sauc3I just saw on the corporate hellsite (LinkedIN) that GrrCon is now an "information security and AI conference." Because of course that is where I would read such an announcement.
What a massive disappointment! Every year I watch, "Everything old is new again" from that conference in 2012 by the late Mike "Clappymonkey" Kemp. It becomes more relevant with each viewing, which I used to find calming, and now find depressing.
In the beginning, Mike is shittalking the event separating VIPs and "regular people" - I can only imagine how furious he might be to learn the whole conference is getting in on the "AI" grift. I suspect he'd also find the same XSS vulnerabilities in the same places almost 15 years later, but that's a different rant.
This "AI" grift already started happening to conferences here in California too, which I am sure is no great surprise. Because, again, of course it has.
I think there would be value in getting back to real hacker cons, run by people who actually like this stuff. I think the closest I ever got to a "real" con was SparkleCON at the 23b hacker space indy park in Orange County. They let me give a talk on the intersection of anarchism and hacker history, and it was a blast! I saw very cool makers and people that are doing fantastic work walkin' around, hung out with real smart hackers, and even played some tabletop RPG.
To the larger point, maybe it was a mistake to let corporations feel like they are "hackers too" because they occasionally test pens. Or run hacker tools and pop shells. Perhaps it was a mistake to invite them into places like DefCON?
I suspect the conversation about DC is a little different and more nuanced, it also kinda feels like they are the bellwether, and all the other cons are just following. My spidey sense is telling me that there might be gold in these hills, and perhaps many issues stem from the way DC went from a hacker con to one cheering on the Army and other feds. But, again, ranting about DC isn't the point of this post.
Look, I don't know what the right answer is, but I have a pretty good idea of what the wrong answer is, and what GrrCON did is the wrong answer.
Anyway, I am going to go back to yelling at clouds now.
rye
Brock
Siv Jones
ChiefGyk3D