 Hi, I'm Jason E Street, the DEF CON Group's global ambassador and on behalf of everyone at DEF CON Groups, I'd like to wish you a happy new year. I think we're going to have an amazing 2018 and I'd like to take a moment right now to do a status report on how 2017 went, which I think went really well. We expanded a lot more globally from Dubai to Durban. We're getting a lot of interest in all of the DEF CON Groups forming up in different parts of the world, which I think is great and very important for us to keep growing. And now hopefully this year we're going to start actually connecting. It's like I'm hoping to get sort of like sister groups as you will. It's like, you know, having DEF CON Groups from different parts of the world connect to other DEF CON Groups, be it to, you know, do a CTF or to do a share a project together or research together. I think that's very important for us to actually help foster and help facilitate. So I want to see that growing in the year and years to come. Also 2017 we started an initiative with getting hackers and DEF CON Group, you know, hackers to speak at local schools to be the facilitator, be the educator. So instead of like when law enforcement, when other authority figures go into schools, they talk about cyberbullying and they talk about online safety and how the internet is worked. It's usually when they talk about the criminal, the negative element, they're talking about they'll say hackers. You know, hackers are going to get into your Snapchat or your Instagrams. And so I think it's very important that we actually come in and we actually teach online safety. We teach how to stay safe online and talk about criminals that are going in and doing the various things on the internet and how to protect themselves from that. And so that way it's coming from a hacker, from a positive light and that way the students and the teachers and the parents will see hackers in a more positive light as one of the ones that are educating and trying to make things better. So I think that's a great cause for us to keep working on. Mark White has been spearheading that and working with local law enforcement in Tennessee to go to schools and start that and that's going to be like our beta project. It's like we're going to see hopefully more of that spreading throughout the year to different locations. I really hope so. That's something that's going to be a big deal overall, it's like for that. So that's good. I would also like to say that we're having a more transparency this year. It's like I want to start us having updates every month where we're talking about how many new groups have formed, how many groups that we've seen that may have gone inactive. I'd like to see us actually posting once a month about those bulletins. It's like creating a bulletin and a status report every month, doing a snapshot, which is I think it is very important. I would also like to say that we're going to have maybe also once a month, it's like so at least two new updates on the site every month is our goal. Hopefully we can keep it. It's like but our goal is the second update will be a interview, a video interview of a local DEF CON group somewhere around the world that they would start off with some of the ones that I've done. It's like I've interviewed several DEF CON groups, POCs from America, from South Africa, from China, different locations. And so we're going to start off with those. But then hopefully we also start maybe having a POC actually submit videos from their DEF CON group, from their location, from where they have their meeting, giving us an insight, giving us a look into their DEF CON group and how it works and how their meeting takes place and how it formed and what they've done. So we'll come up with some questions that are going to be the standard questions we'd like to ask our POCs and then have them submit a video so you can get to know more of the DEF CON groups from all over the world. So I think that's going to be very important. I'm going to very happy if we can get that going and actually keep that working. So we've not been as we've had some hiccups over the last year. It's like, you know, it's not all the great things that have happened. We had some hiccups last year. We reorganized. It's like we've got Brent White, who is now our lead DEF CON groups, global coordinator, you know, the supervising adult, the guy who's going to help get the organizational stuff taken care of, making sure everything is being done properly, which is really important, which is really helpful. We've got Supe's, who's been here from the beginning, who's always been helpful, who's always working on the social media. He's one of the first contacts you meet when you send in an email about your POC, about your request for a DEF CON group. Joining him is a newcomer, April Wright. She is taking up that as well, helping Supe's with that extra load. So she's also one of the people that you're talking to. She's been doing a phenomenal job recently, responding to those emails, getting those point of contacts information, getting it down and getting it over to Darrington, who's always been here, who's helped with the website, who makes it grow, and who keeps it updated. And we give him the content and he puts it up on the site. So he's been doing an amazing job. So Darrington's still there, plugging along. We have Will, who's the guy who's the swag master. It's like, people always look at me as like, oh, well, Jason, you're also, Will's the guy who provides all that. Him and Dark Tangent are the ones that actually provide the really cool DEF CON swag I bring to DEF CON group meetings and to different conferences around the world. It's like, I'm just the UPS delivery guy. So it's like, I get all the fun stuff. But they're the guys that actually make it happen. So we're going to still be doing that. We'll still have some more swag to give out as I travel. We also have Casey and Tim, and they're there working in the background, helping organize, helping do the stuff in the background, keeping the DEF CON group site and activities that we're planning in the future, keeping that going. It's like we're having meetings. We're discussing what we're going to do. We want to plan like some quizzes and maybe some other activities that we can do on the website that can be more engaging for the DEF CON group community. We're planning some, hopefully, a really big surprise for the next DEF CON, DEF CON 26. I think that would be really cool if we can get that off the ground. I don't want to talk about any more because I don't want to jinx it. But we are working on getting those things done. I'm thinking 2018 is going to be a really phenomenal year for DEF CON groups. I'm really positive about it. I last year's status update wasn't as positive. It's like, but I think this one, it deserves to be. It's like we had a really good year last year. 2017 was a phenomenal year. It's like 2018 is going to be one as well. It's like we're going to see more growth. But it doesn't matter if it grows. It doesn't matter if DEF CON groups gets more DEF CON groups. It's what we're doing with it. It's like, if we're engaging the community, are we getting people involved and getting people to connect, not just once a year at Vegas? It's like, are we getting more people involved? It's like, so that's one of the key things that I really appreciate and I think that we're doing really well is we're going beyond just having another DEF CON group at it. But we're having these groups that are at it engaging in their community. It's like engaging other hackers. It's like being part of something. It's like an enjoyment. I've had so many people come up to me and talked about their DEF CON group meetings. He said this, yeah, I've met people in my area that I didn't even know about that were involved in it. And we've had a really great time. That's what it's about. It's like that kind of community, that kind of spirit is what we're trying to foster with DEF CON groups. And I think it's doing really well. And I think we can only just keep doing better. It's like, we need to keep doing better. We need to keep engaging. We need to do that outreach. But not just within our community. We need to engage more out of our community. It's like, go outside our comfort zone. Help DEF CON groups be that connection to your local community about what hacking is and what hackers are. So we want to start doing that a little bit more as well. And one last note we're going to be doing is also we're going to be not setting up rules. It's like not writing them down. It's like we're doing the FAQ, the guidelines. It's like we're going to start actually finishing, not finishing, polishing them up. It's like adding to them, making more detail, giving more guidance on exactly the dos and don'ts of a DEF CON group. We don't want to have any kind of inopportune moments that we've had in the past. So it's like, we're going to define that more. We're going to make it more transparent. We're going to, you're going to know what's happening in DEF CON groups at least once a month. You're going to get an update. You're going to hear what's happening. And with your help and with the community's help, it's like it's just going to keep getting better. It's like, so expect more wonderful, upbeat videos from different DEF CON groups from all over the world. Expect more status updates, more updating on what's happening, how many groups are changing, what the metrics are. And hopefully you can be part of that. It'd be a great thing. So once again, thanks for watching through all this. It's like, as you can tell, it was unscripted. It was just something I wanted to get off my chest and wanted to make sure that we had something out there to let you know that it's going to be a great year. And you're not alone and we're doing some really good work behind the scenes. It's like, which hopefully will become a little bit more apparent as the months go on. So thanks again. It's like a happy hacking and see you at DEF CON.