#DerbyCon Recap

When I first hear about DerbyCon, the tag line was a new type of Con.  It was.  Those who had the pleasure of attending have been singing its praise all weekend.  All the videos and material will be available online (well most of it...hehe) so I am not going to recap that.  I have a recording of the music at Woodstock.  Listening to it on my ipod isn't the experience of being there.  This is my attempt to explain what happened in Louisville over that weekend.  

The #DerbyCon family (and I chose the word family very carefully) took their favorite parts of all of the cons they experienced and put them into one.  The idea of it seems simple.  Keep the good, toss the bad.  The #DerbyCon family hit a home run on this for one simple reason.  They made it a community event.  The result was the embracement by the community.  Everyone was so honored to be a part of this event.  I know I am.  

I want to say thank you to everyone who woke up to join us at 9am on Sunday.  When you see that many people, you get a loss of words.  The irony of this happening before you give a talk is not lost on me.  A big thanks to @coryglenn as well.  For those who missed it, Cory was plucked from the audience for a password cracking demo.  His password was cracked (16 character complex password).  I did catch up with him afterwards to thank him and set him up with a signed copy of the Metasploit: The Pentester's Guide (Dave signed it.  Not me!).  This was his first InfoSec Con.  He has lots of good ideas and I expect to see him as a speaker soon.    


Highlights for me were:  

• Seeing old friends and making new ones
• Picking up my badge:  It was fast and easy like Armitage and in the spirit of Fast-Track, it was finished in under 3 minutes.  
• I didn't have to wait 1 hour for a talk that ended up meh.
• Day 1 had a pause in it from 4-6.  This was key and I hope it is repeated.  Nap Time!  
• MS-08-067 birthday party.  This was organized by Mubix and was awesome.  Con + Cake = Win
• The local hackerspace, LVL1.  If you are in the area, check them out.  They provided southern hospitality at its finest.  They also shared some great ideas for us to take home.  SHAMELESS PLUG: South FL hackers join the broward hackerspace google groups.  http://groups.google.com/group/broward-hacker-space
• Late night chicken and impromptu late night snack and learn
• Missing a talk and finding that person and asking if he would repeat it for me.  (He did)
• Pubcrawls
• PwnieExpress
• Hackers For Charity raising $13617
• GDE being paged to gate B13

My favorite comment of the weekend is below:  

RT @dookie2000ca: Best part of #DerbyCon was meeting people I've admired for years and being treated like a peer by them.

Amen! 

To say that DerbyCon has challenged my preconceptions about the InfoSec community and the Con Experience is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. This is a community that has truly amazing ideas, second only to the amazing people who are involved.

Most importantly, DerbyCon was fun!  Even though the weather was cold (I am from Florida... it was cold), the people's hearts kept the experience warm.  At several times, I forgot I was at a security conference.  I felt more like a family reunion.  The phrase I heard the most was "Thank You!"  Organizers, Speakers, Attendees; everyone was saying thank you to everyone. 

The crew set out to make DerbyCon a place you can call home.  Be it ever so humble, there is nothing like it.