Hey, it must be Vegas. — *Hey, it* must *be Vegas.*

It’s the summer, and that time of year when there is a collective groan over “the good old days” when DEFCON and even Black Hat were young and things were, well, “better than they are now”.

Things change. They don’t always change for what I perceive to be “better” but the main thing is that they do change. In fact if they don’t change, someone will try to change them anyway as they suggest things to “improve” the rougher edges from the past - so they will at least try to change.

I think this is exemplified in the Infosec world with the conferences of Las Vegas which include DEFCON and Black Hat. The arguments are that it’s grown too big, forgotten it’s roots, invites too many Feds to speak, invites any Feds at all, is too catering to special interests, is too politically correct, is too politically incorrect, shouldn’t be on the strip, and on and on and on. The main argument is that people have their version of what they think it should be because they had a particularly good set of memories and a good feeling from a past year, and changes have occurred that prevent that exact event from happening again. Or at least that’s the main argument.

Some will read this and start citing principles or doctrine about ethics or hacker standards, and while I deem that as valid to a degree, that simply does not mean one cannot have a good time or make a difference.

When those awesome memories occurred many years ago, there was plenty of bullshit in the world around us in the hacker community. There always has been. Maybe for a particular weekend a decade or two ago we managed to have a memorable time that we can appreciate for years and years to come, but instead of bitching about why things have changed and citing that as the reason you cannot have fun or seriousness or meaning in your conference life, adapt, or better yet, hack the situation.

Use that hacker mindset to get your statement made or get your con groove on, within the constraints of what you’ve been given to work with. That’s what we do, we make something happen where others said it could not.

I am not encouraging someone to do something stupid like ask people to show their private parts for a shot of alcohol or some other thing that we shouldn’t have allowed in the first place. I am saying figure out a way to work within some fairly tight guidelines and create some new memorable moments. We can do this, we’ve done it before, we can do it again.