks or so.

We'd love it if you'd share the knowledge with anyone you think might benefit. Like, share and be merry.

DEF CON 15 Video now on YouTube!

Posted 2.6.14

Re-live all DEF CON 15 had to offer on our YouTube channel, we have a new playlist posted for your enjoyment!

The DEF CON 101 Call For Papers is open!

Posted 2.3.14

For those who aren't aware, DC101 is a Thursday event, a kind of combination Opening Ceremonies/Orientation MiniCon. The talks accepted are loosely engineered to acclimate you to DEF CON proper and to help you maximize your DC experience. You can get a look at the talks that were accepted last year at this link:

https://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=13377

The rules for the CFP are here:

http://www.defcon101.org .

DEF CON 22 Short Story Contest!

Posted 1.29.14

The DEF CON Short Story Contest is back, and it's already open! No excuses - you have from now until the first of June to get your story in for the chance to win some cool prizes and get your story shared with the whole DC community. Four months to shape your hacker lit masterpiece. Make us proud.

The rules and regulations are all available in the Short Story Contest thread on the DC Forums.

DEF CON 21 Audio is Now on iTunes!

Posted 1.27.14

Good News! Audio from all the presentations at DEF CON 21 is now available as a podcast for those who prefer their DEF CON goodness in a smooth, iTunes-digestible format. Lyric files included on the house. Enjoy and spread the word!

The direct link to the podcast is https://www.defcon.org/podcast/defcon-21-audio.rss

DEF CON 22 Call for Papers is Now Open!

Posted 1.23.14

It's that time again folks! Polish up those ninja caliber proposals, because The DEF CON Call for Papers is now officially open! Read the announcement and find out what's new, then fill out the CFP form and start down the road to DEF CON glory! Good luck!

DEF CON 21 Audio Files Are Now Live for Torrent or Download!

Posted 1.21.14

Hear the sweet sounds of hackers imparting their knowledge in the DEF CON 21 audio speeches, now available for download on the DEF CON Media Server, The DEF CON 21 Archive page, or all at once with this handy torrent:

https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 21 audio.torrent

Also included, and new this year, are .lrc format transcripts which can be used as lyrics files for the audio, Enjoy!

2014 DEF CON Groups Challenge!

Posted 1.20.14

We have seen DC 21 come and go, and after a little rest we all have begun preparing ourselves for DC22. Since we have 7 months until we all meet again in Vegas, I have prepared a fun contest to help you pass the time.

Plus, if you win, you and your team mates will get free badges (8 free badges for 1st, 4 free badges for second) to help offset the costs of attending DC22!

Have fun and happy hacking!

-blak

Read all about the 2014 DEF CON Groups Challenge!

DEF CON 21 videos now available for direct download and torrent!

Posted 1.17.14

Did you miss DEF CON 21? Do you have a ridiculous amount of hard drive space and like to keep large archives of hacking knowledge? At long last, all of the DEF CON 21 speeches can be found on the DEF CON 21 Archive page, The DEF CON Media Server, or downloaded en masse at these torrents:

https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 21 video and slides.torrent
https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 21 slides.torrent

For the fist time ever, we have transcripts of the talks! Use them for closed captioning, read them, or if you are feeling saucy, translate them to other languages and be sure to let us know!

Enjoy!

Book a room at the Rio for DEF CON 22!

Posted 1.15.14

For those of you that want to get a jump on DEF CON 22, you can now book your room for DEF CON 22 at our discounted rate! Register now and save! We have a special discount for the first 200 reservations made in the DEF CON block. There are still a few left, so jump in now and stay at our host venue for the full DEF CON Experience!

Announcing DEF CON 22 CTF!

Posted 1.10.14

Legitimate Business Syndicate has announced their intention to return as organizers of the Capture the Flag competition! Check out their DEF CON 22 CTF Announcement blog post!

Happy New Year from DEF CON!

Posted 1.1.14

We would like to wish all hackers, geeks, techs, nerds, makers, phreaks, engineers, privacy and security folks the world over a Happy New Year!

2014 will be a year of security battles, with more companies responding to news of their products being used in mass monitoring. Now is the time to get involved!

The IETF is working on the possibility of HTTP 2.0 requiring TLS always, dramatically encrypting more of the Web. Why wait?

• - Enable HSTS on your own sites, enable EDH as well for "perfect forward secrecy"
• - Run a tor server as middle if you don't want to be an exit. This is what we do.
• - Encrypt your email. Don't want to fight with PGP? Then install an S/MIME certificate. IPhones work with them really well too.
• - Encrypt your sms messages. Check out Wickr on Android and iPhone, or try "text secure" on Android, it should be on iPhone soon.

You guys get the idea. Make a resolution to up your defense game in 2014 to make life more difficult for all who would eavesdrop on us - for whatever reason.

Oh, and Hack the Planet™

Happy Holidays! DEF CON 21 Videos Now on YouTube!

Posted 12.23.13

Just in time for the holidays, we have a long awaited Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/Solstice/etc. gift for all of you! You can now watch all of the DEF CON 21 talks on YouTube, with or without closed captioning! That's right, go ahead and stream all the hacker-y goodness from this year's DEF CON with your favorite holiday beverage in front of a warm fire! Happy Holidays from all of us at DEF CON!

DEF CON 21 CTF Packet Captures from Saturday!

Posted 12.10.13

Well here it is, the biggest one yet! Complete packet captures from Saturday at the DEF CON 21 Capture the Flag competition are now available for torrent! This is a huge one folks, compressed down to 35 gigs from 495, so get those hard drives cleared out and ready!

If you can, leave them seeding for a bit to share the love!

DEF CON 21 CTF Packet Captures from Sunday!

Posted 12.2.13

All of you CTF-ophiles out there, rejoice! Complete packet captures from Sunday at the DEF CON 21 Capture the Flag competition are now available for torrent! Sift through all the data and peer at the inner workings of the contest!

DEF CON 16 Videos now on YouTube!

Posted 11.26.13

Here's something to be thankful for! We've now posted the complete DEF CON 16 speeches on YouTube to watch at your leisure! Enjoy!

DEF CON 17 Videos now on YouTube!

Posted 11.21.13

You can now stream all the videos from DEF CON 17 that your heart desires on YouTube, the latest installment to our channel! Enjoy!

DEF CON Forums Temporarily Disabled

Posted 11.18.13

Service on the DEF CON Forums has been suspended due to a 0-day exploit in the wild which could compromise user information. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Check out https://forum.defcon.org/ for links to more info, and to see the super-shark-fin sad cat.

DEF CON CTF in the News!

Posted 11.11.13

Check out this recent article from CNBC on the DEF CON 21 CTF Competition! http://www.cnbc.com/id/101179977/page/1

DEF CON 18 Videos now on YouTube!

Posted 11.8.13

DEF CON 18 Presentations have been added to the DEF CON YouTube! If you're looking for a laugh, Zoz's presentation will cheer you up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwpg-AwJ0Jc&list=PL9fPq3eQfaaC26TgwyDg2Db-m5E7jRRbj

DEF CON 19 Videos now on YouTube!

Posted 11.4.13

DEF CON 19 videos are now live on YouTube for your streaming pleasure. We hope you enjoy these videos, and if you do please "like" them. Comments are open, so feel free to leave feedback, or start a conversation.

DEF CON 20 Videos now on YouTube!

Posted 10.30.13

The massive upload has begun! We are currently in the process of uploading all of the DEF CON video from past years to our YouTube Channel, and we begin with DEF CON 20! We're getting them up en masse and processed as we speak, and will be releasing them as we finish each show. Next up will be DEF CON 19. We hope you will enjoy them!

DEF CON 20 Presentations - Video + Slides playlist on Youtube

DEF CON 22 CTF Quals Tentative Dates Announced!

Posted 10.26.13

The team over at Legitimate Business Syndicate is getting a jump on things for DEF CON 22, and have announced their tentative dates for the 2014 CTF Quals! The 2014 Quals will be held Midnight May 17 to Midnight May 19, 1400284800 to 1400457600. Keep an eye on https://legitbs.net for all of their updates, and for links to the LegitBS Blog and twitter feed!

DEF CON 21 Photo Collections!

Posted 10.22.13

Have you never been to DEF CON or just want to re-live the precious memories from DEF CON 21? If so, we've posted some picture collections on media.defcon.org at:

https://media.defcon.org/DEF CON 21/DEF CON 21 Hacking Conference Pictures Collection 1/
https://media.defcon.org/DEF CON 21/DEF CON 21 Hacking Conference Pictures Collection 2/

If you are of the torrenting sort, you can siphon them down all at once at:

https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 21 pictures 1.torrent
https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 21 pictures 2.torrent

Enjoy!

DEF CON 21 CTF Packet Captures from Friday + Tools and Binaries!

Posted 10.12.13

Legitimate Business Syndicate has been gracious enough to provide us with complete packet captures from the DEF CON 21 Capture the Flag contest! A big thanks to them and all the great teams who participated! Here is the first batch of those pcaps, all the traffic from Friday at the con. Saturday and Sunday's will be soon to follow so keep your eyes peeled!

They were also so kind as to include the tools and binaries from the game, which we have also included in a handy torrent file!

You can always find write-ups, file collections, and history of the DEF CON Capture the Flag competition on our CTF Page! Enjoy!

DEF CON 21 Materials RSS Feed, Updated CD, and Torrents!

Posted 10.8.13

For all of you fine folks out there, we have lovingly compiled the speaker's slide decks and extras from the con CD into the DEF CON 21 Materials RSS feed for your enjoyment! Not only that, but it includes all the updates submitted by the speakers since the con, so you'll have all the latest research! So check it out and grab the stuff you are interested in!

Alternatively, if you just gotta have it all sitting on a hard drive awaiting your whim, We have also posted a torrent and direct download link to the Updated Conference CD!

We've also updated a couple of the large collection torrents, one for the DEF CON CD/DVD collection from all the shows to reflect the addition of DEF CON 21, and another for the Hacker Related Documentaries with the addition of DEF CON: The Documentary.

Check out the following links and enjoy!

DEF CON 21 Hacking Conference Updated CD (Final)
https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 21 updated hacking conference CD.rar.torrent
https://media.defcon.org/DEF CON Conference CD DVD/DEF CON 21 Updated Hacking Conference CD.rar

DEF CON 21 Hacking Conference Presentations (These are all the presentations from the speakers, but not the extras folder)
https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON 21 presentations.torrent
https://media.defcon.org/DEF CON 21/DEF CON 21 presentations/

UPDATED Collection of conference CD and DVDs - Now includes DEF CON 21 original and updated CDs
https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON Conference CD DVD Collection 2013.torrent
https://media.defcon.org/DEF CON Conference CD DVD/

UPDATED: Hacking Documentaries hosted at DEF CON - Now includes the DEF CON Documentary and sneak peek
https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF CON Hosted hacking related documentaries v2.torrent
https://media.defcon.org/Hacking Related Documentaries/

In Case You Didn't Know...

Posted 9.21.13

This may be old news to some of you, but we've noticed a lot of questions in the comments from the last few Facebook posts about where past DEF CON Content resides. We have several outlets:

https://media.defcon.org is a directory browsable repository for all of our past content.

https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-torrent.html for all of our torrent files. These are the huge collections for all-at-once downloading.

https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-archives.html is a portal to our archive pages by year.

These include audio, video, CTF files, artwork and a ton more! So if you didn't know, now you do. Pick your poison and enjoy!