 You're witnessing a miracle unicorn event right now because I'm not supposed to be here. But here I am. Hey. And since I'm not supposed to be here, I have no fucking idea what's going on. We have slides. Okay. So let me just tell you a little bit of the history of DC 101. It's gone up, it's gone down, it's changed. But really the idea is when we created DEF CON or when I created DEF CON, everybody just kind of learned from each other and we've gotten so large and we've gotten so many sort of myths and stories that we want to assemble a team here to sort of explain what's real, what's not, how to get the most out of the con, what we're trying to do with the con, what we're not trying to do. And you'll hear this phrase over and over at the con and it's kind of cliche but it's sort of like the con is what you make of it. And what we're trying to say with that is look around, like how many thousands of people are here. You'll get lost in a sea of people unless you find a way to make the con your own experience. And we try really hard to do that. So for example you'll notice you'll be like in a room of thousands of people and you're like how am I going to, what am I going to do? Oh I like physical security, oh I could do tamper evident contest, I could do lock picking, okay lock picking, oh I think I want to try low security locks. And next thing you know you're at a table with ten people picking locks, right? So you went from like tens of thousands of people to ten. And we try really hard to give you all these sort of like off ramp experiences where you can go find other people that are interested in what you're interested in. And then you're done lock picking, boom you're back in the crazy stream vortex and you land somewhere else on hacking airplanes, right? And so if you expect the con to come to you it might not work out so well for you but if you just show a little interest and get into a couple of these off ramps you'll meet amazing people. By show of hands who was in line con? Yeah, okay were you scared? Did it turn out okay though? People were probably pretty cool to you in line con, right? That's like the earliest moment of socialization, right? It's okay to ask questions and it's okay to make new friends. So that's kind of what's going on with line con. Now it wasn't planned that way, it just happened because you had to sit in the line con for so long. But in the end it's part of what it means to sort of attend def con. So with this panel we mix it up every year but we want to show you how different people have experienced the con and their advice. There is no one magic perspective, right? It's so large. Around def con 3 I think at first I was really angry with myself because people were coming up to me at my own conference and telling me about things I did not see. And I felt like I'm missing out, like what is the point? All these people are having these great experiences and I'm hearing about it second hand. And then at def con 4 I'm like oh no, that's a good thing, right? More of that. And so now sometimes I'll just secretly scroll on Twitter and I'll be like awesome, that was cool. I have no idea what just happened, you know? And I think you have to sort of take that approach. Okay, so I want to hand it off to Nikita who def con would probably not happen without her organizational capabilities. So with that, Nikita. Thanks, boss. Yeah, so I just wanted to introduce some of the people that are on the panel. Actually we talked about maybe them introducing themselves. So we're going to start with... Hi, I'm Mar. Okay, hi. You've got to be really close to the mic. Hi, I'm Mar. I am the badge designer this year and I do art around con. And you can see it in the hallways and on the signage and stuff. Hey, I'm Kirsten Renner. Everyone calls me Krenner. I had a cooler handle back in the day but didn't stick. I'm mostly known for helping start the car hacking village. This is our ninth year. Good evening. My name is Dilo and I'm the chief of staff for the SOC. Hi, I'm Five Penny and I'm the chief of staff for the SOC. Five Penny and I'm the vendor lead. Hi, I'm Megan Wu and I am the DEF CON workshops lead and also in charge of DEF CON workshops CFP. Thank you guys. I said you were the merch lead and I heard and I'm a liability. Okay. Mar, would you like to come up and talk a little bit about the badges in the art? All right. Hi. Okay. So, like I said, I'm Mar. I did the badges this year. So I just want to talk to you a little bit about how you can interact with them and what they're all about. Okay. So, okay. So the badges, if you've noticed the shape of them, there's a difference between the inhuman and the human badges. The human badges are a little bit wider and the inhumans are a little bit skinnier. The reason for this is they're penrose tiles. Penrose tiles are pretty geeky if you go on Wikipedia and fall down a rabbit hole about them or if you come to my badge talk tomorrow. They're an example of aperiodic tiling. So in physical space you can actually put them together into like a big mosaic. So I wanted people to interact that way with each other with the badges. So that's in physical space. If you look on the back of your badge, there's a URL there, it's spux.art. And if you take the little insert that's inside your badge pack and type in the UUID into the website there, there's a huge mosaic that's growing right now. People are doing it and every time we add a new person it just expands. So we're all making this huge collective piece of art together. And hopefully by the end of the con it's massive and beautiful. We'll see what happens. So once you place your tile, you can place it again as many times as you want. So you can get your buddies together and create actual art instead of just sticking it somewhere. But we'll see what happens. Okay, so what's next? Oh, okay, so the lanyard puzzle. I don't have a lot to tell you yet about the lanyard puzzle. But if you look, there's some characters on your lanyards. There's different characters on the different lanyards. So try to put it together and see what you come up with. Okay, and yeah, so overall what I'm trying to do with the badge here is just endless customization. So you have this chamber on this type of badge, even on the other type of badge, if you didn't get one of these thick plastic badges, there's a little sleeve. And the inserts will also fit into that little sleeve. So I pre-released the specs for this little thing. I'm colliding a shard or an insert, call it whatever you like. Add on. Oops, let me drop it on the floor real quick. It's gone forever. No, I found it. It's right here. So if you look on the back of a program, there's a little pop-out insert. So you don't have to create a PCB and be all glowy at con. The ones that I've seen are really amazing and you guys are super creative. But you can draw your own. You can cut it from acrylic. Really anything you want to show off who you are at con. Okay, and then on that note, the last thing I want to talk about is galleries and self-expression. So there's so much art that we see in the hallways and so much creativity. And hackers and artists are just so similarly brained in a lot of really interesting ways. And I think that we should be seeing more of that and give it more of a dedicated space. So we've been talking about having like a more dedicated gallery space for the kind of art that you're making in coming years. So keep an eye out for that. And that's all I got for you. I'm sorry I can't stay for the panel, but thank you so much and I hope you have a blast. Okay, hey, I'm Kay Renner. I'm going to tell you a funny story and I'm going to roll into how that story, you can take it however you want on how you may customize your experience and kind of enrich and enhance your engagements, everyone that you're meeting, whether it's at a talk or in a line or at a village, some of the best engagements are going to be just in the hallway, how you might not do what I did unless you want to have an interesting story 15 years later. And then I'm going to give you a little peek behind the curtain into Village Ops. And then you can kind of imagine when I saw name a couple things that kind of are involved in setting up a village and I'll forget a whole bunch of things. So multiply it in your head and then imagine that there's 40 some odd villages. So I'm telling you about one and then multiply that time is 50 and then whatever the appropriate multiplier is as you compare all the things I've got going in my head compared to what I don't know Nikita has going in her head when people don't even let her walk down the hallway. So there we go. So here goes my story. The person who it's about promised to pretend they remember. I hope they do actually. So I'm getting on the plane. Somebody handed me some books and they were like, you should read this. And one of them was Art of Intrusion. And I was like, what am I doing? What does hacker mean? What is DEF CON? And I'm doing my research. And I actually read hackers for dummies. And I'm looking on websites and now don't boo me. At the time I was a recruiter. I was given a list of people to recruit. And the first rule is, well, first of all, raise your hand if you've never been here. It's frigging awesome. Welcome, welcome. OK, so someone said what you're going to do is you're going to connect to some people that have done this before. And those people will kind of help guide you through and everything. So that's my first tip for you. If you're following Ray Redacted's redacted hunt, flag five is to remember two things I said, all right? So connect to someone who's been here before to kind of guide you through stuff. They'll let us know if it's an actual emergency. In the meantime, I'll talk faster. All right, let's go. All right, so fast forward. I met some people who were amazing. I was very fortunate they kept bringing me to cool places. And I was just kind of soaking it all in. And I end up, DEF CON was at Rio at the time. This was DEF CON, I want to say 18. I highly recommend, by the way, going on YouTube and watching Kristen Padgett's Extreme RFID, Extreme Distance RFID demo. So that demo was happening on the 30th floor of the Rio. You actually remember? OK, all right. And then I just ended up in the room, right? So I'm looking around and it's exciting. There's camera crews and everything's fun. And I see two people that look familiar. And I'm like, maybe these were people I was supposed to recruit or something. I don't know, but they look familiar. So I just walk right up to them and go, hi, I'm Kirsten. You look familiar. And it was you and you were talking to Dan. And you were very polite about it. You were just kind of like, I don't know if you probably don't remember. He goes like this, perfect example. And then they just went back to their conversation. So I'm glad I added to your content there. But so just real quick, so that's funny. That's cute. Gave you something to talk about. But I could name a whole bunch of people. I don't even have to name their handle. I could just say their first name. And you know, you all know exactly who they are. And I'm not going to go down a whole list of people because I didn't get permission from them all. I'm not speaking on their behalf. This is my opinion, but I did get permission from a couple. So if you see Jason, you expect a hug. And he's kind of obliged to give you one, right? That's a thing. And if you see Katie's beautiful pink hair, you want to pick her brain. I can tell you with 15 years of experience, everyone wants to do that. And she's very generous of her time. This is a community united by a passion and a love for teaching and learning. So everyone that did the research to build the content, to give the talks, they're constantly trying to build content for you. And they're very generous of their times. And the bulk of this is on the backs of volunteers, right? So you're going to notice things that are broken or wrong in your experience. I kind of recommend, well, letting us know. We need to know if it's broken or bad. And then you could offer to help. And then you could start becoming a contributor, right? You can start becoming a part of the community by offering your ideas and your suggestions and things like that. I keep thinking it's like I said a code word, and it's like, you got a point. I'm fucking winning over here. You're a winner, winner. I am winning. All right, so that's about it. I don't know if this is in the Big DJO slide. Still investigating? Already. OK, and then the last thing I'm going to say is everyone you're talking to, make sure you take a moment to look around you and meet people. Could be the next person that you're going to hire. Could be your next best friend. One day, I accidentally met the CEO of my next company. Pretty cool, huh? So you're surrounded by greatness, and enjoy your show. I know you. Hi, everyone. My name is Dilo. And like I said, I'm the chief of staff for the SOC department. Here with DEF CON. I've been with the SOC for 13 years this year. In my real life, I'm a teacher. So I believe that you should be able to read the content without me reading it to you. I'm just going to add so that you get value add instead of being talked down to. So the 3, 2, 1 rule, these are guidelines that we ask you to follow. Three hours of sleep a day, two meals, and a shower. Friends, this is Vegas, and it's hot. Please shower and use deodorant, and we love you. Also, because we're in and out of air-conditioned rooms, we're in and out of the heat. Concrete is real. We all go home with the chesty cough, and it's just gross. How can we work against that? Follow the 3, 2, 1 rule, and definitely take those showers. Wash your hands. Use sanitizer, hand sanitizer frequently. And then also, maybe limit handshakes. Maybe do an elbow pump or a fist pump or something. I work with kids, so we do toe taps. You know, keep it fun and maybe not transmit so many germs. Do I just call it an additional? I also talk really fast, so sorry. We also have this safety third rule, so know your boundaries, know what works for you. We are in the desert, but the SOC is really the Department of Fun Enforcement. So we want to make sure that you have fun, and in order to do that, we need to ask you to do a couple things, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. And also, drink some electrolytes. If you're gonna drink some alcohol, it is DEF CON, people did shots. Follow that with some water, alternate back and forth. Make good choices. And then also, try not to put yourself in danger. If you find yourself in a situation, it happens. Look for a red shirt. All goons wear red shirts, but not all red shirts are sock goons, so if you find yourself in a situation, ask a red shirt to put you in contact with a sock goon. We will gladly meet with you, talk with you, find out what you're upset about or what kind of help you need. And in addition to that, as a part of our SOC team, we have the hotline. So if you, DEF CON believes that your mental and physical health are important, sorry, I'm just reading a note. Here are some reasons to call the hotline. Are you struggling with a mental health issue? Are you feeling scared or worried about your physical safety? Do you want to voice the concern? Would you like to report a code of conduct violation anonymously if you preferred? We have a phone number, it's up there, all the places. We also have a Discord channel called DEF CON Hotline and there's an email that you can email your concerns to at safetyatdefcon.org. Those are all the ways you can find the hotline. So also in terms of safety, these hallways, we've got stanchions and we've got flagging tape and people are walking in different directions. Just take a minute, put your phone in your pocket, look up, look where you're going and try and stay to the right. That'll help traffic move easily. And let's talk about some respect, friends. Because you know what, we are a community and we all just really are here to learn and get to know each other and get to know more about the community. So let's be mindful that when you're taking pictures, please, if you're gonna do it, I mean we know you do it. There's a photo policy, we ask you to follow it. There's a whole code of conduct thing, so maybe read it and try and follow it. But if you're gonna hold your phone and you're gonna take a picture, be obnoxious about it and be like, hey, I'm about to take a picture. If you don't wanna be in it, turn your face away. If you see someone's pointing their camera at you, turn your face away. If you noticed that someone took a picture of you and you were very uncomfortable with that, please say something. Hey, excuse me, you know what? I really wasn't prepared to be in that. Do you mind deleting it? Friends, if someone comes up to you and says, hey, could you delete that? Be nice, be respectful and say, you know what? Sure, not a problem. So that we're respecting each other. That would be really great. Let's see what else. Don't be afraid to get to know the people around you. As you're introducing yourselves, you're standing in lines and you get to meet new friends. Be approachable, hey, you know what? It was so great to meet you, can I give you a hug? Consent is key, my friends. Say it again for the people in the back. Consent is key. So, if you're gonna hug, if you're gonna touch someone in some way, please, please, please ask for consent because if you don't, then they call us and then we get to find and talk to you. That was it for me. So, I'm glad you guys are here. Thank you so much for asking me to be a part of this panel. This is, like I said, this is my 13th year but this is my first time speaking but I have to go back to work after so I did not take a shot. So, everyone could raise a drink and take one for me. That would be great. Thanks. Hi, I'm Five Penny. I am not much of a public speaker so I'm gonna do my best here. Okay. So, this year we have vendors as well as exhibitors. Exhibitors are a new department for us. They don't sell anything. It's more kind of like a classic trade show and they sponsor the non-profits that you will see throughout the vendor room this year. The vendor room also has, the vendor room has a non-profit corner that you guys should definitely check out and visit. You see. Thank you guys for being so supportive. I'm definitely an introvert. Didn't know I was gonna be doing this. So, we also have communities in the non-profit area of the vendor room this year. Some you will recognize such as Wisp and in the vendor area, you'll see a lot of stuff out on the table. The vendors are very friendly. They want to talk to everybody about their products but that doesn't mean what you're seeing is free. So, definitely when you're talking to the vendors, engage with them. Make sure that the swag is available to take and it's not actually a product. I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it. Hey everyone. So, as you all know, we have a lot of content across all of the properties. Here's at Caesar's, Hera's. Link? Link and Flamingo. Obviously as the workshops lead, I usually don't leave Flamingo a lot since that's where our workshops are at. But what I would recommend as we get into the main days of the con on Friday and Saturday and then before closing on Sunday is take some time and review the program, the schedules, the list of things, the talks, vendors, contest and events, all of that and try to pick a couple of things that would interest you. Download the HackerTracker app so that way you can stay on top of things and also hop on to Def Con Social or the forums and try to find out what other folks are interested in, what they're doing here at Con. When I started coming to Def Con, Twitter was pretty brand new so that was how we would like find out where everybody was congregating, which bar everyone was hanging out at, what talks folks were most interested to see, what villages were doing the coolest stuff and then we would meet there. So Def Con Social is kind of taking that place now and if all else fails, have a backup plan. So we have DCTB playing across a lot of the hotel properties and we have five channels and it really beats standing in line, especially like Saturday morning when you might be a little hungover or the end of Saturday afternoon or Friday afternoon if you're feeling really overwhelmed, especially as a lot of like introverts and amberverts where we're surrounded by people, they're constant stimulation, we just need a moment but we don't want that FOMO. We have DCTB and we also have Twitch. So at main stage we have four main tracks with about 120 talks. There's something for everybody but not all talks are for everybody. So as well as being the head of the workshop CFP, I'm a member of the main stage CFP review board and what we try to do is take all of the proposals, review them and try to figure out what's interesting, what's novel, what do we think that you as the attendees might have the most interest in. So we ask that you guys keep that in mind and don't heckle the speakers, especially since a lot of us, like I said, are introverts and amberverts and it's hard enough to just get up on the stage. So if you have a question or a comment, save it for after the talk, approach them, be like, hey, let me buy you a coffee or beverage of your choice and let's, like I have some questions or I want to talk about your talk. Most people are really receptive to that and it's less hostile than being heckled during like your first DEF CON talk. Then we also have workshops. So this year we are located at the bottom floor of the Flamingo. We have five sessions a day on Thursday today, Friday and Saturday. They usually run from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. And we cover everything from red team, blue team, mobile app sec. We have our first policy workshop this year and so we're really excited about that. Most of them sell out within minutes. This year we had a couple that sold out within hours. So it's really hard to get a seat in them but on the forums we do have a thread that people, if they're canceling their pre-redge, they let folks know like, hey, I have a ticket for sale, not for sale, but for swap and I can transfer it over to you if you want to go to this workshop. Otherwise we don't have a wait list. So please don't fill up the hallway. We would really appreciate that. And now it's Nikita's turn. Thank you, Megan. Okay, I'm gonna talk a little bit about some pro tips, some advice I thought I would put together after asking someone who it was their first DEF CON and these questions came up. So that's why they're here. After I finish my portion of the talk, we're gonna open up to a short Q and A. There are, there's a mic in the center aisle here. So if you have a question that you wanna ask, you might wanna consider lining up for it in case it gets long, I don't know if it will. So one of my advice is don't forget your con badge. We're not going to replace it if you lose it. If you lost it, we're sorry for you, that's really bad but we're not gonna give you a new one. If you are walking around with a counterfeit badge, we're gonna take that out and Sock's gonna have a couple of conversations with you. If you are coming down to the parties, bring your badge. It is required. A lot of people dress up, they don't think about it, they're wearing nice clothes or dresses or cosplay or whatever and you forget to bring your badge and then you have to take the long walk back and it sucks, ask me how I know. So the gentleman I talked to about said, what's the one thing you used to forget to do all the time? And I said, not get too drunk. So after I was done working, I would go out to the sky boxes or the parties just like anybody else and before you know it, you might have had a little bit too much and one of those experiences in the Riviera, I was the mobile bartender. So I had a messenger bag, I don't advise you to do this, by the way, at a messenger bag lined and filled with ice, disposable cups, mixers and various forms of alcohol. So people would come up to me and say, hey, make me a drink, sorry boss. And I would do that and I would take the straw and I would taste it to make sure that it was okay, yet never sample your own product. It hit me like the wave of the heat when you exit out of the airplane. And I said, I gotta go, I gotta go, I, peace out. And I almost didn't make it to my room. I ran into a goon. I wanna say his name was John Cue public, but I'm not entirely sure. And he was like, oh yeah, we're not gonna leave you alone here. So he helped me get to my room, but if something feels wrong, like if you have a suspicion that I've only had one drink, why do I feel like this? You might want to go and take a rest, maybe talk to a goon, say I don't feel good, something's wrong. And then they'll take it from there. They have a whole process and checklist. But yeah, that was a funny story for me. Just passed and they advised on. Sanitary supplies, tampons, menstrual pads, they're in both bathrooms. You can use whatever bathroom you identify with. This year we have a sticker wall. Please use it. Please. Yes, please use it. And the last thing that I wanted to tell you about is how to get the most out of DEF CON. And what I would say for that is don't be hard on yourself for having to do certain things. Like you make a plan and you're like, no, I'm supposed to go here, but this vortex wants me to go hang out over here. Just go with the vortex. If you go where your heart wants, you don't have to feel guilty about missing a talk. We'll publish it online for free. You can watch it later. Don't feel bad about not getting to visit one of the 32 villages. It's a lot. It's over, it's half a million square feet. So there is a lot to walk around which reminds me wear comfortable shoes. Don't think, oh, these are nice sketchers, air walks or whatever. They have to get you miles. Some of our goons put on 14 miles a day. So it's a lot of walking and it's a lot of moving about. But back to that. Some of you are here because you're employer. Yeah. Okay. He said it twice so we could get applause twice. Yeah. Okay. No, no, no. I was sorry. So some of you are here because maybe your employer decided to foot the bill this year. And that's fair, especially if you're new. It's a safer bet to give us a chance to experience it when your employer is paying for some of the bill. No judgment. However, don't think about what does my employer want to see from me when I get back? Like what did I learn? Because you are going to be really overwhelmed with all of the information and the things that you learned. So instead, try to look at it as what did I learn? I can learn. What things interest you and inspires you to make something better at work or for your team or to inspire you to take on a new project, which leads me to this question. When you're walking around DEF CON, I want you to think what do you want to spend the next 12 months doing for your employer? Until you come back. A lot of you will flip from one end to the other and you'll see lots of things and get inspired to want to make a contest or do that thing better. We will be opening our call for contests almost immediately after the close. Thank you. No. I'm talking. OK, thank you. It's funny, it's like I'm the person that can text to make that go away, but I'm on stage. OK, so yeah, our call for contests will be opening almost immediately after the con is over. We have forums that currently have a whole bunch of different channels where you can interact with the contests now. If you want to contribute to what they're doing, grow upon it, add upon it, reach out and interact. There's nothing wrong with introducing yourself. That's just normal hair. Nobody is too unapproachable or too big or too rock star. That's not the culture that we support. We support knowledge and engagement and walking into a village knowing nothing and walk out knowing at least one thing. So no, I think we have a lot of time left on the clock, but if we'd like to open it up to any questions, you could yell really loud or go to the mic. Thank you. Questions? Oh, OK, go ahead, sir. Let's see if they'll turn on your microphone. Testing. OK. Thank you all for putting this on. In terms of FOMO, is it pretty safe to assume that all the main stage talks will be recorded? And then what about the villages and the talks there? Yeah, so all the main stage talks will be recorded and captioned in English and then published later at some point as fast as we can. And some villages, I think you do know which ones? Yeah, there's a few villages that are having recorded talks in our Track 5, which is kind of like near the contest area. So some talks from Car Hacking Village, AR, XR Village, a few others. And there are some individual villages recording like AppSec and I honestly can't remember, but they do exist. OK, thank you very much. One question. OK, anybody next? If not, we'll just tell you stories. OK, so raise your hand if it's your first DEF CON. I know. Raise your hand if you're international. If you're what? OK. Now raise your hand if you're a fit. Ah, I saw it. Oh yeah, how do you decide when you add more villages? So you might have noticed some people talking. We constantly are sort of renewing and changing villages. And villages come and go based on their size, the maturity of their group, maybe the people who put together have moved on with jobs. So everything's in sort of constant renewal. But we've tried to put a focus on villages to be hands-on. So the villages aren't just another speaking track, but you can walk into a village, do a thing, and then you're like, hey, I just learned how to do the thing. And that's sort of the idea of a village. And so sometimes people will tell you about how it was three years ago, but we're really trying to get more hands-on in villages and trying to move conversation talks and other kinds of events into different spaces. So what we do is we look at all the villages we have, a new submission will come in and we'll see, well, what's the history of the people involved? Is it a good idea? Like, what was it? Like the automated marijuana growers village. You know, and you're like, what is that? And you look at it and it's like, oh, it's automation, it's industrial control, it's all these microcontrollers. And you're like, oh, that's pretty neat. And you try it for a year and you realize nobody really wins. People got those skills in other villages. And you're like, okay, well, that didn't work. So we'll give that space to somebody else the next year. So a lot of times we give you just enough rope to hang yourself and try it out. And if you show improvement, we'll give you more space. And that's why when you see villages that have a lot of space, that's because they've been repeatedly really good at delivering. And small villages don't mean they're bad, it just might mean they're new. And we follow the same thing for contests and events. But as Nikita will tell you, there's only so much space and so we have to make really hard decisions about which villages we're accepting. There's a bunch of villages we would want to accept we don't have space for, essentially. Boy, the base is really kicking. So I actually bothered to come find a microphone. But as a first-timer, you got any cool swag you wanna give me because I bothered to ask? What is it? Does it get a prize, some swag for the answer for a first-timer? I thought maybe you were saying first in line, in line. No, but you can buy a car-hacking village badge in the morning if you get there fast enough. And our team is back to the future, that sucks capacitor. Thanks, guys. Yep, thank you. Yeah. Hi, I went to ask, so I have some experience in things such as safe spaces and stuff like that. And so the SOC team sounds interesting to me, even though this is like my first time at DEFCON. So my question is, how would someone join that or in how much experience would they need to have for it? Yeah, so your question goes more to how do you become a goon? And it'd be interesting to hear everybody's stories on how, if they are a goon, how they became a goon because there are many paths to goondom. Yeah, so let me just take that. Okay, hi. So there are a lot of different departments that have goons. Like I said, all goons wear red shirts. So some of you have a lot of interest in certain things and like you said, you might be interested in being a SOC goon. What I recommend is that I personally recommend that you tend a minimum of three DEFCONs as an attendee before you think about even coming on staff. And the reason is this, every year DEFCON is just a little bit different and we grow so much in that time and you have the opportunity to see and experience and learn new things. And what you think today might be really interesting. Next year you might learn something else. You're like, oh, but I kind of like that too. So it gives you a chance to learn and see and really kind of get to know what the con is all about. And then I would say, meet the people who do that job. If you are interested in becoming a SOC goon, meet us, say hi to us, ask us why we do what we do and find out if it's really for you. Because it sounds really fun until you realize that friends I got, I did not follow the three two one rule. I got one hour and 38 minutes of sleep yesterday because it took that much to get my department going. I have a department of 150 people that keep you guys rolling through the weekend. So there's a lot to do. If you enjoy being on your feet for 12 hours a day and standing in a three foot space, answering the same question 85 million times a day, then maybe the SOC is for you or info booth. But if that doesn't interest you, then there's a lot of other things that you can do. But again, I would say observe, experience, ask questions. Thank you. Hi, sorry. I just have a quick question. There's a few talks that I'm really interested in. They are the virtual hospital in space, hacking reproductive health, the microbiome. They all said that they're virtual talks, but I can't seem to find the links for them. And I'm just wondering when I can watch those. Have you checked on Hacker Tracker? Yeah, they're on Hacker Tracker. They just said they're virtual, they're listed for midnight last night, but there's no other information. Which village is it? I think it's the bioengineering. Oh, the biohacking village? Biohacking, sorry. They most likely might be on the Discord or on one of their own Twitches. You might wanna check out the info booth and see if you can get a little bit more information from them. They may be able to help. Okay, thank you. He asked if there's more than one way to, more than one path to becoming a goon if we were interested in talking about that? Yes. Oh, ours. Okay, he wants our stars specifically. No, we've never had a talk about that. I can tell you my story, it's kind of funny. If you wanna hear it. My first DEF CON was DEF CON 18. I went to the pool at the Riviera and then we moved to the Rio and then I met a bunch of friends and I was like, oh, hey, okay. So, again, don't do what I did. But I became a shadow goon. I basically kind of watched what they did and I thought, you know what? I have a lot of really interpersonal experience and I have a lot of crowd control experience. Once upon a moon I worked for Disney so I can move a crowd of people. And so they just were like, all right, clear this hallway. And so I did and they were like, okay, cool. Come back tomorrow. So I did that and then I have a personal motto and my personal motto is how can I make your day better? And so that really kind of, I kind of went into this talk with, hey, how can I make your day better? And they were like, hey, how can you not make our day better? And I basically started, this was back before the no outside food or beverage was really enforced. We all remember those days. I used to hand make homemade sandwiches and lunches for the sock goons back when we were at a department of 75. So I made 75 meals for four days, 75 meals a day for four days for our team and that was how I could make their day better which was to keep them fed and hydrated while they were on the floor. And as I did that, more and more things became evident that things needed to be done within our department and so where there's a hole, I'm gonna fill it. So I just started taking on new responsibilities. And here we are 13 years later. I'm the chief of staff for a department of 150 and we're one of the largest of the DEF CON departments. So it really does show like, you just have a skill and you bring it where it's needed and then you find a hole and you fill it. Hi, yeah, so this is my first DEF CON and I was pretty surprised to see so many people and especially so many people carrying cash and paying in cash. So I was wondering about the backstory of managing cash. So first, did you ever think of switching to something else like for example, Bitcoin or just outright credit cards or whatever? And also, how do you get all that cash out? And I mean, what do you do with the cash? Is there really a problem? Yeah, that's pretty sus of you to ask. Yeah, I know, I know, but that's why it's entertaining. I mean, I think it's entertaining. It would be entertaining to know. It is a production, but it is a classified production. But I would say that one of the reasons why that we have our registration system as a cash-based by design is to protect the privacy of people that are otherwise unable to or concerned about putting their name in a registry that could then be subpoenaed or collected. That kind of has always been the culture for Jeff. Sorry. You know, things are really good now. There's support and encouragement. We've got policy, village. We've got people wanting to interact with us. But back in the days when Jeff started this and for quite a while, it was, you didn't want the feds to know who you were. They were a little bit out to get you, my goodness. But as far as cryptocurrency is concerned, no. Thank you. Thank you. I think it was mentioned in the DEFCON documentary. At one point, the hotel we were staying at, Alexis Park, there was some sort of, we never knew what it turned out to be, but it was a counterterrorism investigation, supposedly, and they pulled the records of everybody that stayed at all the convention hotels and anybody that paid with a credit card. And we never even got a subpoena because it was so well-known everything was cash, there was nothing to get. And so that probably saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees by just not collecting it in the first place. So I'm a big believer in this whole like, if you can't protect it, don't collect it, because it saved us. And real quick, to the person who asked about the schedule, Hacker Tracker already heard your question and are already fixing it. Yes? We want people waiting in line at the microphone to get priority just so everybody can hear them. Adi, I've got a question from the Discord. Someone wanted to know about what went into the decision for forming communities and how does it affect the communities, villages, exhibitors, et cetera, divide. And then also what communities are there? Wow, spiking is weird. Yeah, so the community idea is sort of a work in progress, but the idea is, what's the EFF? We put the EFF in the vendor room and they would, for donations, I'd give you some stickers and stuff, but really they're there to grow their community and explain to the community what is the EFF doing? What are they working on? What are their priorities? And then you would have other community groups, right? You would, oh, say again? Yeah, you had women in WISC, Women Information Security Professionals. You would have other groups that are organizing and trying to find other people interested in their projects. You would have, say, maybe, what was the university? Yeah, UAT, but you would have people that were clearly not selling something so they're not really a vendor and they're not really running a contest, but it's really important that they find their people and communicate with what they're doing, ACLU, whatever. So we decided, what we were doing is we were taking communities, essentially, enforcing them to fit in either the vendor zone or a village and it just, it wasn't working. And so instead what we need to do is listen to what their needs are and if it's just tables and a place to meet and talk, then why force them to follow all the requirements for a village? So that's what we're trying, right? We're trying to figure out the needs of communities that wanna meet and organize, but aren't really selling a thing or running a track of, you know, hands-on. That's the idea. Hello, hi. First DefCon, glad to be here. Thank you for everything you guys do. I've got a kind of important question, though. So in the book that I got, it basically said, okay, goons are wearing red shirts and they have on-hours and off-hours and when they're on-hours, they don't drink and then they have off-hours and they can drink. Obviously, everybody wants to buy a goon a drink, but that didn't really discuss all the rest of the staff that aren't wearing red shirts. A number of you up there aren't. What's the policy that applies to the rest of you as far as drinking? Yeah, so I mean, I don't drink during con-hours. I don't know if Nikita does. She probably shouldn't. Fucking with you. Just fucking with her. And so to your first part, the red shirt. Some people, we don't wear red shirts because if we did, we would never be able to get down the hallway. And so as like the HQ staff, the staff that's responsible for paying the bills and making some of the stuff happen, it's really important that we get around quickly. For operational departments, yeah, they need to be visible. And sometimes people do drink and if you see it, I don't want you to knock them out, but we definitely can't have drunk goons in red shirts. That is no, no, no, no, no. That's a huge liability problem. That's not what we're about. So if you do see violations, please let us know because we need to be held accountable. And if you don't see us being held accountable, then you're not really gonna back us up, you're not gonna believe what we say. So we try to create a system where we have a code of conduct, we have a transparency report to show you that we're holding ourselves accountable. And you'll see in that transparency report every year, usually we let a goon go, right? Because they've misbehaved. So the rules apply to us just as it applies to everybody else. I can definitely say that there's a reason I didn't take a shot. Like I said, first time speakers take a shot, but I have to go back to work. And so I felt like that would be violating the piece of paper that I signed when I came here that said that I won't drink while I'm on duty. So I hold myself accountable to that. I hold our team accountable to that. I don't let the SOC goons drink in the red shirt. If you see them off duty, we all have the red badge. So if they're in a red shirt, that means they're on duty and we're here for you, especially the SOC team. We are the Department of Fund Enforcement. We wanna make sure that you are having a good time and that you are safe. And we can't do that if we're inebriated or under the influence in some way. So we just try to hold ourselves to that standard. Other departments I also believe have kind of the same conduct because we signed that code of conduct that says that we're not going to be inebriated or under the influence while we're working. So, but again, I can't speak for other departments. I just speak for SOC. Okay, well, thank you. We're gonna wrap it up now. Last question. Oh, yeah. Oh, I thought it was you already. Yes, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, just one clarifying question about how badges work. Like, I also knew that cash was the main payment method, but seemed like these year people that pre-register, play with card got like a full real badge, but people that pay a bit cash got the paper badge that doesn't even have like the puzzle or any of their interactions. So how does that work? Well, it's not supposed to work that way. Unfortunately, that's how it's worked so far. So what happens is one of the things that we can count on is when people pre-register, we know they're coming, they've given us money. And so we know how to allocate the resources. And so as we were getting bad shipments and then we started having problems with the badge manufacturer, we had barely enough for the people who even pre-regged. We don't think of the pre-regged people as anything different. It's just, it happened that the number of pre-regs was just slightly less than number of real badges we got. It's not a policy or anything that they get it and others don't. And so I'll talk about it more tomorrow. We're still getting more information from the manufacturer who has been very, very slow, I should say. Right now, we're investigating flying somebody in an airplane to physically fly on Saturday with more badges from the manufacturing facility. I mean, we're trying every angle we could possibly try. And as we get more physical badges over the next couple of days, what we'll do is we'll swap out the badges for real badges and we'll just keep doing that until we've run out of people on airplanes. But, you know, thank you. Okay, oh, you're sneaking in a question? No, you're not. Okay, great, okay, so I wanna thank you all for coming. We're all approachable if you see us, but if you see us heads down running down the hallway, please don't be in our way. We might storm right over you. Again, it is what you make of it. I hope that's something you take away and, yeah, no, no, I thought you were gonna say something. No, no, no. That's okay, and so one thing that we try to do when you're thinking about the difference, what's the difference between DEF CON and say any other InfoSet conference, when we do look at villages or contests or events or anything, we always say, is that hacker? Like, it doesn't have to advance your career. Being here is not necessarily about upskilling yourself for your next job. Here's where you recharge your creativity and try something new and meet new people, and so that's why we sort of try to be, that's what we mean when we say more hacker. Your company doesn't care if you learn how to hack a PS3, but here it might be really fun, right? And so that's what we're about. The mindset, not necessarily the latest, you know, attack against an Oracle database. So thanks a lot. Thanks to the panel. Thank you. And see you around the time. Thank you.