h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thursday last I gathered with my crew to descend upon that den of iniquity, Las Vegas.

Personae Dramatis:
RTP h4x0rs
Calvin
Mavus
Turbo
Dee
Vincent Chase
JT
Dr0p (me)

n3wly w3ds
SEA
Daisy

SLC Buddy
JL
As we were attending a hacking convention, we were using pseudonyms. No sense in allowing people with malicious intent to have our true identities.


We gathered at the airport to begin our adventure mid morning. I had my customary two pints of beer before boarding as I *hate* flying sober. The flights were bumpy but uneventfull. We get to Vegas where we meet up with JT who took a seperate flight.

We pooled our resources to get a limo to take us from the airport to our hotel, stopping on the way (of course) at a liquor store to gather fuel for the coming weekend. By the time we get to the hotel, I am fairly smashed. I needed to get some calories in me before I got sick from all the drinking I had already done. We walk over to the hotel that our conference was to be held at, and paid for our badges. We arrange to meet a colleague for dinner at a small place just off strip.

Dinner is at an Italian restaurant of dubious virtue. It's schmaltzy and seedy. Dinner was hardly spectacular, but we did indeed enjoy the company of our colleague (who picked up the tab as she was there on official business). We then decide to walk the strip.

We go to the Bellagio, we go to Treasure Island. At both places we see the spectaculars that they are known for. I part ways with my crew as I am meeting friends from Salt Lake and L.A. My smaller group of friends decide to go on to the local bar that a buddy of mine frequents. We have a few more drinks and catch up. The night is done, so we all go our seperate ways.

Friday Morning.
I wake up early like I am often known to do, and I shower and dress for the day ahead. My crew does the same and eventually we make our way over to the convention area to find that all talks are two hours delayed due to the ineptitude of the LV firemarshall. There is a huge line to get badges for the con, in which we find JL. My coworkers all go to find breakfast and I hang out with JL till he gets through the line. We grab a bite to eat at the buffet and then start looking for SEA and Daisy. Eventually we locate them where we just hang out till the talks begin.

I won't go in to detail about the talks, if you wanted to hear about them you would have been at Defcon.

Amature Capture the Flag begins. We initially wanted to just poke around a bit and then go on to other talks. When we get there we find that we don't have network connectivity, so I run to the vendor area and buy a hub. This allows us all connections into the network to do our dirty work.

aCTF is King of the Hill. Once you pwn a service, you get points for it based on the difficulty rating of that box. A service on Level 1 gets you one point per mintue. A service on Level 10 gets you ten points... We see one team get a service on Level 1 fairly early. We poke around for a couple of hours and I decide to go to In-n-Out Burger for lunch for everyone. When I return I see that we are in second place and gaining on first! This kept us going in the CTF game for a very long time. We hacked and hacked. I bribe the organizers with a bottle of whiskey for their favour. Set up some protection from getting pwnd and then left to play. Later that night I revisit the aCTF area and I get a couple of hints that there is more that we could be doing with our box. We go to the Orleans and gamble. Some of us visit a gentlemans club for a while. Mostly we just had fun. (much drunkularity ensues)

Saturday Morning.

I am drunk. Still drunk that is. I get up, shower, browbeat Mavus, JT and Calvin into going to breakfast. We then go back to aCTF. We are now third place but still in the running. At any given time of that day someone was working on the systems. We start getting more points thanks to my social engineering the night before.

I go to more talks, meet up with some unexpected former coworkers from a very long time ago.

It's time for the wedding.

JL and I pick up SEA and Daisy and go to the wedding chapel. I am honoured to say that I was allowed to act as wittness. It was a lovely little ceremony, and I am quite happy for them. We take a limo to meet up with my wayward friends. More drunkularity ensues.

Sunday.

Some sleep in. Others go shopping. I go to a couple of talks and meet up with the contest organizers. It's decided the night before that the standings will be frozen as the ranking s are very static. We win 3rd place in the competition and get a robot kit to play with and some t-shirts.

We then make our way back to the airport and fly home. Other than a long layover and a very late landing in RDU, it was an uneventfull trip.



I took away from this weekend a new appreciation for those that I work to keep out of networks. I learned about my friends. I learned about myself. It was a great experience I can't wait to repeat.

You often get to witness civil ceremonies, don't you?

I don't know about often. So far I have seen one.

This was in a chapel. There was a minister doing it.

Maybe I should say smaller ceremonies then.

Wow. I think I understood some of it.

If I may ask.

What is Defcon? I have a vague idea I've heard the word in the film Warplay or Wargames? A security or alert level?

At this conference you were hacking to get to know your job from the other side, so to speak? To compare, like a police detective planning and executing a crime.

What were you hacking? A set-up site?

>>I took away from this weekend a new appreciation for those that I work to keep out of networks. I learned about my friends. I learned about myself. It was a great experience I can't wait to repeat.<<

Those are the best experiences to come away with from a convention attended.

T, Defcon is a hacker's convention. www.defcon.org
In the aCTF contest we were working on servers that were set up with services that had known vulnerabilities. It was a closed network, no laws were even bent.

drunkularity

Great to hear you had a fun time Marv

I note that I neglected to talk about the 54 ounce margaritas.

Oh
My
God....

They are insane. I had one and got trashed off of it. It made paying attention to the talk I was attending very very difficult. I managed to have a good conversation with the developer of Bastille OSX after his talk, however. I'll be using his implementation soon and urge anyone who uses OSX to do the same.

Marv, the important thing is that you stayed sober enough to find the airport and the correct flight back to RDU.

I'm so glad to hear SEA's wedding went off as planned. I'm also glad there was no mention of bungee jumping Elvis impersonators. That is soooooooooooo undignified.

..54 ounce margaritas..have you met U150392 Mother of God?
Glad you had a good time Marv

I'm happy you didn't marry someone you shouldn't while you were at the Chapel

..bungee jumping Elvis impersonators?? Where does this happen? and why didn't you tell me while this: A11814888 was in Peer Review?

Marv also neglected to mention taking myself and Daisy to see a bartender friend, who mixed us daquiries with waaaaaay too much alcohol in them. Not that they weren't good; quite the opposite. But two of the shots were 151, and so sea ended up quite wasted off of one drink.

sea = extreme lightweight

But yes, there was much, much drinking, and very little sleeping. I was very thankful that I was neither hung over nor drunk at my wedding, but as for the rest of the weekend....

Much fun was had by all. I hardly understood any of the talks, but I'm totally going next year!