Hitting the Desert Deck: My Return to Hacker Summer Camp
To many that brave the Las Vegas August heat, Hacker Summer Camp is a great way to meet people, catch up with old friends, learn new things, and so much more. Hacker Summer Camp is comprised of three security and hacking-themed conferences that happen back-to-back: Black Hat, BSidesLV, and DEF CON. Black Hat and BSidesLV kick off the week, and DEF CON—the premier hacker con—finishes out the chaos.
Since Black Hat has grown into a mega “corporate” powerhouse, I haven't been in years. While it’s still a good conference for some, I can't justify spending the top dollar when you have the much cheaper—and arguably better—BSidesLV. That’s always my go-to choice to start the week.
This year’s BSidesLV was a little different, actually starting on Monday instead of the traditional Tuesday and concluding Wednesday afternoon, so effectively we got an extra half day of talks. BSidesLV (and really, all BSides events I've attended) remains one of my favorite conferences. It offers high-quality talks, maintains a small and personable vibe, and features nothing overpowering from vendors. The icing on top is accessibility: miss a track, or have two overlapping talks you want to see? No worries—they record everything and quickly publish them to the
Then, it was on to DEF CON 34—by far my personal all-time favorite security con.
DEF CON has its typical talks, parties, entertainment, and contests (all tracked over on the
Speaking of badges, this year’s
A few new things since I have last been (DEF CON 32 was the last one I went to): 1. the quite talks - the main talks were streamed to headsets (don't worry they had wipes/covers to keep germs at bay) making it super easy to hear the presenter but more importantly made the venue as a whole much quitter and with 35,000ish people in attendance quite is good. 2. They banned smart glasses. Inline with their no photo/photo consent policy, they did not allow any form of smart glasses on the DEF CON floor.
Beyond the talks, the real heart of the week is the people. Hacker Summer Camp is just as much about the human network as it is the technical tracks. Between catching up with old friends I only get to see once a year and making new ones over shared niches, the hallway track is where the magic happens.
In fact, some of the best conversations don't happen in the presentation rooms at all—they happen in line. Whether you're stuck in the legendary LineCon waiting to get into a venue or participating in CircleCon (that spontaneous ritual where a group of folks just form a circle in a crowded hallway to shoot the breeze, swap stories, and debate tech), you end up meeting incredible people. Standing in a circle with strangers who quickly become friends is practically a core conference tradition at this point.
As with most Hacker Summer Camps you leave with more T-Shirts than you came with; my favorite being the one from White Knight Labs - it said "I came for Hacker Summer Camp and stayed because the Giraffe whale told me to". First what a funny quote but they also had a cute graphic of the "Giraffe whale" drawn by one of children of WKL Great way to get your kid's art work out to the public :).
After a relentless week of learning, networking, LineCon standing, and CircleCon chatting, heading home is always a mix of total exhaustion and fresh inspiration. Until next year!
