ShmooCon

Badge Contest

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:36:52 GMT

Folks we have a winner!

This year's badge contest was finally solved by Darth Null. He's winning a ticket to SC2010 and asks to give a shout out to Durak for his awesome squinting abilities which apparently came in handy when reading those barcodes. :)

Congrats Darth Null.

In other news, most of the speaker presos have been posted. If they're not up, it's simply because we haven't received them yet. Videos will follow soon.

The ShmooCon Crew

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:11:09 GMT

is wiping the sleep from their eyes and slowly getting back to reality. Thanks to everyone who made it out to DC. We hope you had a good time.

Speaker presentations and videos will be online soon. Videos will take a bit longer than the slides, but we will get them up there eventually.

Please remember to leave your feedback at feedback.shmoocon.org or, if you'd rather, shoot us an email. The online review system will be available for one more week, so get your reviews in before it's too late.

Thanks again folks. Keep watching this spot for more post-con wrap up.

Day 2

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:58:31 GMT

and all seems to be going well. Over 1300 people are currently present.

Ads make us happy

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:38:54 GMT

Another ShmooCon vid from PSKL... This was sent to us with the oh so funny comment that it was just in time for that critical "all the tickets have already been sold" phase of advertising.

You can also check out previous year's video fun in our archives. (Please be aware - we no longer offer free admission in exchange for ads, but we might hook you up with some special swag.)

ShmooCon Labs

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:41:42 GMT

The application period for ShmooCon Labs is officially over. We've got about 30 attendees this year plus a few vendor reps and the labs staff. They'll all work pretty much non-stop to make sure the con network is up and running before ShmooCon begins on Friday - the idea being that they learn a thing or two (or three) along the way as well.

A few other things of note:

There are still a few (very few) rooms left at the Washington Hilton should anyone still be needing a hotel. Those of you who are local and maybe just want to stay in DC for Saturday night - this is a good option for you. Call 202-483-3000 and reference the code SHC for a great rate.

There is a ShmooCon Twitter feed and to (again) answer the question everyone keeps asking - yes, it really is us.

Lastly - it's snowing today in the DC area. Be sure to check those weather forecasts before heading this way.

Less than 2 weeks remaining...

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:20:11 GMT

The schedule is posted, speakers selected, and we're headed into the final pre-con moments.

It's not to late to gen up a Barcode ShmarCode entry or to warm up your TF2 and Halo trigger fingers - so get busy!

Keynote Speaker - Matt Blaze

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:40:35 GMT

We're happy to announce that this year's keynote speaker will be Matt Blaze.

Since 2004, Matt Blaze has been a computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania;
prior to that, he spent a dozen years on the research staff of AT&T (Bell) Labs. Matt's work focuses on cryptography and its applications, trust management, physical and human scale security, designing secure systems, and networking and distributed computing. He's particularly interested in security related to public policy, such as cryptography policy (key escrow), wiretapping and surveillance, electronic voting, and secrecy in science.

Overflow Rooms at the Hilton

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:45:55 GMT

We've been able to secure a limited amount of overflow rooms at the Hilton Washington for Friday and Saturday nights. To make your reservation call 202-483-3000 and reference either the code SHC or just ask to be put on the ShmooCon block.

ShmooCon Twitter Feed

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:10:03 GMT

Yes. It's really us. :)

We'll be using this feed during the con as another way to share information about any schedule changes, contest updates, etc. The same information will be posted on this website and available at the registration desk so don't feel like you'll be missing out on something if you don't want to subscribe.

Hotel Block Sold Out

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:45:18 GMT

Well...

We were just getting ready to make an announcement that the room block would be closing on the 16th and there were a limited amount of rooms left. In fact, they had just increased the number of rooms available to us to give more of you the ability to get in on the rate.

A bunch of you must have been busy today because we just got an email telling us that the block is completely sold out. While this is good news for us, we realize some of you might still be in need of a place to stay. We'll do some research into nearby hotels and post something here soon.

Sponsor Shout Out

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:16:47 GMT

A quick mention of our current list of sponsors:

PGP
Tenable
Aspect Security
Tenacity Solutions, Inc.
ERNW
G2,Inc.
AccessIT
Quest Consultants
InGuardians
PaulDotCom
Core Security
Ponte Technologies

Beyond giving us money (helps to pay for the extra fun con stuff like Saturday night), our sponsors are bringing some cool stuff to their tables this year. Be sure to stop by and check out all the contests and nifty con swag .

Schedule

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:50:45 GMT

No it's not up yet, but should be by the end of the week. For your travel purposes though here are the rough start and stop times.

Reg will open on Friday around noon with the opening talks scheduled for 2 or 3. Conference will run until Sunday afternoon - we try and have everyone out the door and things cleaned up by 4pm at the latest.

See you soon!

ShmooCon Ads

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:01:38 GMT

First ShmooCon ad of the year that we've seen. We love this stuff. :)

Ticket Sales - Done!

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:52:10 GMT

And forgive us we if admit to being glad that it's over for this year... ;)

Lots of news still to come. Watch this space for announcements on speakers, our keynote address, and other events.

In the meantime, if you're planning on coming to DC anyway, you might think about heading out a day or two early and attending DC*BSDcon in it's inaugural year. It's being held at the Wardman in the days just prior to ShmooCon. If you're a BSD fan you might want to check it out.

As always, we encourage you to make your hotel reservations sooner rather than later. The room block is only open for a few more weeks. Code to use is "shoshoa."

Thanks everyone and Happy New Year!

Ticket Count

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 03:10:42 GMT

Number of tickets going up for sale tomorrow, Dec 28, at noon eastern:

50 Early Bird ($100)
100 Open Reg ($175)
15 I Love ShmooCon ($300)

The news you've been waiting for...

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:48:59 GMT

Ticket Sales Round 2.1 will open this Sunday, Dec 28 at noon EST. The cart has been revamped, the server updated, and we're confident (enough) to go ahead and try again.

A limited amount of tickets will be available. Exact numbers are still TBD - we'll post that information tomorrow.

Should you miss out on this round there's still Round 3 on Jan 1. At noon people. Eastern Standard.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:32:46 GMT

and no...we don't think it's an oncoming train (as someone joked with us today).

We're busy contacting everyone who wrote in and should have everything resolved soon.

It definitely looks as though there are tickets left to sell in this round. We don't know the absolute final count yet, but we're getting there. We'll post again once we do know and will let you at that time what day we'll open up sales for those leftover barcodes. We'll give at least 24 hours notice, probably more. Thanks again to everyone for your patience.

In other conference news, here's a few other reminders for all of you:

Please make your hotel reservations soon! Book your room using our code: shoshoa.

Don't forget about the barcode contest - we're super excited to see what people dream up. For that matter, you should check out all of the events scheduled to take place.

That's it for now. Next update will probably be to announce a sales date.

Getting there...

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:52:26 GMT

We have now made an attempt to contact all barcode recipients. We know that many of you are still patiently waiting to hear from us. Your turn is coming - we promise.

We know it is seeming to take a long time and for that we are sorry. Some of our processes had to be revamped to accommodate the solutions we are putting in place. That took a few days to finish. Remember too, that ShmooCon is a volunteer-run organization and many of those involved in the clean up have other responsibilities during the day - ones that actually pay them. :)

Progress is being made though, we promise.

The icanhaztickets@shmoocon.org email address will be shut down at 9PM EST tomorrow, 12/6.

If you have not already emailed in and are one of those who entered in CC information and hit submit on 12/1, you have 24 hours to contact us.

If you have already sent us this info, please DO NOT email us again.

Slow Progress

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:16:45 GMT

Just a quick update for the evening. We are *this* close to having contacted all barcode recipients. We'll finish up that process tonight. More detailed information will be posted tomorrow.

Ticket status update

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:11:28 GMT

A fair bit of time was spent yesterday reading through your emails and comparing that information to what we saw in our records. Three groups were formed: Those who actually received a barcode, those who hit submit but then saw nothing, and those who were just "somewhere in the cart" when all this took place.

We're going to deal with those who actually received a barcode first. By far this is the easiest group to both track and confirm. Once that process is finished we will evaluate how to move forward with the second and third groups.

I'm going to again ask for patience. Please don't email asking for updates. We will be posting information here as we go along. Any specific questions can be addressed as we begin to make contact with you.

CFP Closed

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:32:51 GMT

The CFP for ShmooCon 2009 is officially closed. We hope to start notifying speakers within the next two weeks.

You guys rock..

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:12:17 GMT

Seriously. Judging by the number of emails we've received, I think we've heard from just about everyone who got past the submit process. We're extremely thankful that you all are such a nice crowd. The majority of your messages have been ones of understanding and outright kindness. Silly Hackers... Don't worry. Your secret is safe with us.

We'll be ready to start contacting folks tomorrow. If you don't hear from us the first day, please be patient. Look for updates here before emailing us again. We're working this pretty hard, and again, our goal is to be as fair as possible based on the records we have.

Thanks again. Feel free to throw a shmooball (or two or three) at us once con time gets here.

Ticket Sales - Shut Down

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:59:12 GMT

Wow.

So a number of things went wrong but perhaps the largest (and the reason for shutting down the system) - is that ticket sales were made live without un-stubbing the process that would actually charge your card. Bottom line - no purchases were actually made. Your credit information went nowhere. And you were not charged.

Problem the second. The box was completely overloaded. Way way more than expected - and this after we already made some changes in the code in an attempt to reduce this from happening.

So let's talk some solutions. We have records of everyone who made it to the point at which they actually submitted their credit card information. We will make an attempt to contact everyone we have records for and provide you a means of actually purchasing a ticket (and or tickets depending on what the logs tell us). However, to help us out, if you could please contact us at icanhaztickets@shmoocon.org to help us track tickets, that would be great. Include the name and email address you were using at the time of attempted purchase. Once we get through this process we will evaluate how many tickets are actually left for this round and reopen ticket sales to the masses. We will give 24 hours notice on this.

Again - this is going to take us a few days to get through. Responses to any of the ShmooCon email addresses will likely be delayed but we will get back to you as soon as we can.

As to the load on the box? We're going to tweak that even more too.

We are, as you can imagine, horribly embarrassed and extremely sorry for this turn of events. We will do our best to handle it fairly for all involved. Thank goodness for logs.

- Heidi

Round 2 - Ticket Sales

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:12:33 GMT

Lots happening in ShmooCon land...

Round 2 of ticket sales begins tomorrow, December 1 at noon EST. You might want to start getting ready now...

CFP closes tomorrow as well. Talks received after 11:59pm EST will not be considered for ShmooCon 2009. That means you've got just over 24 hours to wow us with your submission.

On that note, our first round of speakers has been accepted and notified. We're still waiting to hear back from a few of you but here's the line up so far:

Scott Moulton - Ten Cool Things You Didn't Know About Your Hard Drive!
Chema Alonso, et al - Re-Playing with (Blind) SQL Injection
Travis Goodspeed and Joshua Gourneau - Building Wireless Sensor Hardware and Software

More detailed information will be posted to the website later this week.

Good luck tomorrow!