bean

Okay, I've been back from Defcon for a good 24 hours now, so I should probably update...

It was great seeing everyone again, and meeting some of the Hektik guys for more than a couple sober moments this time. Shalome and I really didn't take that many pictures this time, I think largely because we spent a lot of time in the pool (it was seriously a billion fucking degrees all weekend) and didn't want to run the risk of getting the camera wet and/or stolen.

We had a lot of fun, though.

There were some really incredible talks, like one called Hack The Vote, which was essentially a report on just how fucked up our current voting system is (including stories of "disappearing" votes, altered votes, cases where counties reported 112% voter turnout, etc.) by Bev Harris from Black Box Voting, and a challenge to do something about it from Rebecca Mercuri.

Also incredible was the always-a-wonder-to-watch Dan Kaminsky, who presented a talk on his new work with the DNS protocol, including using DNS servers all over the internet to cache streaming radio programs, tunneling ssh over DNS, and the danger of unmonitored DNS attacks. That was wild.

Oh yeah, and then there were the kids who drove out to Vegas from Cincinnati or something with a 9 foot satellite dish on a trailer and shot a wi-fi network connection 55.1 miles across the desert, un-amplified, during the wi-fi competition.

The craziest part though was when Shal and I were talking with Dan Kaminsky one night, and one of his friends came up to talk to him, and when I introduced myself he recognized my name from the Defcon artwork challenge, in which I entered a design for the room key cards.

Now that I'm really swamped with work, and I've got all these new toys and tools to implement, that ought to keep me busy for awhile.



bean!