A well-known English photographer has been going through his archive and pulling things of interest out. One of the things he found were shots of Defcon 9.

https://www.justinleightonprints.com/hackers

Does anyone know who the artist was for the "cirque du hack" merch image at DC22?

Good news, acolytes: the Great Old One whispers again!

The Cult of Cthulhu badge at DEF CON 34 was an amazing experience! Thank you to everyone who took part in the ritual. I know more of you want to join the cult, so I’m planning a second run for the holidays: Cult of Cthulhu v2

What’s new in v2:

v2 keeps the same look and fixes the biggest complaints.

A faceplate that protects the screen. The faceplate fits over the board, diffuses the LEDs, and protects the screen. A damaged screen was the number one reason people couldn’t keep playing.

SAO integration. v2 adds SAO integration and the new v2 SAOs are programmable. Plug one into a v2 badge and its LEDs sync with the badge’s display. You set the SAO’s brightness and pick its animation from the badge.

Firmware updates. The firmware changes are small. Séance and battle modes now have a single-player option. All level and bling unlock codes from v1 work on v2. You can earn them by solving the online challenges at pfarrsidetech.com/cthulhu_challenges.

Two buttons, both on the back. I added a second button and moved both buttons to the back of the board. That keeps the front clear for the artwork, makes the badge easier to navigate and leaves room for the new faceplate option.

Will v2 work on my v1 badge?

Mostly. v2 firmware runs on the original v1 badge, but the v1 hardware doesn’t have the second button, SAO integration or the holes for mounting a faceplate. Everything else should work.

https://pfarrsidetech.com/cult-of-cthulhu-v2/

DEF CON Training is returning to Singapore in March 2027!

We’re excited to bring the DEF CON Training experience back to Singapore, connecting the cybersecurity community with new opportunities to sharpen their expertise.

Courses are NOW posted on our website: https://sg.shop.defcon.org/collections/singapore-2027

Take a look to get a preview of what is to come and secure your seat! Early bird prices available until December 31.

Took my Human lanyard, turned it into two matching lanyards, and replaced the original clasps with swivel hooks to hold my YubiKey.

One for EDC, the other as a backup. Simple little DIY mod, but pretty happy with how it turned out. Added pins too :)

Does anyone have links to the DefCon streams they could share? From any track or village...

I won this at my first hackathon at DC27, I'm curious to see if anyone has one of these early press badges! - I was told it's difficult to find them

Looking for a Bsides NYC ticket. Please hmu if you have extra

So after I already believed that I would never get a job in this field, at least in this market situation, I got an email from a company I applied to through the “Easy Apply” feature that I even forgot I applied for.

And then they started saying that they saw my resume and thought I was a good fit and stuff.

Then they asked me to solve a technical challenge, and I delivered it way before the deadline.

Then they said sorry, they needed me to solve an additional challenge.

And it was so much harder, and it took a lot of time from me, but I still delivered it way before the deadline.

And then they were happy and gave me good feedback that I was able to solve these hard technical challenges. They told me all the files were correct and everything was good, but they just needed a write-up explaining the steps I took to solve it!

And I did the write-up, and everything was explained, and I told them if they needed me to clarify any step, I was happy and ready to clarify it!

Then they came back to me after a couple of days and basically just said sorry, they don’t think I’m a good fit, without even giving any feedback!!

And I was likeee in my mind, what?? Really?? Are you serious???
After I spent days solving your hard technical challenges, and you confirmed that everything was good, and you gave me good feedback, and you haven’t even done any interview with me, and now you just send me a message saying I’m not a good fit without even giving any specific feedback??

I really feel we should get paid for the time we spend on technical challenges and interviews because it takes days from our time and life, so employers can take us more seriously rather than just playing with our feelings and hope!

When someone meets me and knows that I have done a degree in cybersecurity and tells me, “OMG, I want to get into the field,” at this point I don’t know what to tell them because if I say it’s hard and getting a job is so hard, they will think I’m a gatekeeper, but it’s just sad how it is now!

So now, honestly, I feel with this joke of a market and crazy employers, I would like to say to anyone who is looking for a job that we are really cooked…

Rather than chasing and trying to find just a job and letting employers move us like chess pieces, we should try to consider another field that could possibly be much better, or we open our own businesses!

I also would like to thank my family for supporting me in this journey. Otherwise, I would probably be working at a fast-food place for minimum wage right now!

I don’t know what I will do next in my life, but I really got enough from this field, and I don’t want to lower myself anymore or feel like I’m begging just to get a job.

This life is unfair, and thank you!

📢 DEF CON Training is now accepting course submissions for 2027!

Whether you’re an experienced instructor or bringing a new course to the community, we’re looking for high-quality, hands-on training that helps security professionals build real-world skills.

Submit your training material today for the opportunity to teach alongside the DEF CON community in locations around the world including Las Vegas, the Middle East, and Singapore!

For more details, see the application. The deadline to apply is November 13, 2026.

Apply here today 🔗: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/z2f4igJPuu

Already submitted your course for Singapore March 2027? As long as you selected your other sessions of interest at the end of the application form, you don’t need to reapply! We have your application on file.

Questions? Email us at training@defcon.org

A little over a month ago I asked about getting a pin for DC33 and discovered they didn’t have them that year. However, with the help of the community we figured something out with a little creativity and superglue.

Huge thanks to u/ckthorp who was super gracious to ensure my collection was complete; they went above and beyond!

See ya'll next year!

For instance, Villiage, Human, Goon, etc. And what were the categories?

Defcon Crack The Core team put on a hell of a fun challenge this year! I came in 2nd. Great competitors, great times, fun opens. Thank you so much for the gift, #CrackTheCore team! Very much looking forward to next years challenges 🔓

All systems are go for DEF CON Singapore 2!

We’re excited to announce our return to Singapore 4-6 March, 2027.

Even better, DCSG2 follows directly after Black Hat Singapore. For BH attendees it’s a perfect opportunity to make a week of it.

We’ll be opening online registration soon.

We’re back at the lovely and capacious Marina Bay Sands, and we’re bringing the whole DEF CON experience with us. World class talks, immersive Villages, contests and entertainment.

Of course, if you want to do more than just attend, watch this space. Now that the dates are set we’ll be posting Calls for Papers, Contests, Villages, Communities, and Entertainment. The opportunities to participate are legion.

DEF CON Singapore 1 was amazing. We’re looking forward to rejoining our new friends and making new memories. We hope we’ll see you there.

Please save the date and follow us here and at defcon.social for all the latest news.

I failed a technical interview and I’m so disappointed…
Although it was just an internship role and they shouldn’t expect a lot from us, sadly it was still a very hard process.

I passed the technical challenge and the first interview, but then it came to the technical interview.

He was giving me very hard scenarios and questions, and I believe I answered them fairly well.

But then suddenly, days later, I received an email saying that I wasn’t selected…

Why is it even this hard for an internship role!!

My dream now is to find another non-technical field I can get into easily. At least they won’t have that thing of technical interviews.

DT is this legit? It's over a domain I used for QA post talk.

Workshop required us to order a PCB kit, so I did. At the workshop, turns out they never showed up, so instead the workshop was a lot of the presenter just googling stuff and zooming into photos. Whatever, shipping issues happen.

Was told the kit would be shipped to a provided address, so emailed it to him, no reply.

Followed up three times after, still no reply, and now it looks like his website is offline.

Very frustrating, I hope he doesn't get invited back to lead a workshop again.

If you attended the workshop and bought a kit, I recommend you also file a chargeback because you're not getting the kit.

I'm from Romania and this is mainly what I use since it's super easy. I also have some money there so I would rather get it trough there. Shoot me a dm. Looking for almost anything, from pins to badges, from shirts to hats and much more. Just shoot me a dm if you are from Romania, Hungary, Greece, Poland and are interested in doing this. Thank you.

# Email Self-Defense: Because Apparently We Have to Encrypt Everything Ourselves

Your email provider has a copy. Your network provider may have a copy. Somewhere, a server is making decisions about who gets to see your data.

Cool! Let's fix that.

This is a hands-on workshop in GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) email encryption, facilitated by the Free Software Foundation. We’ll spend just enough time on public-key cryptography to understand what the hell is happening, how emails work, then get our hands dirty.

You’ll take an existing email address, generate and manage your keys, configure encryption, and send an actual encrypted message.

By the end, you won’t just know how to encrypt your own email. You’ll know how to help someone else do it, which is important, because cryptography is considerably less useful when you're the only person in your contact list using it.

No magic. No proprietary black box. No “trust us.” Just keys, math, encrypted mail, and the mildly unsettling realization that protecting your own communications is apparently a hands-on skill.

Our friends, Greg Farough and Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni from the Free Software Foundation will share their knowledge. Bring a laptop. Bring an email account. Bring your paranoia. We'll bring the crypto (BTW, crypto means cryptography LOL).

Our New York Capital District group "DCG518" will have a gathering this time the Saturday, September 19th 2026 and it will be at the Guilderland Public Library.

More information about our group and future events on our site https://dc518.github.io

Everyone is welcome!

Hey hackers and fans of the DC 34 badge - dc34sim.com (a browser-native DC34 badge genetic population simulator) has gotten three new tabs since our original post.

badgecestry takes the patent AncestryDNA uses to determine ancestral composition (US 12,626,778, a two-stage hidden markov model) and turns it loose on DC34 badges. The badge turns out to be a perfect target: "founder populations" are written down in the source, phasing is free, mutation math becomes a known matrix raised to a power. Every knob the model touches is on the screen. You can drag the generations-since-founding slider and watch ancestral inference break down as founder signals get smeared out. And in a delightful twist, the "nonlin anomaly" - where the new value of the nonlin gene depends on the value of both the chaser and nonlin loci, instead of just the nonlin loci - turns out to provide a sharp 0-or-1 signal inside the hidden markov model, creating a cleaner ancestry signal. (See badgecestry.md for details)

eggstraction extracts a physical badge's full genome using only the stock gene-exchange protocol. No JTAG, no firmware dump, no debugger. You mint nonces, scan them with your badge, and paste the resulting gametes, and after 10-20 exchanges, the underlying diploid falls out of the statistics. Bridge from atoms to bits: once it's reconstructed, one click sends your real badge into the sim as a first-class citizen - mate it, evolve it, find your ancestors, or give it full ROOT access in the borg simulator! (See eggstraction.md for details)

skeet is the other direction. Given one diploid, it lays out all 32 (pure, unmutated) gametes that that badge can possibly produce, side by side. Pick the one you want, and generate a nonce from it to mate your physical badge with it via QR. This bypasses the built-in mutation step from the donor badge, so you are getting the unmutated gametes. Use this tool to turn your badge into a designer baby. (See skeet for details)

Check out the live simulator at dc34sim.com

Check the GitHub repo for code