Day ONE (Friday July 12, 2002):

My flight departed to Charlotte just fine. I arrived in Charlotte on time and was waiting for the plane to Laguardia airport NYC. They ended up canceling the flight and moving us all onto a different plane due to "maintenance reasons" Yeah right.. The truth most likely was that the airline could save on a flight by canceling one and consolidating so they did. But I digress.

After a *GAH* 25$ cab ride into Manhattan I arrived and checked into the hotel at approx. 11:00 PM. What a rip-off the taxi was. I paid an assload of money to be thrown around the cab by a guy in a turban whose sole purpose in life is to scare the hell out of people and steal their money. I checked into the hotel and then went to pick up my badge for the con. Wandering up to the desk, I noticed Crispin Cowan was working it. He dug out my speaker badge, had me sign for it, and off I went to check out the conference rooms. I was to be speaking at the "B" room Sunday at 1PM. It was the smaller of the two main rooms but that was fine with me. I didn’t think I would fill it during that time slot anyhow. Too many people will have left for the airport by that point. The main rooms where nice enough, but the network room BLEW. More information on that later.

Went straight to the bar "Bubba Orielly's" (or something like that) across the street. Ordered myself a Capn' and Coke and had a seat. Here I met up with a bearded man with an afro. His name was Tao8. Tao8 is a very interesting guy who was recently laid off from BlackOPS software. He was a game developer and he is looking to move into security coding. I also met another guy there who I can't remember his name. He knew quite a bit about DSS emulation techniques. We swamped stories and we had interesting conversation over the course of 3 Capn' and cokes and much beer for my friends.

At about 2AM, I journeyed back to the hotel to check out the network (CTF?) room. I wasn't very impressed with the room. There was next to nobody there and the people that were there weren't all that interesting. There was however a 22 year old pizza delivery boy that really impressed me. He was playing DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) which at first glance seemed to be running on a Playstation or some other console gaming system. Upon closer examination I noticed it was running off of a PC. OK so he purchased a PC clone of DDR. WRONG. This kid actually was so addicted to DDR that he purchased the PAD off of EBAY for $20 and wrote his own DDR software from scratch using Python. He ripped the Playstation graphics and music and managed to code them to work in his python version. I was extremely impressed. I think he called it Pyddr but I can't remember. It was approx 4AM at the time.

I was quite tired by now so I journeyed up to the room and passed out for the night. Let me take a moment here and describe my room. I was staying on the 17^th floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania, the conference hotel, at a DISCOUNTED rate of $109.00 a night. Which in Manhattan is quite an amazing rate *Shrug whatever*. While it was a VERY large room, it still sucked. The hotel is older then some religions and the rooms showed their age. The doors looked like one of those bowed out doors from a 1920’s movie that takes place in a hotel. That was kind of neat actually. That is until you get in the room and realize that half the lamps didn’t work, there was paint chipping off the ceiling and the water in the shower would fluctuate 10 degrees in any direction without any safe amount of warning. I set the alarm for 9AM. After a shower and breakfast of course, I actually made it to the conference at about 10AM.

Day TWO (Saturday July 13, 2002):

First Tao8 and I stopped in at the talk entitled "Security Through Obscurity" hosted by Greg Newby (Yep Newby nice last name). I really wasn't awake at the time and since I was stupid and didn't bring my laptop or notepad I had no way to really take notes. So while I can say it wasn't a great presentation I also have to say that it wasn't a bad one either. It was interesting and good to have at 10AM. All in all, after the conference was over this turned talk out to be one of the better talks. I applaud you Greg for taking this conference up a level.

Next I went over and caught the "DMCA Legal Update" hosted by a couple of the lawyers from EFF. This was a very good presentation and I have to admit I am more convinced then ever that the DMCA if not overturned soon will be the bane of security professionals existence. There are far too many examples of the government overstepping their bounds and taking liberties that they should be.

Noon. The conference topics for noon sucked. So I went and took a nap for an hour because I was feeling like hell. I have to admit I can't drink like I used to back in the day. Three drinks and I feel like a horrid bump on a log. I needed to get some rest.

I woke up just in time, approx 10 minutes to 1PM, and wandered back to the conference rooms. I was really looking forward to hearing the keynote speaker for the day. AAron McGruder. He is the creator of a VERY popular syndicated comic strip called Boondocks. It is currently in over 250 papers nation wide. The guy is a very politically charged Afro-American studies educated person. His keynote was filled with deep thoughts including the future of censorship the future of America and conspiracy theories. All this information was paired with stand up comedy. I have to admit I did laugh quite a bit at his humor, this makes sense as he IS a comic strip author, however, I did not laugh nor agree with many of his political takes and views on government. He was VERY MUCH anti-Bush even going so far as to call him a true criminal and thief. He also went TOO far as to suggest in all seriousness to overthrow the government. Whatever it takes to achieve reform was the dominant theme in his speech. This guy was seriously fucked up. Good thing most of the people in the room didn't take his revelations completely seriously (for god sakes I hope not anyhow). It is ok to have your opinion and even to display them. I just hope like hell the people in the room were intelligent enough to think for themselves and not just buy into his rhetoric. Keep up the good comics but cut the shit out about politics when you are speaking. Stick with comedy.

So after this rant I felt I had quite possibly felt the lowest of the day. There were far too many cheers to this guys crap. Next up was "The conscience of a Hacker" read by the author himself, The Mentor. The Mentor began his speech with a reading of the manifesto. I still think at the time, that manifesto really hit right on for its topics. He did a really good job reading it as well. He comes from a very similar background as I do and I felt a strong connection with his history. However AGAIN it was far too politically charged. He began to rant many times on the future of the education system within America. You are more then welcome to have your thoughts on the issues but for god sakes don't push it on the members of the audience. He wasn't nearly as bad as the preceding presenter so I managed to just shrug it off and enjoy the rest of his history and background. All in all The Mentor was a good presentation to catch.

On to the thing that PISSED me off the most today. The cDc. It is official now. They really suck. I have the utmost respect for their abilities as coders and some of the members still drop my jaw to the floor from a technical perspective. That being said enough is enough with the bullshit shows at conferences. I made it down to the mezzanine level at about 5 minutes to 4PM. Just in time to catch the start of the show. Well about 30 minutes later they played the LAMEST freakin movie I have ever seen in my life. Some BS handheld camera crap showing GrandMaster Swamp Ratte and the cDc Ninja Strike force singing Brittany Spears songs, doing a mission impossible, and hacking to save the world. Overall thought? Yep it was lame as hell. Another 15 minutes break and they come out with 60 White Castle hamburgers and throw them into the crowd. LAME. They wait another 20 minutes and do a couple of songs and three stupid ass little skits. One of the skits even included how to eat a peanut with a visual interaction of someone choking etc. GAH. MEGA LAME. Nothing to do with anything technical or that anyone gives a shit about. SUPER LAME. Then Mixter gets on stage and gives a 10 minutes blurb expanding on the Hacktivismo project 6/4 Network. Essentially 6/4 is a privacy tunneling network. Overall this was a very good section as it did expand a little bit technically on what they have already released on the project. GOOD. Next thing I know three more nimrods were back on stage and doing a bunch of stupid ass skits. LAME AGAIN. Nearly two hours of standing on my feet in a crappy basement looking room for 10 minutes of decent information. Fuck cDc. You guys are still MAD talented but do away with SOME of the bullshit, or at least make it good, and you guys will climb the latter in many people’s books. I mean shit.. look at your crowds.. the numbers are dwindling at every one of your lame shows. When you have a packed floor at the beginning and over 50% of the crowd is gone by the end of the presentation you should take the hint. Wake up.

Somewhere in here I saw a kinda interesting speech on a new technique on speeding up cracking of passwords and a way to compress the pre-made dictionary. Bah.. I can't remember now.. its too long ago. It was a good speech and it is worth the download from the H2K2 sight when the videos get released.

OK that rant is done and I feel a little better. After that and a quick break outside to get some air I headed up to the talk by the creator of FuckedCompany.Com. Now THIS was a very good presentation. The guy was a bit spastic and very scattered in his presentation but I really enjoyed it and how he has been himself and not compromising who he is in the presence of legal notices and dispositions. I was really impressed with how his ideas come into fruition. Just a couple of the themes I took away from his talk: First of all remember, anything that you create to help yourself that you think nobody else will want, will most likely be wanted by millions of other people. That is so very true. Anything you make for yourself most likely can be sold or at least used as blatant marketing. All in all for such a scatterbrain I highly encourage anyone who gets the chance to see him speak to do so. Also I think I'm going to buy his book, F'ed Companies and something er other about dot com flameouts. It is quite possibly because I lived through and saw so much of this while I was in California that I really did enjoy it. Either way it was one of the better talks of the conference.

I then moved on to check out "Hacking National Intelligence" with Robert David Steele. This guy is just another version of Winn Schwartau. Ya know.. I like Winn, he tries, he is a good enough person at heart (I think), but you know what... his crappy outlook on things is way to negative. Steele claimed to be friends with Winn and had worked on many projects with him. Steele was predicting the fall of the nation based on the fact that the majority of freedoms have been removed post 9/11. Come on now. Seriously, the world is not going to explode, things aren't going to change to be all that bad. One quote I remember is "If you have been with a German traveling executive, you have most likely been exposed to an STD". What the hell kind of crap is that? This guy is so full of shit and self-promoting its scary. I don't give a crap if he has been in the FBI CIA NSA FAG whatever.. that’s his thing. It still doesn't give him the know it all status he is pushing. I wasn't very impressed. I ended up leaving half way through it. (Also wrote 50%) of this review during it. Let's take him and Winn and push them both off a boat far out at sea.

8PM. The night is getting a bit late. I slid over to check out "Negativland". I have NO idea what to expect at this point. They are a Bay Area CA band that supposedly has gotten in lots of trouble in the past from spoofing and hoaxing famous people. As a band their music isn't really music but its very experimental and forward thinking. It is kind of neat to look at video mapped to it but to listen to it as it is, is just so-so. They did have some interesting insights to the media not checking their facts and how easy it really is to make news out of nothing if that is what you desire to do. There was also a very interesting track that included a bootleg stolen piece of tape from Casey Casom (SP) talking trash about U2 and how they are just a dumb band from England and who really gives a shit. It was VERY funny. I advise checking that track out on Gnutella if you get the chance. Make sure to get the "Special Radio Edit Mix". This was a very good talk.

10PM. The final speaker of the night is up. "Jello Biafra's, State of the World Address". Jello was the lead singer of the Dead Kennedy's. More talk about the music industry, the big five syndicate of music labels, and the strangle hold they have on the musician. That people are being force fed the music that the big five decides to feed them. I think he would be a very interesting speaker if I wasn't so jaded and bored with this theme already. 12 Hours of the same political viewpoints really kills you at the end of the day. At this point I am beginning to be worried that my talk will not go over well. I mean my talk isn't the most technical of talks, but it is far more technical then nearly anything I have seen today and it doesn't touch on the freedom of anything political theme of the day. Oh well I guess we shall see tomorrow. OK, Jello got screwed by the Dead Kennedy's but I have had enough of his bitching and whining about how bad they fucked him. Bah... I'm leaving this talk. Time for bed, I wanted to be fully charged for the following day.

Day THREE (Sunday July 14, 2002):

Ended up waking up around 9:45 or so AM. Took a shower cleaned up and headed down to grab a bite to eat. Stopped in at Lindy’s (the hotel restaurant) and even went so far as to have a seat at the table until I read the menu. The price was $3.50 for a glass of orange juice and $12.00 for an omelet. WTF! Uhhhh, NO. I got up and left the restaurant. With the help of the hotel taxi cab guy I found a Deli across the street. $1.50 for a three egg and cheese on a roll sandwich.. Whoot now we were talking. That and two Gatorades later I was ready to rock for the day. It was time to head back to the conference.

The choices for this hour were "Abuse of Authority" or "Digital Demonstrations". Well I chose "Digital Demonstrations". The topic was concerned with denial of service VS. Cyber-sit-in. How do we know the difference? Well, some of his information was very poignant; however the topic really is of no interest to me so I found it kind of dull. I don't particularly care to demonstrate about much of anything so I really didn't care if I was demonstrating or doing a DoS attack. Either way it is something that I don't think I will be doing any time soon. Overall it was a decent talk and an interesting way to put a spin on what is usually a very touchy topic. On to the next speaker!

Well before this talk I thought I had seen it all at this conference. "Conspiracies" was a panel hosted by Gonzo, Leo, and Rev. Sergey. There were three other people up on stage but to be honest with you I didn't catch their names nor did I really care. This was the topic that took the cake. It had to be the lamest thing I have seen in a long, long time. These people made the "Lone Gunmen" from X-Files seem normal. They made Mel Gibson in "Conspiracy Theory" seem like a saint. I really wish I would have broken out my laptop to type in some of the bullshit that they were spewing. All I can remember now (a few hours later) is that one of them firmly believed the US government can control the weather... yep... rain, snow, hail, etc. All I have to say is two words... "Straight Jacket". These guys were out there in left field. I had to leave periodically just to save my sanity and to not laugh in the speakers face (Good thing I was in the back of the room).

My talk directly followed the "Conspiracy" panel. Well at least that was a good thing. The place was empty before I got up to talk so it made my nerves quite a bit less. I didn't have to walk up on stage in front of hundreds of people. Just a mere 50 (roughly of course because I hand counted). I went to check in and there wasn't anyone in the check in room except Gweeds who was preparing his talk for 2PM. It was about 12:45. So I went and stood next to the sound and video guy and turns out he was the guy to check in with. OK.. So organization of the con definitely SUCKED. The conspiracy whacks ended and I took a deep breath and cruised up on stage.

I got a bit of a late start because the whacks wouldn't leave the stage area but once I began it really wasn't all that bad. The presentation, while read pretty much straight from a prepared speech, went fairly well. It was normally a few hour talk that had been condensed into 50 (now 40, damn whacks) minutes so there wasn't enough depth as I and some of the attendees would have liked to have seen. By the end of my talk the entire room was full to the back with people standing. I'm not sure if it was because of my speech or because the ever popular talk on lock picking had let out. I think I am going to dilute myself into thinking it was because I was doing a good talk.. (Who knows but I could always use an ego boost). I had quite a bit of interest in questions after the talk and I shuffled people out into the hall so I could answer questions one at a time without screwing up the next speakers time schedule. (Damn Whacks again).

I got a couple of peoples cards and handed out probably a good 30 of my own. I think there was definite interest generated and we should be able to get additional contributors for the project. I hope. Either way.. it was a lot of fun talking and was quite an adrenaline rush when I had actual people interested enough to ask questions afterward. I think I will have to try this again only at a better venue with a little bit less of the political overtones that this con had. Defcon?? Possibly.. Rubicon or some other smaller con? Pumpcon? Summercon? Who knows.. Only time will tell. (Sidenote: If you have any pictures of me speaking at the conference please send me a copy. I would love to see them. I forgot my camera and wasn't able to get any good shots of the con.)

After the conference was over Etr1gan, Crax, sl0ppy, and a couple of other people came over to say hello. It was good to see those guys again as well. We go way back into the early days of BBSing and IRC as well as some of them and I come from the same AC (315). I chatted with them for a while and then wandered outside for another break and a breath of NYC fresh air. I was considering heading to the airport at this point but decided to head back in one more time and see if I can catch a talk that would peak my interest. Well I met up with Etr1gan and Crax again and got introduced to an online old friend VaxBuster for the first time face to face. That was kind of neat. I met a few other people who knew my brother (TGator) from college. I then caught about 10 minutes of the "Sealand" presentation. Which if you ever get a chance look into this project. It is VERY cool (Although I have to admit I'm not sure of its economic and business viability over the long term... only time will tell I suppose).

Well my friends all just left and I was looking for a reason to stick around the conference. Went into the speaker only area and met up with one of the lock picking guys (never got his name) and one of the cDc guys. Well the lock picking guy proceeds to bash cDc, presumably without the knowledge that the cDc guy was in fact with the cDc. Well I then got the inside scoop as to why the cDc sucked so bad at their presentation. I have to admit it doesn't REALLY save the fact that they are doing to much show and not enough real work, but they did have some extreme lighting, sound, and video problems due to the unpreparedness and incompetence of the H2K2 AV staff. It also sounds like there might be some internal strife within the cDc as well. The person who I was speaking with (Can't recall his name.. I should look it up and update this soon) had done all of the filming and video editing on the short film they started with. He commented how the folks that he made the film with really liked it but the reset of the cDc thought it was stupid as hell and gave them a LOT of shit for it. So it sounds like the cDc isn’t very happy these days. Either way it was a good conversation with this guy as he was very interesting and made me chuckle, A LOT.

Well it was getting a bit later at this point and since I wasn't really enjoying the conference anymore I headed to the airport, got onto standby for an earlier flight and headed home. All in all it was a good trip, the presentation went well, and I got to hang out with some old friends. Not bad...

Overall THEMES and THOUGHTS:

Fuck the government.

The government and the legal system are inherently fucked.

There was far too much politics and not nearly enough technical content at the con.

Whine whine whine.. why the HELL must everyone whine all the time!

Why oh why do people try so hard. I mean isn't the whole thing behind hacking and sub-culture to be yourself. Be true to yourself? The predominant feeling I got throughout the conference was the feeling of everyone trying VERY hard to be something that they want to be and not necessarily who they are. That fact my friends, is very disheartening. It felt as if they were here to learn WHAT they were supposed to think and WHAT they were supposed to feel and WHAT they were supposed to be backing from a political stance. You should back WHAT you believe in not necessarily what others are preaching. Bring the NYC scene back to hacking and you will up your attendance at these cons. Get rid of the political overtones and quit trying to brainwash our hacking culture. We have enough followers and not enough people being themselves.