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.
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.