[vcf-midatlantic] 12th HOPE - Impressions?

[Jim Scheef]

This year's HOPE continued the evolution toward civil liberties and privacy that began in earnest 4 years ago when Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg were the keynotes. While Bill is correct, there are little to no traditional hacking, there are still any interesting sessions. For instance, the problems created by the new anti-trafficking law for sex workers. More toward hacking was two guys who analyzed Twitter data to investigate Russian fake news bots (look for "Trolling the Trolls and the Trolls That Troll Them"). Of course there were many sessions about TOR, QUBES, and some guy talking about "Programming 1980s Lego Robotics". Search YouTube for "HOPE 2018". New sessions are being likely being uploaded as I type. Friday nite I stayed up past midnite for the Hacker Spelling Bee. It was run by a woman who knew what she was doing which made the evet a lot of fun.
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic-bounces at lists.vcfed.org> On Behalf Of Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2018 10:40 PM
To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org>
Cc: Bill Degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] 12th HOPE - Impressions?

I did not go this year for the first time in 12 years.  When I went
originally there was a lot more indy hacking going on.  You could buy ICs
on the floor, people distributing exploits on cd's a bid shadier..and it 
was more of a party.  We owned the hotel.  More people actually hacking not
so many walking around with a phone in their face.

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 9:59 PM Ethan O'Toole via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:

>
> What was everyone else's impressions of HOPE this year?
>
> For me, I was pretty exhausted. Guy I roomed with snored a bunch and I
> drank too much caffeene making it hard to sleep. I took the DC Metro and
> Amtrak up which was a new experience (though I have used both before, not
> both in this manner.) That was neat, and NYC is usually fun.
>
> Event wise, I thought the variety of talks was pretty awesome. I only saw
> some talks (Will watch videos later of others I was interested in) and
> it's always hit or miss but no complaints. And the schedule was packed!
>
> The hotel... yea check in was horrible, the room was horrible. HOPE has a
> cool DIY feel in it's space but the rest of the venue is bad. I like a few
> aspects of the space but hate other aspects of the space. Having one track
> 19 floors away from the other track generates lots of cross traffic and
> elevator needs.
>
> I couldn't get a feeling how well attendance went. It felt like it was
> down from 2016. But Manning talk filled all the rooms I think?
>
> 2nd floor seemed pretty dead. Segway thing is 10 years old or more now.
> There was the soldering area, which is cool but the floor was so bright --
> if some of the lighting done in the talk rooms was done on the 2nd floor
> it would have been a bit better. Having seen so many neat things on 2nd
> floor in the past there just wasn't much new stuff this year. I'm not
> knocking VCF or ToooL or Tommy's Holograms. But I dunno. Zero new. And the
> hammocks... eeeek.
>
> Price point got a bit high this year, I understand it's the big city and
> inflation and all that. At the end of the day, I realize it's the hotel
> that makes most of the money not the event.
>
> I tell myself I go to see friends, and always that is the best aspect of
> it. But I dunno it seems like something was missing. Maybe it's the
> elaborate logos and designs of years past weren't present?
>
> Dunno, just curious other's opinions.
>
> Maybe I was just really tired :-)
>