DefCon is the world’s longest running and largest underground hacking conference.  It’s one of those events that with each passing year gets more focus in the news.  The things that come out of there have caught quite a bit of attention in the recent past and this year was no different.  Along with that increased attention comes the corporate elements that move in to these events, the sales booths, the recruiting, the marketing. Earlier this year the founder of DefCon, Dark Tangent made the statement for the Feds to tone down their presence at this year’s conference, due to the great controversies of NSA surveillance and the tension that could come from it.  Needless to say, things have changed since DefCon’s beginnings over 21 years ago.

Let’s shift to a bit of focus to the fun side from DefCon 21, with a look at an incredibly talented artist Eddie Mize.  DefCon’s official charity is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF – the international non-profit digital rights group.  For a number of years now Mize has been running a large art booth at the event where benefits go to the EFF as well.  This year the man worked 20-hour days during the event, setting up his area, staging his art, and working with the crowd.  Mize is himself a seasoned security professional and sort of fell into this by accident.  Reluctant after several years because the event conflicted with Sturgis, the annual motorcycle rally held in South Dakota, Mize was finally convinced by a friend to attend.  He became one of the event’s “goons” or staff member working in the information booth.  People that knew about his artistic skills started to ask him to draw their hacker handles on their badges with a sharpie.  This caught on and it made its way to Joe Grande, the designer of the electronic badges.  It was then that Grande decided that if Mize was going to draw on badges, let’s do it officially and get some donations going as well.  

So Eddie Mize, DefCon’s anointed artist was born, for a donation he would sharpie-draw anything you wanted on your laptop, badge, t-shirts – to support the cause.  After that event he was asked to start his own booth, so that next year Mize’s art booth has become a yearly tradition, having only missed DefCon 19.  He estimates he has drawn on thousands of shirts, not all of them t-shirts either.  If you come down and you want your jacket drawn on, that charity golf shirt, want a tattoo design, a tie or the business shirt it comes with, Mize will sketch for the cause.   As a security professional that is actively working at the convention, Mize does miss out on the presentations, but he gets a lot of one-on-one time with the people behind the presentations when they come by his booth anyway, so he gets to ask away.  Case in point, a recently released documentary about DefCon hit YouTube earlier this month, and you can see Mize throughout, especially at one point where he presents Dark Tangent with a shirt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVwaIe6CiHw

As much as things evolve, the angle of the underground hacker convention lives, and the spirit of DefCon remains after all these years.  It’s an interesting world with many meanings, particularly in light of the NSA surveillance situation.  The untold truth is that the environment actually thrives off of both sides of the EFF and the NSA or government in general.  It’s a tough place for infosec because of this delicate balance, the EFF on one side protecting legitimate security work, and the government side that is a large customer of talent and technology.  What was once a close hack brother could now be on the other side, doing things legally, and making a nice living doing it.  This of course includes contractors and the big agencies themselves.  Despite all that, the event was reported to go down without a hitch, though it was reported to be less eventful than in the past.  The trend for a number of years as the convention grows has been gravitating more toward a trade show feel, something that comes with success it seems.  Much of the underground stuff if you will, has gravitated towards more quiet events like SkyTalks and B-Sides, events that limit or prevent recording entirely.   Talks at these events don’t make it into DefCon because of the publicity they are trying to avoid.  DefCon is still the grand-daddy of them all however the main show, so when you see a traditional attraction that is central to the roots and mission, you have to pay attention.  That and fantastic art are two of the reasons that Mize’s art is a perennial DefCon event.