.xXx.DefCon V Adventure: System Failure Debut.xXx.

by pinguino

Idlers and irc kiddies alike meet once a year at a convention that hotels have come to fear: DefCon. Where else might a girl be duct taped and led around by an operator's headset? Only in Vegas, in 113 degree heat, where the defcon attendees come out at night and wreck havock upon the strip. This year's victim was the Aladdin hotel, who was tricked into letting the con happen.

Shaedow, el_jefe, wedz, and I left 303 on wednesday in shaedow's car, caravanning with pill, demonika, dox, and wraith. Stopping first at Dennys and 7-11 (JOLT!), we loaded up with aerodynamic arsenal for the trip. (phear the peanuts scattered in pill's car). Nothing really interesting happened on the way there. We stopped in Utah to look at the sky.. it was incredible. You have never seen so many stars. There was no moon, and the milky way streaked boldy across the sky, smattered with shooting stars every other minute.

Thursday morning we stumbled into the Boardwalk hotel. Wedz checked in and we tried to sleep. After a 30min gigglefest, I left to explore the area and attempted to call a buncha people to find logicbox and drkcactus. I wanted the system failure crew to get together before defcon. A few hours later I wandered upstairs and slept for like 2 hours.

We then went on a pizza hunt and ended up in the Monte Carlo food court. We met Maq702 and sc0rp there.. maq702 seriously looks like el_jefe. It's weird and cool and stuff. We beat up sc0rp and he liked it, and then I got yelled at by an attendant at a gas station for flinging water at people.

Our next stop was the Aladdin. I met a goth guy named Bret who seemed really cool, and searched for Logicbox again. Eightball ran into us there. Me and el_jefe went to page them on the intercom, but to no avail. Then, we looked for our crew and figured out that we were lost. Not a good feeling, but since we were "arrRRrrr"ing all day, we decided to trek down to Treasure Island.

The 303 crew was there gambling. Sc0rp gave me money to gamble with, so if i turn into a compulsive gambler at age 21, it's all his fault. ;) We found a place called Captain Morgan's lounge, and el_jefe made someone walk the Plank. Arrr~!@#

We went back to the Monte Carlo for fewd, and me and eightball went to the 26th floor. Remember how easy it was to break into the maid's room last year? They installed card key locks on all doors leading in. Grrr. Me and 8 snagged a dining tablecloth instead from a cart in the hall. I really needed a sheet to use as a backdrop for the booth, and the tablecloth was smaller and worked a lot better. The food stains on it weren't even noticeable a day later ;)

Maq702 took me, sc0rp, and 8ball to his house. I proceeded to smear glowing alien spew across my arms and then we fell asleep (4:30am) only to awaken at 9:45 to get to DefCon for setup.

It was Friday and DefCon was in Chaos. Our tables weren't even there. We waited forever for that, then set up. I was given books to sell from a friend, and those went immediatly. (1/2 off the cover price) LogicBox and Drkcactus were there, then my friends from DefCon IV showed up; Staegan and Holy Cow. Teklord wandered in with Plucky, and tons of people dropped by: Acidjazz, the Dawg, people from mtn-raves, d1s, rage, gersh, the public, zens, skinflower, lefty, knarf, aychbee.. it totally ruled. The scavenger hunt started.

The scavenger hunt was a System Failure thing. I wanted me and maq702 to make novelty and fake IDs, but nobody would lend me a color quickcam or digicam. In desperation, I thought of a game so we wouldn't be bored. I made a list of a ton of weird stuff that people could get usually by trashing or networking, and some off the wall filler items. Each item was assigned a # of points and your group of 5 or less needed 100 points to win. People were going for the weird stuff, like the 60pt security camera, or the 20pt live duck. The guy who won the contest, ToiletDuck, actually counted as a live duck. He won that same night. TDYC entered and ripped out their hotel room wall to get free ld ;). They brought me up to another room and showed me a bathtub with shit in it.. I was like "Umm.. okay, gross, what is that?" Then they pulled the curtain back and "quack" there was a duckling. They won second place (you might want to think of it as 1st place of the second game). Btw System Failure will be at CuervoCon, with a new contest and a new item list ;)

I met Carolyn from the Happy hacker list and pointed her out to my crew. A few days before, I had a sticker made that said `"Thanks for the Monitor Port Hacking NFO carolyn" -Sysfail' with wishes to put it on her car. Drkcactus grabs it, flys by her and slaps it on her back. She doesnt notice. Aychbee nabs my camera and takes pictures of her back, and other people start doing the same. She didn't notice for like 3 hours. heheh =)

At 3pm, I had a business lunch scheduled with uix.com (centronix). We went to the Round Table Buffet at the Excaliber.. awesome fewd. Check them out next year. Anyways, it was me, Centronix, Teeleton, and another guy (a DJ but I can't remember his name right now but he was cool). We talked about like raves and stuff, contract graphic work, Xcon news, and I learned about some busts that happened to 817 to some of mrmadness's friends.

We watched some of the TCP/IP drinking game, and I got bored with shining a laser pointer all over the place. By this time I'd met Green Eyes, Mryoyo, XBS, and Impy. We decided to throw a mini-rave in Green Eye's room, #308. Our table had some music and a CDplayer that DrkCactus had brought. We invited everyone and left. Around this time, Aychbee gives me the key to the tdyc suite as part of the scavenger hunt. Me and lefty go to the aladdin to get showered and stuff, and played with ham radios. We made obnoxious screeching noises at people and confused them.

Me, Logicbox, Drkcactus, and XBS wandered around for a while hitting various parties. Thirty min before our party was gonna start, I really felt like getting a dr. pepper. We hiked to 7-11 and ended up kicking it there for a really long time cuz we were tired and my feet were all beat up. We cruised by the aladdin and someone told us about a party going on in room 308 so we're like, "Hey that's our party." We went in and a few minutes later so did Mr. Sekurity guard. Impy was going outta his mind trying to get people to quiet down, but the room was mainly 30 drunk hackers so that was pointless. The System Failure crew left and went to the Excaliber. We went to Logic's floor and drank sodas all night, and put ice on our feet. We snagged cushions from the chairs and talked about Penguin Palace and System Failure all night. Somehow we fell asleep, and a security guard found us. We got escorted to Logic's room and followed to the entryway elevators. Deciding it was a good time to leave, we walked down to the Boardwalk for breakfast. It was like 7am. We called OCI and harassed them for 30 min. (800-288-2880)

Me and XBS went upstairs to shower, and then we traded clothes. We ended up at DefCon and met Colleen. Since we were outta material and were waiting on stuff from Gersh (who slept all day), Colleen got to sell PLA hats and tapes. She held a raffle for a shirt she brought, which XBS won. This time our table was moved to a smaller room.

Saturday was cool because System Failure got a lot of publicity. There was a photographer from the San Jose Mercury who wanted pictures of people doing stuff for the scavenger hunt (Toilet Duck had won the day before), so he took me, Logicbox, Impy, and mr yoyo trashing at lucent. We got into a truck and stole a trash bag outta there, and found some k0des, cabling, invoices, and other stuff. A big group of us went to eat at the Luxor, then we came back and me, Logic, and cactus got interviewed by the Voice of Mercury.

The Voice of Mercury is a pirate radio station from Long Beach. They're highly involved with the California Car Caravan and broadcasted at DefCon. The interview went smoothly, despite my exhaustion. We got interviewed by some guy putting together a documentary on cyberculture and hacking, but by then I was completely wasted and just rambled incoherantly.

I couldn't find anyone from 303, and I was exhausted, so me and gersh went with logic and cactus to eat at the monte carlo. We wanted to sleep on the roof, or at least chill there, but right after we made it up and checked the entrance to the roof, we saw a security guard coming. We RAN down 5 flights of stairs and got outta that hotel real fast. Logic and Cactus parted our company and Gersh and I went to the Boardwalk. I figured someone would prolly stop by the hotel room for somethin, so we sat down on the floor and waited. Unfortunatly we fell asleep and a security guard woke us I. I had meant to wait 15 min and then knock on Lefty's door, but it was too late for that. The guard told us not to come back, and then like 2 other guards followed us out all the way to the street.

We walked to the Aladdin and nobody was in room 308 or the tdyc room. I walked by room 206 and Zero and bret recognized me. I got invited in and Zero gave me his room key and said i could sleep there. We started talking about comics, then XBS and mryoyo came and got me. We went to a quiet-room party in room 323 where they had drug-ABC going (name drugs from every letter of the alphabet). Mr yoyo did my nails (green with sparkles) which was really cool of him. We wandered to room 308 and I fell asleep on Impy while getting a foot and face massage.

Sunday I woke up and Gersh was next to me (scared me, cuz I thought impy was sleeping there). It was 1:30 so we dashed downstairs to hear the happy hacker panel. If there was any reason to pay to get into DefCon, it would be to hear this panel. It was about Newbies, and if they should be taught or be left to fend for themselves. Even though other people were there, it was mainly d1s vs Carolyn, the person who runs the Happy Hackers mailing list.

Carolyn is dumb. She has some weird concepts, like you should ask someone first if you're gonna hack them to learn new systems, and she's the one that says you can hack a monitor port (found out later she meant shoulder surfing). She thinks she's such a cool hacker or something.

D1sorder is from 303, so EVERYONE from 303 was there supporting them and laughing at Carolyn. His zine is Fucked Up College Kids (FUCK). He runs sekurity.org and has a lot of respect in the scene. He pretty much took over the panel.

el_jefe and zens started asking her questions and getting her riled up, then the public stands up and totally goes off on her about something. It was really entertaining. D1s told carolyn that if she gave him her root password, he would give her the one to sekurity. Rage-303 did NOT look happy about that one. She gave us the pwd, photon, which is to her personal home computer not on the net. (She has www.shellnow.com). d1s is making her a mail account on sekurity.org and dared her to hack him and edit i.hacked.sekirty.org. to add her name to it. At the end, Shaedow presented her with a gift from everyone, a signed copy of "Secrets of a Superhacker." It was a copy that d1s underlined a bunch of stuff in, and everyone in 303 and in the room got to sign. I was the second person to sign it (the picture of the Grand Nigger thanking her for Monitor Port Hacking Infoz, and the silver sig of pinguino on the back). Her daughter Val was given "Computer Security for Dummies."

After the panel, we cleared out the booth and went to dinner at the Aladdin buffet. Lefty wanted to know if he could leave and come back real quick, and the waiter said "Gimmie 20 pushups and you can." Lefty held up his arm and the waiter was like, "Oh, alright, 10." This was also the same time that Gersh paid $7 for a plate of goldfish crackers. Um okay.

We wandered around and said our goodbyes, and took a lot of photos. We then headed over to the New York, New York. I went on the rollercoaster with lefty,and drkcactus went into the girl's bathroom with me, then we headed back to the boardwalk. Apparently tp and naked amy left without zens and skinflower, so that confused a buncha people.

We went back to the Aladdin and said goodbye to lefty, then chilled in 308. There was an ice-fight and cactus stuck ice down the front of his pants (umm you worry us sometimes) then wanted to strip for us, while wearing his belt around his neck. Everyone then went to see MIB and I checked back over at the Boardwalk.

I found outthat my car wasn't leaving til noon so I went to hunt for Mryoyo and some other people. I found them at Dennys as I was walking past, so we went back to 308. On the way the security guard stopped us and would only let me, paine, and mryoyo into the hotel (we had a pack of like 10 people, as usual). We went to sleep right away and got up at 11:30. I stumbled to the Boardwalk and we went to Dennys for a few hours.

We drove back to Colorado, stopping in Beaver, Utah. We also saw a sign for Penguitch, Utah. A billboard had a big snake and "Pornography is just as deadly." This inspired a wish to put a billboard up behind it with a naked chick and "Snakes are just as deadly" and to fly over the Morman church with a buncha Vegas p0rn. To top that off, we saw a sign that said Brian Head. It was for a resort. Shaedow wanted to write "give" over it and watch for a line of people at the boarder with shirts that said "Hi, My name is.." ;)

As we were leaving vegas, here's a quote from el_jefe: "If a bag of ice asked me to marry it, I'd say yes."