Now where was I in my ramblings? Oh yeah… presentations and DefCon music.

What I have always admired about DefCon content is that it is not exclusively about computer hacking but rather about hacking more as a way of thinking. In line with that, one of my favorite presentations was by Aaron Higbee entitled Hack Your Car for Boost and Power which discussed numerous ways (yes, some computer-based) of boosting a cars horsepower. He covers many areas of tuning and even touches on privacy concerns with the on-board ECU.

I also very much liked Peter Gutmann’s talk on The Commercial Malware Industry but one of the best talks was by Lukas Grunwald’s Security by Politics - Why it will never work. Lukas, for those who don’t already know, is a quite clever security researcher from Germany who discussed what happens if security is driven by politics and compromise. He also covered additional security risks by the new generation of electronic passports. Lukas is simply brilliant in the areas of RFID and ePassport security. It was a very though provoking talk.

Many of the other talks were great but those really stick out in my mind (aside from our own Toralv and Dirk).

The Black Ball, another DefCon staple, was equally a hoot. Music was great as I have been a fan of Regenerator for quite a while now. They and the other DJs (Patrice, Wintamute, SailorGloom, Great Scott!, Catharsis and Kris Klink) are all worth a Google or two. Dark room, industrial noize, good beer and latex….. Ahh what more couldya want!

I highly recommend everyone bookmark the following sites: DefCon Forum and DefCon Pics as they will do the best job of post convention updates.

Cheers!