This has been a crazy couple of years.
A global pandemic turned DEF CON 28 into DEF CON Safe Mode. Some easing of the restrictions and some strict attendance rules gave us a hybrid con for DC29. An improvement, to be sure, but something short of a full DEF CON experience.
We want DEF CON 30 to have the energy of a reunion. We’ll be back togeher in a brand spanking new venue. We’ll be thirty years old - an amazing milestone for a hacker conference under any circumstances. In honor of all that, we’re calling DEF CON 30 ‘Hacker Homecoming’.
The first reason is that it’s literally a return home. After two years of separation, we’re looking forward to having more of our family under one roof, under the Vegas late summer sun.
There’s also a North American tradition called ‘Homecoming’. Secondary schools and colleges invite luminary alums back for a big celebration of the school’s history and a toast to its future. We intend to do just that for DC30. We’ll have some surprise guests from DEF CON’s illustrious past on hand to talk about the amazing places their life has taken them since joining the DC Community. We’ll also be laying out some of the map forward from our 30th Anniversary.
So please join us in the Caesar’s Forums if you can, and on the Discord if you can’t. Maybe even pack a fancy outfit for the homecoming dance. It’s high time for a reunion.
Design Inspiration
This year’s theme is about celebrating the past and getting geeked about the future, so we’re looking for smooth integration of old school hacker stylee with future vibes.
We took the color palette inspiration from arguably the most iconic DEF CON image of all time: the rooftop photo from DEF CON 1.
The photo is amazing for any number of reasons, but the most important is that even though it screams early 90s hacker culture, it also shows some of the essence of what DEF CON is even in the 2020s. It’s still a gathering of extraordinary digital misfits going Voltron in the Vegas night.
The fonts were also selected to be like a homecoming celebration, with some reverence for the past, some excitement about the future. The past is represented by the very 90s CityPop and Geom and the future by the futristic minimalism of Open Sans.
Homework
As always, we’ll be sharing movies, books, music and other random media to get you in the right frame of mind for maximum DEF CON. This year we’re even giving you an extra few months to get through the syllabus. Watch the DEF CON site for additions to all the lists. Pencils UP!
Movies:
Sneakers
The Imitation Game
Zero Days
Books:
The Shockwave Rider
The Cuckoo’s Egg
Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground
The Cult of the Dead Cow
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