Also, it’s always been in Vegas, so there’s inertia, and part of the draw is the attendance synergy with the rest of the hacker summer camp events like black hat, bsides, and others. There’s no good reason to change, and a lot of good reasons to stay.
I was walking through resortsworld when a security guard started walking next to us. After about 50 feet, he demanded our ID, informed us we were on private property, and threatened to have us arrested for trespassing, all in the same sentence. The issue was that my colleague was one of the amateur radio VE for the ham radio village and happened to have his handheld with him. The guard was aggressive, entitled, and arrogant.
Yesterday, I poked another friend to see where they were at the conference. They were not at the conference. They were stuck at resorts world three hours after the conference had started. Their conference badges had been confiscated by security. The security team had tried to force them to throw them in the garbage, and for a while it appeared that security had thrown them away after they had confiscated them. It’s literally just a fancy gameboy!
This isn’t a safety issue, it’s deliberate, malicious abuse by a vendor who knowingly sold a discounted room block to defcon conference attendees and then, through persistent and abusive behavior, tried to force those customers to leave once they checked in. The issue was mentioned early in closing ceremonies as something that will be addressed with the vendor once all conference attendees have been checked out of the hotels. This wasn’t random room check for caches of weapons. It was not a safety search. It was luggage contents searches for the lulz, seemingly intended as harassment. Either they didn’t want us there in the first place, or they wanted the revenue for the rooms forfeited. This was not behavior in good faith and the specific acts that I witnessed personally and others whom I trust communicated to me that they had experienced directly, could only be intended as harassment or profoundly extreme incompetence.
For 20 years, I’ve stayed almost exclusively at Hilton properties when I travel, with the exception of Vegas for HSC. I’m almost certain to switch to another company after this, unless they issue a really, really, excellent apology.
Quit your BS excuses about how this was a legitimate safety issue. This was almost entirely limited to one hotel. Somehow another 10+ major hotels, including Caesars who non-renewed the conference contract, managed to not do any of this.
There’s a lot of scuttlebutt aka rumor about the situation. There’s little value in idle speculation on this topic. There’s been no suggestion of this on the con internal staff channels that I can identify. Which makes me think it’s a BS suggestion.
Having been there personally, there’s a lot of unknown. But here’s the core of what happened as I saw it and as I gained information from friends with internal con communications access. A package was identified as suspicious, likely by defcon staff and Caesar’s security was called to investigate. Caesar’s security decided it may have represented a threat and asked Defcon staff to evacuate the building. Goons began calmly notifying and clearing rooms pushing people to the west exits toward Linq and Harrahs. People grabbed their stuff and calmly walked out. Most people appeared to recognize that it was likely a false alarm. Nobody panicked. Several thousand people exited promptly and without incident. Bags were not searched on exit. This was not a ploy to search personal property without a warrant because almost everything got taken with the attendees who brought it. It is possible the bag/box/package had gunpowder/tannerite/rdx/etc residue on it from shooting activities either part of the Defcon shoot or other shooting activities unrelated to Defcon. It is unlikely that Defcon will release any additional detail past this: https://x.com/defcon/status/1690740778124115969?s=46&t=WtjuZ...
A lot of people are teasing their friends about leaving their bags unattended and causing it. These are jokes and should not be taken seriously.
I was startled at the professionalism shown by Caesar’s, Defcon staff, and attendees. Vetcon was cancelled midstream and the main stage party was cancelled as well. DJ gear was left behind for the evening. Much of the con moved to the Linq bar. Don’t make stupid assumptions about any of this.
Also, it’s always been in Vegas, so there’s inertia, and part of the draw is the attendance synergy with the rest of the hacker summer camp events like black hat, bsides, and others. There’s no good reason to change, and a lot of good reasons to stay.