My First DEF CON ☠
At first, DEF CON was just a security conference to me. Something I was going to attend to explore the world of hacking and security, see what it was all about, and come back with a few stories.
It turned out to be one of the best few days I have had in a long time, and I think I might be going every year from now on.
DEF CON 34 ran from August 6 to 9 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, West Hall, with more than 30,000 people attending. I pre-registered early and the ticket was $560, which is the early bird price and includes the badge itself. If you skip pre-registration you can still walk up and pay $520 in cash at the door, which is the LineCon tradition. This year’s theme was “Agency”, which is about self determination in how we use technology, and by the end of the four days that theme made a lot more sense to me than it did on day one.
Walking in
The moment I stepped in, I never once felt like I did not belong. All the cool and nerdy people in one place, building things, breaking things, and trying to figure out how everything works.
Before coming here, I was told to switch off my WiFi, my Bluetooth, and basically everything, so that I would not get hacked. That scared me at first. But once I was inside, it was not scary at all. People were welcoming. Yes, there were people everywhere with all kinds of devices, maybe hacking, maybe pulling data, maybe just having fun. But nobody was out to get you.
For what it is worth, I did use WiFi the whole time. The advice I got from people there was simple: either stay on a VPN, or use the official DEF CON network. DEF CON runs its own secure WiFi where you register a username and password beforehand and install a certificate and profile on your device, so your connection is properly encrypted and you are not trusting a random open access point. It takes five minutes to set up and it removes most of the fear you walk in with.
I got to talk to a person who was walking around in full gear, picking up nearby Bluetooth and WiFi signals and showing them on a small LED display strapped to him. It was so cool. I saw people carrying fox hunting gear, people wearing badges they had designed and built themselves, and finally I met a person with more than 10 chips implanted in his body. They worked as different things: a password manager, a YubiKey, even magnets. For me, he was a living cyborg.
It was overwhelming at first. Then it settled down, and I just started having fun.
A note on talks, since I did not attend any
This might sound strange for a conference writeup, but I did not sit in a single talk.
That was on purpose. Multiple people told me that as a first timer, the talks are the one thing you can get later. Every session gets recorded and uploaded, so I can watch any of them from home. What you cannot get later is the floor: the villages, the contests, the random conversation with someone who has been doing this for fifteen years. So I spent all four days out there instead, and I do not regret it at all.
If you are going for the first time, I would give you the same advice.
Day 1: Getting my bearings
Day one was mostly me exploring the place, since the day was dedicated to badge collection and hanging out. No agenda, no pressure, just walking around and taking it in.
Later that day I went to the MSRC party at Bourbon Steak House. It was invite only, and my brother Keval and I were invited because of our continuous contributions to Microsoft security. It was a great evening, met a lot of people, and it set the tone for the rest of the week.
Day 2: Villages, and the sentence that changed how I saw them
The next day we went village hopping. Car hacking village, cargo hacking village, ship hacking village, satellite hacking village, lock picking village. My first honest reaction was confusion. Why is anyone teaching this out in the open?
Then one simple statement made everything click:
“Everything we teach here is to teach you about the vulnerabilities that exist all around you.”
That reframed the whole conference for me. It is not about breaking things for the sake of it. It is about showing you how much of the world around you was never built to be secure in the first place.
That same day we competed in the 5N4CK3Y CTF, which is also where I experienced LineCon for the first time. LineCon is the running joke at DEF CON where people queue for hours just to get one small thing. We worked through challenges to pull radio messages, grab a QR code out of the 5N4CK3Y vending machine, catch IR blaster rays on a Flipper, and play a small game to find flags. Five challenges in total, and the reward was a special badge from the vending machine.
Later that evening we went to the Red Team party at the Asylum arcade and bar in Area 15. Great party, but the real highlight was that I met NetworkChuck there. That guy has been a blessing since the day I started my homelab journey. Meeting him was something I had wanted for a long time. Networking god himself.
Day 3: Three hours in a line, and worth every minute
On day three we finished the 5N4CK3Y challenge, which meant getting into LineCon again. We stood there for three whole hours to get the badge. Let me tell you, it was worth it. Major thanks to Keval, who helped me through that first CTF.
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We also took part in the Adversary Village CTF and finished #14 out of 50+ teams. That felt good.
The villages I will not forget
Lock picking village, where I literally learned how to pick a lock.
Social engineering village, where I watched live calls of people competing to get information out of strangers using nothing but manipulation and confidence. Seeing how quickly someone gives up information is something you do not forget.
Physical security village, where they teach you how to get past hotel doors, RFID scanners, and all kinds of other doors.
Bug bounty village, and honestly every other hacking village I walked into, all of which were completely mind boggling to me.
There are roughly 30 villages, and most of them run their own contests and CTFs on top of everything else. Recon Village has an OSINT CTF, Call Center Village runs one around social engineering and AI agents, Capture the Packet has a whole beginner to advanced pathway, and Cloud, AI, and IoT villages all have their own. Four days is nowhere near enough to do even a fraction of it, and that is part of the charm.
I saw a meme on Reddit that felt very real for my case: you decide to go to the conference thinking you will learn about security, and by the end of it you realise there is nothing like security in this world.
The badge
Did I tell you about this year’s badge? It is a piece of work on its own. Bunny, the person who designed it, did a fantastic job. The DEF CON 34 badge is a boachip that can also be used after the event as a password manager and a security key.
Every badge has a unique gene with a light pattern, and you can mix your gene with someone else’s by breeding it. You scan their QR code, they scan yours, and the genes combine. It even has a tiny camera, just enough pixels to capture the code. It is a genuine piece of engineering, and I loved it so much, especially for my first DEF CON.
The goons
I have to say something about the goons, the volunteers in red badges and shirts who keep the whole thing running.
I was honestly scared of them before going, because I had read plenty of posts saying goons are rude or aggressive. That was not my experience at all. They were chill, and they helped me out in a lot of places over the four days, whether it was pointing me to the right hall or explaining how a line worked. Keeping an event of 30,000 people this friendly and this smooth is not a small thing, and they are the reason it works.
Thank you to every goon there. You made this event what it was.
DEF CON also has a policy that you cannot record video or take photos that include other people’s faces without their consent. That was new to me, and I respect it a lot.
What I am taking back with me
The obvious answer is a pile of swag and a badge I will keep forever. The real answer is that I now look at my own surroundings differently.
I catch myself thinking about the security side of things now: the devices around me, the networks I connect to, the defaults I never questioned in my own setup and my own projects. That shift in default thinking is the thing I actually brought home.
Next year
I already know what I want to do differently.
Go deeper into the villages I liked this year instead of trying to see everything. Show up actually prepared for the CTFs, because the competition is intense and I want to be more than a participant. And talk to more people, since the conversations turned out to be the best part of the whole thing.
Would I recommend it
100%, to anyone in tech. It is a lovely community where you meet all kinds of people, from a true noobie to experts in the field, including CEOs and CISOs of companies. I felt awesome even after the event ended, and I want to attend every year from now.
So informal, yet so informative.
By the end I had collected a ton of swag and a few extra badges. Way too much of it, honestly. And a lot of memories.
Peace out, until next year DEF CON. Hopefully.
Thank you for reading!
If this was useful, or it made you a little curious about going to your first DEF CON, feel free to share it or drop me your thoughts.
P.S. I’m not a professional writer, and I sometimes use AI to help articulate my thoughts more clearly. The ideas and the journey are all mine, AI just helps me say them better.
