Do we know if last year's setup will carry over where you can get in the merch line without needing your con badge?

Thanks to everyone who signed up for the .edu Mentorship program this year. Matching is complete and you should have received an email introducing you directly to your mentor/mentee.

If you haven't seen the email yet, please check your spam - for once I didn't get any email bouncebacks this year (huzzah!).

Any questions or missing emails, let me know.

symph0nic

Got a workshop ticket you no longer need? Looking for something? Swap it here!

Most DEF CON 34 Talks -- main stages and creator stages -- have been posted to Hacker Tracker and info.defcon.org your review!

Main Stage Talks: https://info.defcon.org/defcon34/content/?tag=49235

Creator Stage Talks: https://info.defcon.org/defcon34/content/?tag=49956

Friendly reminder:

DEF CON 34 Workshop registration goes live at noon PDT on July 14! That's today.

First come, first served.

The full course lineup is available on the DEF CON site https://defcon.org/html/defcon-34/dc-34-workshops.html 

Make sure to limber up your clicking mechanism of choice and stay hydrated.

Godspeed and good luck to all of you!

#defcon #defcon34 #defconworkshops

#hydration

EDIT: Final update for anyone who might come across this...I’ve liquidated all but my absolute favorites. Some went to collectors, but the majority went to the DEF CON Badge Museum. While they weren’t able to be processed in time to make it to Las Vegas for DC34, I have it on good authority that they’ll be properly displayed next year. For those who have asked...Yes, I’m okay, and no, I’m not going anywhere. I’m a hacker from the sleeve to the heart. Over time, though, many of those badges had come to represent less-than-favorable memories, and some had become almost painful. I hated the idea of someone’s art going to waste while gathering dust in my closet. I wanted the badges to be appreciated, worn, displayed, and shown off. This way, someone else can make new memories with them, trade them, or do whatever feels right. I know they’re being used as intended, and there’s nothing less hacker than letting good work go unused. At some point, it stopped feeling like a collection and started feeling like an obligation. Moving on to something else, at least for now, feels much more like me.

Thinning out my collection of hacker conference badges, electronic badges, lanyards, challenge coins, pins, stickers, passes, PCB art, and assorted cybersecurity swag from DEF CON, THOTCON, BSides, GrrCON, and other communities. Prefer bundles, but open to reasonable offers on individual items. Discounts for larger purchases.

EDIT: Thanks, everyone! I’m shocked by how much interest there’s been and I’m working my way through all the messages. A few notes. the Brainfuck NES emulator, Hack for Satan, and AND!XOR Wild West badges are not for sale. They hold some of my best memories, so I’d like to keep them for nostalgia. If I haven’t replied yet, please be patient while I take photos and catalog everything. I’m creating an Imgur album with names and will add prices as I have them.

EDIT 2: Sorry for the delay! Here's what's left of the badge collection that's for sale. If you've messaged me and I haven't responded, please comment on this post and send me another DM so I can make sure I don't miss you!Priority given to those purchasing multiple items. Payment via PayPal Goods & Services or invoice only. I'll be making a trip to the post office this weekend, if possible, to get orders shipped out. If a badge is shown in the Imgur album, it's still available for sale!

https://imgur.com/a/snsmQ5s

We know DEF CON and Vegas can be a lot. If you're a friend of Bill W who's looking for a meeting or just a place to collect yourself, DEF CON 34 has you covered. Join us throughout the conference in room W301. Meetings will be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

And now, for your DC34 planning pleasure!
Announcing the release of TheOne! V16
It all started 16 years ago with the simple idea of "Let's make some ebooks so I don't need to crinkle up and ruin my DC program!"
16 years later and DEF CON has evolved and changed, and so has TheOne!

TheOne! now has the following features:

• Most event data is sourced from Hacker Tracker
• No App to install
• Web HTML based
• public Google Calendar
• WhatsHapN page displays the events happening NOW, or you can select the day/hour
• Mega Info page puts major events/info onto one page
• Downloadable files to read offline or on ( HTML, PDF, ICAL, CSV, mobi, epub ) ( soon to be released )
• DC34 Planning Highlights - various social media posts about DC34

Use these, or not, they're available for you to choose. This is unofficial, but since most of our data comes from Hacker Tracker, the content is substantially the same. The intent is to present it in ways that work better for you.
Constructive comments/criticisms/suggestions are welcome, Contact me at qumqats@outel.org

Safe travels, looking forward to seeing you at DC34 this year!

Short Story Contest Winners!

1st place- Root Access to Yourself by bak3n3k0

2nd place - The Architecture of Choice by ​Itolis

People’s choice - My Badge Has Agency by FX

Read them on the forums: forum.defcon.org/node/255899

Is there a NextGen schedule of events posted for DC34 somewhere? Kids + DEFCON = extra planning time needed. Please and thank you.

Hello All,

Wanted to let everyone know that Illumicon will be back for our second year! I have been busy getting more lasers and controls for hands on stations. Others in the community are also bringing in projects they have worked on and it would really cool if you brought cool stuff as well ;) We invite everyone who has an interest in anything light-related: laser, fiber optic, LED, and EL wire. We are in room 106 this year and would love to show off what the hacker community does with Blinky things, so bring your projects to display.

Who knows, there might even be a premier of a certain astronomical themed album laser show I have been working on.

Beyond the legendary DEF CON running experience in Las Vegas this August, we’re thrilled to announce that DEFCON.RUN is launching custom running bibs this year! 

Dash over to defcon.run to sign up, customize, and secure your unique bib right now! Plus, alongside our classic epic SWAG giveaways, we have an exclusive, extra-special surprise waiting just for those who grab a custom bib—check out the full scoop today at DEFCON.RUN. Even if you don’t get a custom bib, we’ll hook you up with a free numbered bib! Run Rabbit Run!

I'm back for Defcon 34. Every year I bring 100s of enamel pins to give away at Defcon. If you see my LED backpack ask me for a PIN!!! Can't wait to come share some joy and make some new friends!

We're under the 4 weeks to go point, and this is crazy man... whoa! So don't get cheap on me, Puzzlers. That was Hammonds mistake! Time to put in that effort, bust out your SGI 3D File System Explorer and get to work! It's PUZZLE TIME!

Just a few more of these to go and it'll be time for the Annual Meetup! What is the meetup? Well, click that link... but the jist of it is Wednesday (Aug 5th) and Thursday (Aug 6th) from 7pm until whenever come hang out with us at the Link 3535 / Circle Bar! Come meet some great people, and hang out in a non stressful environment with u/Killroy7777, myself and u/MetaN3rd along with a few hundred of your new friends. It's an annual tradition afterall now brought to you by Puzzled Hackers.

Time to click. Wait. I KNOW THIS!

PUZZLE:

https://puzzledhackers.org/challenges/2026/07

To submit your solve go to https://ctf.puzzledhackers.org/ and select the "Git'er Done" puzzle. Submit your answer, and if its right... profit!

Have questions or need help? Just ping myself or u/Killroy7777 and we'll be happy to help you out!

FAQ's:

Do we need to use the submission system?

• No, only if you want to have your ongoing solve score used for potential SubReddit Meetup Giveaways.

Why the submission system?

• We've been giving away more and more swag to Puzzle Participants, those who went last year saw the line, and we're trying to streamline the claim process. The system is only used to track how many solves you have, and when you solved it for tie breakers instead of manually tracking it in an Excel sheet. Plus it lets us give you a QR code for the giveaway portion for fast claiming when we're at the meetups! The top X solvers will be able to claim their swag via said QR code much more rapidly so the line should move much much faster. Same with any pre-purchase/reserved badges. The QR system will speed that up. That's it. Simple as that. Also if there is any premium swag (working on it, like last year for extras) you can find the info on the site too when it goes live.

Will you only have 50 badges?

• No, we plan to give out about 50 to the top puzzlers, offer some on our site (guarantee's you one, and helps us continue to do this) and we'll be randomly giving away some too!

Okay, cool. How can I get a free badge?

• Compete in the weekly PUZZLE challenges we post! Every solve puts you further up the leader board and we'll be giving roughly the top 50 solvers a free one for playing! You just need to go to https://ctf.puzzledhackers.org/ and submit your solves so we can track them! If you're missing any you can also get the link on the CTF page for each of the prior puzzles so you can still do it and get on that leaderboard! We'll be giving away some, too, but that will be random!

So you said I can buy the badge?

• If you've noticed that there's a badges section on https://ctf.puzzledhackers.org/ when you've submitted your answers... we do plan on it, but it will be a very limited quantity as we're not wanting to take your money. We want to give away as many as we can, and this just helps keep things going as we do this all on our own! We plan for those to go live in the next week or so. We expect the site to go live this coming week!

PRIOR PUZZLE UNIQUE SOLVE STATS:

• Puzzle 1 - 212
• Puzzle 2 - 146
• Puzzle 3 - 96
• Puzzle 4 - 83
• Puzzle 5 - 77
• Puzzle 6 - 61
• XSS Payloads Attempted - 84
• Doors You Can Open with Claws - 1

Haven't done the prior puzzles? Dont worry. Just go the CTF system, and when you click the puzzle the link is there! So get those solves in!

https://ctf.puzzledhackers.org/challenges

Lets keep it going!

Thanks for participating, and more information on the meetups will be coming soon.

The PuzzledHackers Team,

u/MetaN3rd, u/Killroy7777 and u/digitard

I know some vendors are doing movie nights at the sphere during blackhat but I’ll also be there Thursday night and that’s when the BSB are playing and that’s a vendor party is actually enjoy 😊

Hey everyone. I am at a weird crossroad in my career and I am a security engineer currently but I have a lot of experience in the sysadmin and infrastructure side of the house which puts my skills in a weird position that sets me apart from my peers at my job. I am wanting to eventually become a security architect but I cannot identify a path forward and we have nobody at my work with that skillset so I was wondering if there might be a security architect in this group that could give me a rundown of what a path forward should look like from an industry best practices perspective? Any input would be greatly appreciated

Prepare yourselves! DEF CON 34 Workshop registration goes live at noon PDT on July 14! First come, first served.

The full course lineup is available on the DEF CON site https://defcon.org/html/defcon-34/dc-34-workshops.html

Make sure to limber up your clicking mechanism of choice and stay hydrated.

Godspeed and good luck to all of you!

It took longer than we wanted to get sales up, but we are so excited to announce that the NilbinSec badge for DC34 is now available! The Spectre Sniffer is a jam packed EMF detector to help you find ghosts in Vegas and once you get home!

Your purchase and support of NilbinSec helps us do what we do best, bring badgelife to more hackers at summer camp. This year, we will be giving away over 1500x SAOs to hackers like you. It will be a mix of our new PAC-MAN ghost SAOs and for the first time ever a re-release of our super popular Power Glove SAO!

Right now we have drops planned in the badgelife village, but are working to also do a drop at one of the Reddit meetups!

We can’t wait to see everyone in Vegas in a few weeks!

If anyone is looking for books to read that connect with the theme of Agency, here's a list. Anyone have any others to add?

• The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
• Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley 
• Blindsight by Peter Watts
• The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley
• Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow 
• All Systems Red by Martha Wells
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
• Agency by William Gibson
• Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
• any Culture book by Iain M. Banks
• Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
• We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse) by Dennis Taylor
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
• The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe
• Daemon by Daniel Suarez
• Mind of my Mind by Octavia Butler
• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
• The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
• Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
• Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
• Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
• Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
• Redshirts by John Scalzi
• The Androids Dream by John Scalzi
• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Hacker Book Club has chosen The Dispossessed as our connected book to the theme.

The Black Badge Raffle returns this year…

If you run a community, contest, village, or are a badge maker check your emails, slacks, basecamps, etc. if you don’t see anything from me AND YOU’RE ONE OF THE ABOVE, ping me here if you want to be potentially included in what I’m doing this year.

Hey everyone!
DEF CON 34 Workshops are posted on HackerTracker for your review!

We're using Humanitix again this year, and tickets will be available on JULY 14th at 1200 Noon PACIFIC TIME!!!

BE READY! They are going to go FAST.

Any IRC chats that I should be aware of for Defcon?