Doing DEFCON My Way

Not sure I’ve told EVERYONE yet so in case you missed it, last week I was at DEFCON! That’s right, Shaun and I travelled all the way from sunny Leeds to Las Vegas via London to hang out with the biggest assembly of hackers on the planet. If you’ve not been before, I figured I should pull together a quick guide to making the most of it…?

Pre-Purchase Your Tickets

…unless you want to stand in a queue for a million years. We joined LineCon (the conference in the line for your badge) at about 6.30am. Luckily, we pre-bought tickets online about 2 months prior to the event so when the kiosks opened, we were able to jump the majority of the queue and I was sat down sipping a Bloody Mary and eating brunch by 7.45.?

I can 100% recommend hitting up Mon Ami Gabi for, somewhat ironically, a traditional American brunch. See also: Cafe Americano at Caesar’s for the world’s biggest pancakes and Chayo for the best Mexican style breakfast I've ever eaten. Ever.

Masks Are Mandatory

…or at least they were this year. I’ve been exempt from mask-wearing in the UK but this doesn’t seem to be a thing in America, which meant every time I stepped in the conference centre, I felt claustrophobic and short of breath.?

The knock-on effect of this was that I spent very little time at the actual conference and an awful lot of time making friends outside of the event, eating brunch, drinking cocktails by the pools (with Jack Rhysider at one point!!), and doing all the touristy things like Grand Canyon helicopter rides and seeing shows.?

We’ve now renamed this “RelaxCon” and I can definitely advise that if you do hit up the conference next year, to make your own RelaxCon day and do something that isn’t entirely hacking related.?

Jetlag is a Thing

…so maybe get there a day early to adjust if you’re coming from outside the US. We woke up at like 4am on our first day, but it felt like night time so we got up and went out for some sight seeing.?

I don’t think we ever really got over the time difference thing so I came up with a great rule that I think everyone should follow in Vegas.?

“Beer on UK time, sleep on US time”?

This basically meant I could wake up, drink beer with my breakfast, have cocktails round the pool at 10am, more beer with lunch, a gin and tonic walking round the casinos having a flutter, cocktails with dinner, and be tired and drunk enough by 10pm to have a full night’s sleep. Bish bash bosh.?

They say DEFCON is what you make of it

…and they’re right. Me and Shaun had very different experiences of the conference. I know this may come as a shock but we’re not ALWAYS joined at the hip so we did do a lot of stuff separately.?

He had a great time in the villages, did some live social engineering, and spent a while teaching others about lock picking. That stuff really isn’t my jam at all. I’m all about the social stuff, so meeting up with people and getting to put faces to all the names I’ve met on Twitter was really what it was about for me.?

I can’t explain just how great a time we had. I implore anyone who gets the opportunity to head over to Nevada to hop on that plane. Whether you spend every hour in a talk (there are enough going on that you legitimately could do), walk round the villages and learn some new skills, or just find your tribe (they’re easy to spot.. everyone has their badge on) and get some drinks and chat through some cyber stuff, you’ll have a fantastic time and the experience will absolutely enrich your soul.?

We're already excited to come back next year!