Kait's Adventures

Today Defcon was a bit calmer. I guess people leave early or are too hung over to go to talks. We all went to Schuyler’s talk “Attack the Key Own the Lock”, which was great. As well as “Repelling the Wily Insider”, which was ok. Grabbed lunch at the Pub (a restaurant in the Riv) and watched Schuyler compete in Speed Picking. He made it pretty far, but didn’t win.

After Defcon there was some drinking in the room. I went to the pool for a little bit. We each went to Circus Circus for giant frozen margaritas. Danny went back and forth between staying for the rest of the trip and taking his flight back. It looked like he was staying until at just last minute he lamed out. The rest of us grabbed dinner at the American at New York, New York. We finished the night with some dancing at the Piano Bar there. Pretty good night.

[Edit] Link to Las Vegas Photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/kaitlyn.hanrahan/20100729Vegas#

Saturday at Defcon was ridiculously crowded. The justly-named Goons were not helping by forcing people into the most crowded place, the hallways, as far as possible from where anyone wanted to be. It was impossible to go to more than one talk in a row because you had to wait in line for the time-slot in between.

I only made it to a few talks. Chris Paget’s “Practical Cell Phone Hacking”; “We don’t need no stinking badges, hacking electronic door access controllers”; “Physical Security Your Doing It Wrong”; and Jason Scott’s “You’re stealing it wrong, 30 years of inter-pirate battles”. It between we fit in watching Schuyler compete in Gringo Warrior—didn’t go quite as planned. He also got a mohawk for the EFF.

At night Danny, Dave, and I went to Penn and Teller. It was pretty awesome. I haven’t been to a magic show since I can’t even remember, and never at that at that level. They did a lot of good tricks, including the Magic Bullet. After we got back Schuyler joined us and we went to the Freakshow Party. There Schuyler, Danny, and I did gladiator jousting with pugil sticks on what was basically a bouncy castle. As far as I saw, me and one chick with a mohawk were the only two girls to do it all night, which I found disappointing for the Defcon Girl Crowd. There was also lots of dancing. Turns out dancing with a group of your guy friends if just as fun as dancing with a group of your girlfriends.

[Edit] Link to Las Vegas Photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/kaitlyn.hanrahan/20100729Vegas#

Today is all about DEFCON. I went to the Keynote, which was Max Kelly the former facebook CSO; Open Public Sensors and Trend Monitoring; FOE, the release of Feed over email (a tool to combat censorship); a Meet the Feds Panel; DCFluX In: Moon Bouncer; Psychosonic Attacks; and Getting Root. The Moon Bounce talk was really good. The Psychosonic one was just the right amount of crazy and Getting Root was *all* crazy.

Between talks I finished completes some scholarship documents and have an official offer letter now. Still have a few details up in the air though.

After the Defcon goodness we went to the Hilton Buffet. Its close by and has free beer and wine. Pretty good! Then we headed downtown, where I hadn’t been before. There the casinos are older and closer together. Everything is cheaper, too. We played $5 craps all night.

[Edit] Link to Las Vegas Photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/kaitlyn.hanrahan/20100729Vegas#