The year was 1998, I was going down the internet hole shortly after I graduated in 98 I was able to build first computer, from my journey I learned alot from windows, linux, unix systems the rabbit hole was a fun place to be in. IRC dalnet and efnet and somehow I discovered there was defcon. I got to meet new people, learn new things. I never drank in my life so I missed out on alot of “special” afterhours parties but the live hacking, the talks, to the music it was like a huge giant hack fest.
Stories of these parties, and other festivities was great. Here is the thing though, people grow up, you know mature. Defcon has matured alot in the years and in the past 10 years they essentially have lost the actual hacker culture it was known for and became more of a ground of random talks of nonsense, the parties has been different, new kids hear the old stories and learn pretty fast they can’t repeat it. Over the years they have became more of an information security / cyber security confrence then anything else, technically I would say the black hat afterparty.
There was a time when I would speak of defcon to any admin or person and they would would treat me as if I joined some elite club of hackers in the computer field. Now I just say defcon and they think I just do cyber security and have no idea what it is anymore other than just disable all communications when defcon is here. No one hacks public wifi if at most people are wireshark’ing for unencrypted data to be placed on the wall of sheep, but that is it. To even run a check on this theory, I ran an honeypot pi for 4 years straight, and not one scan, touch or anything really.
Defcon has it’s own set of rules but never nor less it has became more of a pirate cove, with no honor amongst one another. As an example of my recent realization of said conference, back in 2014-ish a few local friends started up dc702 as the original dc702 vanished, friends all moved away so I was left with starting up over again the dc702, so I attempted todo so. post 2018-ish I worked on rebranding and pushing it to the dcgroups and make it official with doing all the paperwork nessessary. dc702 almost was official, as they asked me to fix little things and I done so but that is where it got weird as I got ignored, I email and email with reapplying and reapplying and kept on trying until recently I gave up and came to the realization.
In this realization of mine is, Defcon has became nothing like it used to be. It feels like it has technically “sold out” and became a generic con to the blackhat after party. The whole punk themed, seemed to have died, it became more of a networking for cyber security and infosec individuals with a vegas after party, that isn’t my scene. Defcon has lost it’s fun and it’s edge, well atleast for me anyways. Doesn’t help that I am extremely burned out with tech and if I have to keep fighting for the old ways especially alone now, well time to bow out.
Defcon will always have a place in old school hearts and have made that memory of being more radical “punk like even” that changed and helped define us more. The day of the old school hackers is dead, what runs the hacker culture these days is the Kali Linux Script Kids where certs defines who you are and your military background and how much you paid to win your CTF scores.