HIR Issue 8: DefCon 7.0: Preparation for the Annual Exodus
By Asmodian X
<summary>
DefCon 6.0 Was held in Las Vegas Nevada august of 1998. A few months earlier, my self Axon and Frogman had planed to come. Axon and Frogman had actually done more planning than I did at that point. I was however still early enough to reserve a room and procure a cheap direct plane to Las Vegas Nevada with days to spare. As I always say, "Never Underestimate the power of the last minute."
<Objectives>
As always, it could have gone smoother. I should have came in closer to the actual days of the conference. I also should have prepared better for the events. Not to mention for room-mates, food ..etc.... At DefCon 7.0 I plan to be better equip for the main event, and to compensate for problems that may arise.
<Information on con>
DEF CON 7.0 will be July 9-11th, 1999, in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. The con will be held at the Alexis Park Hotel and Resort. Updates on the progress of the con will be posted at http://www.defcon.org. As always, The early bird gets the worm.
<Steps Taken>
Some of the problems I ran into were purely biological. When some ones diet changes, some times gastro-intestinal problems arise. Im definitely bringing some Pepto with me. Also, I don't care how cheap the food is, buy grocerys. It is also very dry down there, and very hot. <Duh its kinda in the middle of a desert dude> When you go for a walk, drink often, and drink water, not beer.
Another issue was manoeuvring around the city. Fortunately Axon and company had driven and I could bum a ride off of them. But Taxi's are not cheap, consider going to get supply's en masse.
In the way of cash, Don't use credit, just don't, use cash sparingly, travelers checs are a safe bet. You usually need 40$ just for the con. Id keep 15$ a day for food, keep 50$ for emergency travel cash, 60$ spending cash is another one. Bring about 195$ in cash < maybe 40$ in cash and the rest in trailers cheqs> The rooms will cost about 79$ per night possibly 250ish after taxes. Then a person can get air fare for around 180ish, depending on location. For the cheapest fare, check out www.cheapfare.com to get quotes and even buy the ticket online. In the way of cash, Pull together 600 bucks.
In the way of a computer system to bring, Im hauling the new and improved AEGIS.ORG. A 486SX 33 laptop with a 200 Mb HD 20 Mb of ram with an external cdrom, zip drive and of course all of the PCMCIA fixins. <ie. NIC card ...etc> This Year AEGIS will hopefully join both Axons and Frogmans Laptops. We will attempt to do a firewall with the laptops under one IP address and if there is an attack on the Firewall system, we will just INIT into a new configuration where each laptop has its own IP on the hacker subnet in the Capture the flag contest. (Divide and conquer) <the contest costs 2$ to enter and get an IP> I will attempt to master a few cd's with enough pre-compiled hacks and scripts, not to mention tools, toys and utility's to be able to whoop some major arse. This next conference we will also utilize the secured shell for checking e-mail.
I also Was concerned about leaving my equipment out un-attended whilst I check out a speaker or two. I suppose If we set up a kind of storage locker for holding the equipment whilst we are away that would solve that problem. It would have to be either collapse-able or something that could be carried onto the airplane as carry on luggage..
<conclusion>
Hopefully with more planning we will be able to actually utilize our time better so that we can get more out of the con. And perhaps tack down a few servers while were at it :)
(eof)
