Speaking Engagement: Defcon 15!

Defcon is, according to their own website, “The largest underground hacking convention in the world.” Last year the convention boasted between 5,000 and 7,000 attendees. This year, I’ll be speaking at it.

Before you get too excited, I probably won’t be speaking in front of thousands or even hundreds of hackers. Defcon has five simultaneous speaking tracks going on throughout the weekend. Additionally, the convention takes place over a three-day weekend, with Friday being the least-attended of the three days. My time slot is Friday at 3pm, on track 5 (which very well may be a broom closet — we’re not sure yet). The Friday time slot is both a blessing and a curse; while I’m afraid a lot of people won’t have arrived yet, with our portion of the program out of the way we’ll all be able to enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Presenting along with me will be Myles Long (member of the infamous Cult of the Dead Cow) and Rad Man (founder of the art group known as ACiD). In the big scheme of things it’s a lot like getting to be the third Stooge after Shemp, Curly, Joe Besser and Curly Joe all quit. I’m thrilled to be participating in the group presentation, although I suspect many of the people in attendance will be there to hear anybody but me speak.

The name of our presentation/panel is Self Publishing in the Underground. Myles served at the editor of The Book of Cao (Enlighenment through a Poke in the Eye), a collection of Cult of the Dead Cow textfiles. Rad Man released Dark Domain, a DVD collection of ACiD artpacks. I released my first book Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie almost a year ago. Between the three of us we have quite a bit of experience in DIY (do it yourself) publishing. I’m hoping we’re able to inspire at least one person to put their thoughts, stories or ideas onto some medium and release them.

As with any convention, one of the most enjoyable things for me will be to both put names to aliases of old friends and meet new ones. It should be a terrific opportunity; you can bet I’ll have copies of Commodork in tow. :)