14 DAY TRIAL // July, 22, 1994, Las Vegas. 13 years have passed since then. A lot of events have happened that day, like O.J. Simpson pleading "Absolutely 100% Not Guilty" or IBM's unveiling of OpenDoc Alpha for OS/2, or CNBC expanding the deal with Prodigy. But apart from these events, another one was available for a more restricted market niche. They can be called Homo Sapiens Hackii, an euphemism for hackers.
At that time, one of their kind, considered the most dangerous, named Condor, was hunted by the FBI for violating federal probation of not entering computers illegally. His real name was Kevin Mitnick and he had successfully "borrowed without authorization" the source code of the software of some of the leading cellular phone manufacturers of the time (Motorola).
And yet, DefCon 2 took place at Sahara Hotel & Casino between 22nd-24th of July, 1994. The previous year over 100 hackers and speakers attended the meeting and were quite close of turning off all the lights of Sands Hotel & Casino.
The second edition of the event brought even more attendees and certainly more speakers. The subjects were as controversial as ever and the authorities were also present. Some of the federal agents, no matter how hard they tried to conceal their true identity were uncovered by the sharp eyes of the hackers. As you can see in some of the pictures here, they came with low-profile vans but there was just one thing they forgot to hide: the license plates showing clearly they were on the Department of Defense inventory list.
The feds and NSA guys were not at all vexed by the fact that their stealth abilities were shattered by the under-aged hackers out there. They calmly accepted the "reward", an "I'm a Fed" t-shirt.
The almost ran amok phreaks and hackers present at the convention benefited from a whole lot larger space in order to do their biddings and they even had a 16-port router in order to serial connect to the ad-hoc network.
Unfortunately, I could not find any reporting on naughty behavior on the part of the convention attendees. It appears that, besides the usual contests (the lock-pick contest, Spot the Fed competition) and the niftier development of the DefCon t-shirt industry (the shirts were made in different colors and applied with glow in the dark ink), there was almost nothing spicy. Well, that's from a look from the outside as the various workshops and speeches given by Philip Zimmerman, the notorious cryptographer, Dr. Ludwig (author of "The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses") or Gail Thackery were pretty intense and hot.
Of course the regular eavesdropping activities and illegal drinking were present at the event, but hey, the open airwaves are for anyone to use. Or NOT!!! However, you have to appreciate their ingenuity and intelligence as the majority of them were self taught teenagers with no more money than their daily/monthly allowance.
A bit of fun by stumping on family affairs or taking down drug deals were a constant pastime at the conference. Take a peek at this article here and say it ain't funny (conversation between two drug dealers, interrupted by the DefCon 2 phreaks):
"Where's the meet?" "By the 7/11 on Tropicana." "You got it?" "You got the cash?" "Yeah, dude." "Be sure you do." Hacker: "He doesn't have the cash my man. He's gonna rip you off." "What?" "What?" Both sides heard the intruder's voice. "Who is that?" "What's that about a rip-off?" "This ain't no rip-off man." Hacker: "Yes it is. Tell 'em the truth. You gonna take his drugs and shoot his ass. Right? Tell 'em." "You gonna rip me off?" "No, man!" "Your homeboy says you gonna try and rip me off?" "What home boy?" Hacker: "Me, you bozo drug freak. Don't you know that s**t can kill you?" Click."
Or this one here:
"What do you look like?" "I'm five foot nine, thinning brown hair and 180 pounds I wear round glasses and . ." "I get the idea. Where are you now?" "I'm coming down the elevator now. What do you look like?" "I'm six foot one in my heels, have long blond spiked hair and black fishnet stockings." Hacker: "Don't go man. It's a bust." "What?" he said. Hacker: "Don't go, it's a bust. You don't want your name in the papers, do ya?" "What the f**k?" she yelled. "There's a guy who says this is a bust?" "Bust? What bust?" Hacker: "That's the clue, man. She's denying it. Of course it's a bust. Is it worth a night in jail to not get laid?" "S**t." He whispers not too quietly to another male companion. "There's some guy on the phone who says it's bust. What should we do." Hacker: "I'm telling you man, don't go," "This ain't worth it. I'm going back upstairs." Click.
A couple of hours later the same hooker was overheard talking to one of her work mates.
"Then this a**hole says it's a bust. Cost me $300 in lost business, s**t." "You, too? Same s**t been going on all night long. What the f**k?"
Of course the activity is unethical, no doubt about being illegal, but at least they stopped a drug deal.
Contests, lots of fun, cool activities, seminars, workshops and all for a bunch of tech-avid guys ready to stretch that extra mile of technology and learn the "how" and the "why" of things. This is all there was at DefCon 2 in 1994, a very difficult time for hackers.
