Thus begins my obligatory post-defcon post.

DEFCON was bitter-sweet this year. Once again I was unimpressed both by the average quality of the talks and the complete lack of organization or forethought. However, I was lucky to have several friends visit Las Vegas at the same time, and so the trip out was not a complete disappointment.

DEFCON has one fatal flaw: it does not require registration. That’s right, when DEFCON opens, nobody has any idea of how many attendees will arrive. Presumably this is due to the fact that the first Def Con attendees included a large percentage under indictment.  At that point in time, anonnymity was paramount.

At that time, Def Con also only had 150 attendees.

Pure anonymity is a problem. DEFCON’s laughable attachment to this idea is even more obvious when watching the awards “ceremony” for one of their many contests. To make sure the right person gets credit for their work, submissions in contests must contain a “secret word.” If you don’t know the secret when you claim your prize, you don’t win. Why does DEFCON use a simple registration process such as this for contests, but not for the conference as a whole? Beats me.

DEFCON needs to allow people to register. It’s OK if they register using an alias, or a “secret word.” Hell, if security is that much of a problem, I think DEFCON could come up with a system that could encrypt your registration confirmation to a provided public key. That way, when I arrive on Thursday, they won’t be out of badges, or there will at least be one waiting for me.

Oh yeah, they ran out of the much-desired DEFCON badge halfway through the “preliminary events” day. I have a story.

I arrived in Las Vegas at about 1:00pm on Thursday afternoon, about when the conference opened. In the time it took to check into my hotel, walk across the street (literally) and withdraw cash from an ATM, DEFCON had run out of enough badges that they gave me a paper substitute. At most, two hours. Two hours before there is a shortage of literally the most anticipated product. Bad planning doesn’t seem to do it justice.

Even more frustrating is the fact that my roommate, who checked in 5 seconds earlier, received a badge. Apparently, my line at the registration desk was out. Just mine. And no, they wouldn’t trade me. Even the next day when additional badges “showed up” (qué?)  I was not allowed to trade for a real badge.

Now, ultimately, I got a real badge, but only because @vandalswang was kind enough to trade the two Ninja Networks invites I had won for his badge.

Overall it was fun, but I won’t be doing it again. Not unless I’m press, a speaker, vendor or a goon. They’re guaranteed badges.