The sixth installment of the annual hacker convention, Notacon happened this last weekend. It drew the same crowd as other hacker cons like Defcon, Shmoocon, and Random but as the name implies, Notacon wasn't like the others. The general subject for the talks asked the question, what would geeks like to hear? So it ranged from rules of the board game GO to SQL injections to silly internet videos to healthy cubicle life to hacking consumer routers - all over the place.

The scene was the same as a standard con with all of the same characters we've grown to know and love. Because the talks were all over the place, some people didn't have interest in listening to them. This lead to more off the field antics where you had more time to take in the Lockpick village, check out HackerSpaces.org and the guys from PumpingStation:One, hang out with Deviant and have a go at his Gringo Warrior. There was a guitar hero/karaoke/Commodore64 game room that was a lot of fun. There was also a pirate radio that asked anyone to just walk in and talk.

PS:One

I don't get to really talk about these guys to many people around here because it's completely out of context in Rochester but Pumping Station One is the newest if not the only open hacker space in Chicago. One of the founders Eric who helped start HacDC teamed up with Rogue Clown and many others to create a not for profit organization, hold regular meetings, and find their own space which they just signed the lease for. You'll see a lot more of these hacker spaces popping up as the HackerSpaces.org team becomes more and more organized and provide templates for other people around the world.

Check them out here: http://pumpingstationone.org

DualCore

Dual Core is a nerdcore group from Cincinatti. Int Eighty is the rapper/frontman for the group and happens to show up at all the popular cons. If you haven't listened to them you may have the assumption that oh it's just another one of those nerdcore groups that focus on geeky lyrics and lack rapping skills but you'd be wrong. Eighty is a seriously skilled rapper who is into the hip-hop scene and the hacker scene. It's like if Emminem and Kevin Mitnick had an illegitimate child together. You know it'll be a party when DualCore is there.

External Links

http://notacon.org/ - Notacon's website

http://dualcoremusic.com/nerdcore/ - DualCore's website

http://pumpingstationone.org - PS:One website

http://hackerspaces.org - HackerSpaces.org

There are a lot of people already blogging about their perspectives of Shmoocon this year so go check them out if you're interested. I wanted to dump some thoughts for posterity.

Shmoocon rocked. I haven't really heard any perspectives that would disagree. Most of the people that went, knew what to expect and I think it lived up to those expectations.

Shmoo VS Defcon

Every year 9000 hackers - er I mean security professionals - turn out for Defcon. The culture ranges from script kiddies to 1337 h@x0rz and from overpaid business men to Feds. It's all over the board. Usually once you get there, the crowd partitions off into separate factions. Skiddies look for things to hack (see steal), 1337's start working on the challenges, business men keep track of their receipts, and Feds quietly hover in a cloud of self-content. Good times are had by all that know how to have good times and the technical information in the talks is very informative.

In contrast, Shmoocon had a gathering of 1300+ people with less skiddies and Feds, and more of the in between. There were a lot of black shirts and alot of business casual. The aren't as many talks as Defcon but there seems to be more of an open community. In my opinion it seems friendlier.

What seemed to be the best part was the smaller amount of people in a smaller area which made it more likely for the same people to be in the same place over and over. Same thing with the parties. Smaller parties, same people attending. But anyone that can throw a party in a church is pretty awesome in my book

Lessons Learned

1. Script the registration to get lower costs - it's very unlikely that someone clicking register now over and over again can beat a multi-threaded instance of curl.
2. Play the contests - there are a lot of cool contests and games that not a lot of people play. If you're good at that stuff, you're likely to place somewhere
3. Don't make fun of the Steel Workers Union's Mullets - learned the hard way (sorry Sysmin)