I am writing this blog post as part of the Black Hat Bloggers Network topic of interest #2.
I guess you could say I am somewhat of a Black Hat n00b! This will only be the second time I have attended Black Hat in my security career. I have been to quite a few security related conferences in the past (most of these involved training as well as conferences all integrated into one event like SANS Fire) but since coming back from Black Hat last year I discovered the value of attending a conference like Black Hat. Three things come to mind as to why someone should go to Black Hat:
1. Great speakers! Seriously, if you want to “be there” when new vulnerabilities and exploits are released to the security community by some of the greatest security researchers in the world…that’s Black Hat! I liked how conference attendees were able to “vote” in advance for selection of the talks this year. I felt this added real value to the great speaker line up for this years conference!
2. Good mix of “black hat”, “white hat”, and everything in between (gray hat) attendees. With a little more on the side of “white hat”. This adds to the whole energy of the conference and allows some good networking opportunities. Black Hat is probably the one security conference where your company won’t think you are just going to another “hacker con”. For example, you can say to your boss “Hey, they have a vendor show with XYZ company that will be there!” Lucky for you if you are using the security product of XYZ company. Not to mention XYZ company will get you a pass to one of the cool after parties (for more networking of course…). 😛
3. Free admittance to DefCon. As a paid Black Hat delegate you get into DefCon for free! How can you beat that? Stay at Caesars Palace in a luxury suite the whole week and attend one of the best hacker con’s in the world! I could do a whole post on how great attending DefCon is but in short it’s awesome to see even a more diverse crowd then Black Hat of the good, bad, and the plain ugly! Not to mention the “spot the fed” and all the other fun games and activities unique to DefCon.
Can’t wait to go this year and to also network with some of the other bloggers in the Black Hat bloggers network! Hope to see some of you there (and at DefCon 16).
Nice, I go to Defcon each year, and can’t wait for it this year. I learn so much being around other like minded geeks that really ‘think outside the box’ (and don’t just use that as a buzz word phrase in meetings). I submitted a paper this year for the first time, and I never would have if it wouldn’t have been for me attending DC – I really get a lot out of it. Would like to try out Black Hat sometime as well, but for now I’ve only gotten sponsorship to cover the DC costs. No matter, it’s going to even better this year, they have all the rooms, no other cons going on, so it’s Riviera all the way. I’ll be dropping off some cash at the EFF booth, and prob buying some other vintage system to lug back on the plane. 😉