DefCon is a joke. Nobody with any skill takes that conference seriously.
This is a complete farce as one of the key speakers last year was Gen Keith Alexander. NSA was fairly open about recruiting directly from DefCon and DefCon leadership had no problem with it. Anyone with even a slight security background could have predicted Prism and other programs just by the AT&T whistleblower from the mid 2000's.
DefCon is just too big, too mainstream for any real technical value. I don't need to fly to Vegas to watch umpteen panel discussions with crazy EFF people.
There are a lot of smaller technical trainings and conferences once you get to a certain level. I like to rate conferences by the technical quality of what is being presented. Am I constantly being blown away by new ideas? What can I use in my own projects to make them better?
At too many defcons I have seen nonsense panel discussions and presentations by people with little qualifications. Some presentations I have seen have obviously been created one or two nights beforehand. I've even seen a troll presentation where slides with walls of text were read word for word in a monotone voice.
I have no idea who this person is or how old this list is and I have not attended every one of these conferences but you might take a look at this:
This is a complete farce as one of the key speakers last year was Gen Keith Alexander. NSA was fairly open about recruiting directly from DefCon and DefCon leadership had no problem with it. Anyone with even a slight security background could have predicted Prism and other programs just by the AT&T whistleblower from the mid 2000's.
DefCon is just too big, too mainstream for any real technical value. I don't need to fly to Vegas to watch umpteen panel discussions with crazy EFF people.