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Fifth HOPE Conference Underway 184

The Fifth HOPE conference is starting today at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. If you haven't heard of it, read through their website or see our report on the last conference to get some idea. The lockpicking talk is scheduled for Saturday morning, and Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak, and Jello Biafra will all be speaking. Well worth your time and the $50 admission fee, so if you're in the Big Apple, come on down.
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Fifth HOPE Conference Underway

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  • good (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:11PM (#9653013)
    now call the FBI, we have all the h@x||'s in one place, get those terrorists.
  • If you meet Jen Savage tell her I said "Hi!"
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:15PM (#9653070)
    To smack Kevin Mitnick? I know a lot of people that would like the opportunity to pop this attention whore that was trashed the name "Hacker". We could donate the revenue to the EFF to help support the fight for real hackers, not criminal posuer jerks.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:15PM (#9653075)
    Cool, so I don't have to worry about locking myself out of the car if I go :D
  • by munboy ( 732717 )
    man, i wish i could go. kevin m. is like the ruler of the world! MA
    • I read his book The Art of Deception and it seems to me that he's nothing more than an unfunny version of the Jerky Boys. He's just an idiot who fucks around on the phone.
  • I wish I was there (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tripie ( 776833 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:18PM (#9653105)
    Wow i wish I was there instead I am a slave stuck behind this damm keyboard. But when the FBi raids the place for everyone in there being a terrorist and they all end up in jail being held without a trial for supporting terrorist. I am sure HOPE also violates the DMCA in some way or another!!!
  • recordings (Score:5, Informative)

    by TechBCEternity ( 561141 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:18PM (#9653108) Homepage Journal
    They'll have most of the first and second streams recorded and put online so if you can't make it, check back in a week or so and you can listen them.
  • I wish (Score:1, Redundant)

    I knew about this earlier...oh well, maybe next year
  • What the hell does Jello Biafra have to do with hacking? (Besides another weak attempt to prop up his ever-fading relevancy to anything.) Seems like this guy will do anything to grab for people's attention.
    • My thoughts exactly. He's reason enough not to go.
    • Re:Jello Biafra? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GAMMAH_DJ ( 767495 )
      Jello's talks usually focus on 'media hacking,' meaning that one becomes a source of media to introduce non-mainstream ideas to the public. His ideas on this topic are still releevant, especially today when US media consumers are all being fed from the same spoon.
      • Re:Jello Biafra? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by bob dobalina ( 40544 )
        His ideas on this topic are still releevant, especially today when US media consumers are all being fed from the same spoon.

        So as an alternative, we feed everyone else from another spoon, on the Michael Moore conspiracy theorist axis?

        Someone else here wrote up a good analysis of the last HOPE, and I agree; he doesn't teach anyone to "think for themselves" unless that means thinking the same as him. He has a view that anyone opposed to him is a "Bush lackey" or "henchman of the right" or whatever (implyin
        • Re:Jello Biafra? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by GAMMAH_DJ ( 767495 )
          There is no spoon ;) Sorry I couldn't resist. No, it's not a question of "You must feed at the teet of ONE OF THESE TWO: - Corporate Media - Jello Biafra" That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, look at any corporate media outlet, and many are fed from the same source. I said NOTHING about Michael Moore, or the government, or Bush, or ANYTHING ELSE! What I am saying is: There are issues that go unaddressed by corporate media. There are viewpoints that are somehow not covered by corporate media. One point
          • Now who's putting words in whose mouth? I never said I was on the right, unless libertarianism tempered with realism is a strict province thereof. I wasn't suggesting you were about to dive off the Michael Moore springboard, neither. And like I said, I don't subscribe to the notion that everyone who disagrees with me is evil. But I've heard enough of Biafra's talk (I was at h2k and h2k2 and it got tiresome after about a minute) to know that his argument about "being the media" is a sidepoint to his utter c
      • Re:Jello Biafra? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Errorism ( 795449 )
        I agree with GAMMAH DJ. People like Jello Biafra and Michael Moore aren't trying to impose their beliefs on you but make you think about ideas. They at least have the balls to stand up for what they believe in - something that a lot of people can't do. You could always be like Britney Spears (and sadly a lot of americans I would assume) and blindly follow and trust your president no matter what he does...hmmm, I believe the Nazis blindly followed and trusted their leader during WWII...
        • You praise Michael Moore and Jello Biafra for having 'the balls to stand up for what they believe in' and then bash people who follow Bush for doing the same? Remember, many supporters of Bush are *not* blind. Just because you say they are, doesn't make it true...
    • Maybe he'll do a performance of Holiday In Cambodia or some LARD songs?

      Most likely, just some more spoken word stuff. He's actually a smart guy, if not a little paranoid.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:20PM (#9653127)
    The Hotel's phone number is PEnnsylvania 6-5000.

    Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand.

  • Someone care to elaborate on what they stand for and what this conference is all about?

    The intro page for them doesnt say much except talking about the upcoming conference and not about who they are..
  • google makes him out to be a political activist and country musician. So whats he doing at a tech conference?
  • by tcopeland ( 32225 ) * <tom&thomasleecopeland,com> on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:22PM (#9653151) Homepage
    ...for various things [the-fifth-hope.org]. Whew, those stats [the-fifth-hope.org] are moving up fast...
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:23PM (#9653168)
    I understand you geeks may not be into punk rock. I'm here to help.

    Jello Biafra (real name: Eric Boucher; born June 17, 1958, Boulder, Colorado) was the lead singer for the Dead Kennedys, a punk rock band.

    Biafra has used absurdist media tactics in the tradition of the Yippies to highlight issues of civil rights, social justice, and anti-corporatism.

    In 1979 he ran for mayor of San Francisco using the slogan borrowed from a Jello ad campaign, "There's always room for Jello". His platform included such ridiculous points as forcing businessmen to wear clown suits. He finished fourth out of 10, gaining 3.5% of the vote, and the election was resolved in a runoff that did not involve him. Also in 1979 Jello formed the label alternative tentacles (http://www.alternativetentacles.com/)

    Biafra was a swift critic of the Parents Music Resource Center, and has constantly criticised co-founder Tipper Gore.

    In 1985, Biafra was brought to trial in San Francisco for distributing "harmful matter" in the Dead Kennedys album Frankenchrist. The jury was deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial and ordered the charges dropped. The band broke up during the trial, but Biafra has since become a renowned "Spoken Word" artist, and an icon for anti-censorship groups.

    He has released several spoken-word albums, including No More Cocoons, and is the lead singer of the band Lard, which has released several albums (The Power of Lard, The Last Temptation of Reid, Pure Chewing Satisfaction, and more).

    He coined the slogan "Don't hate the media, become the media". Indymedia and related alternative media often use this line, or the now more apt "Don't hate the media, be the media".

    In the year 2000, Biafra was drafted as a candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination, and a few supporters were elected to the party's nominating convention in Denver, Colorado. However, Ralph Nader was overwhelmingly chosen as the party's candidate.

    Of note: Biafra was the name of a country which attempted to secede from Nigeria in 1966. After 4 years of fighting, and horrific starvation, Nigeria regained control of the nascent Biafran state. Jello Biafra came up with his name as a combination of a violent civil war and a consumer product.

    Jello was featured and has spoken at many of the H.O.P.E. confrences(audio is freely available of these apearances)

    (Taken from Wikipedia)
    • Jello Biafra (real name: Eric Boucher...

      You forgot to mention that after the split up of the Dead Kennedys Jello went on to become a pompus ass. He turned from his ways of telling people to think for themselves to telling people what to think. Not that he's completely wrong but it's really sad to hear what Jello has to say today. Not to mention that he also sued thre ex-members of the Dead Kennedys for touring under the old name. Almost like the Pink Floyd Waters/Gilmour affair. Still, he may have somethi
      • Funny, I just happened to look them up the other day and found out about the legal mess. Its a really sad situation for everyone involved, and my opinion of all of them is much lower as a result. Its hard to separate the facts when all of the info I can find online is he-said-she-said. More info on the A.T. website [alternativetentacles.com] and the 'official' band website [deadkennedys.com].

        My guess is Jello has gone off the deep end while the rest of the band grew up, got haircuts and just wants to get rich making music. Both of which are a sad
        • My guess is Jello has gone off the deep end while the rest of the band grew up, got haircuts and just wants to get rich making music.

          I think you're right about Jello, but as far as getting rich playing old DK songs? I find it hard to think that they may make enough from that to get rich. What I think is that the 'new' DKs is more a result of bad solo projects and the attempt to make a living as a musician. I'm sure they make rent but I doubt they're going to retire from the funds.

          ...and I'd be very surpr
      • Please also recall that the other members of the DKs sued Jello for failure to pay back royalties and won. Because of this case Alternative Tenticles can no longer distribute the DKs albums and I think Cleopatra is the new distributor. For such an anti-corporate, class warrier he sure had no problem screwing his former band-mates out of money. ............Kill your idols indeed.....
    • by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:47PM (#9653461) Homepage
      Don't forget that he also stated many times that he was glad the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. He said it was a good thing and that their deaths were worth it because he was convinced that the Cassini space probe (now orbiting Saturn) might have released plutonium into the atmosphere if it had been on board.

      Too bad for the families of the astronauts that he was able to seperate his politics from his humanity
      • The shuttle can barely lift things to LEO, and you expect it to carry payloads that can get out of earth orbit and to saturn? It doesn't add up, makes the guy sound like a whacko.

        -molo
      • It would have been worse if the mission after the Challenger had exploded as it had plutonium onboard which would have taken out the entire state of Florida [animatedsoftware.com] not just the shuttle. Which would you prefer: half a dozen people dead or an entire state obliterated in the blink of an eye? Its not nice to say that you are glad some people died, but think of what could have happened!

        Damien
        • Re:Clarification (Score:4, Insightful)

          by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @01:57PM (#9654241) Homepage
          Nah. The astronauts were intact when they hit the water (probably unconscious, possibly dead), but intact, and yet this mythical, nonexistent plutonium (in a sturdy shielded capsule) would have miraculously disintegrated and somehow, magically covered the whole of florida? Sorry. Ain't gonna happen.
        • It would have been worse if the mission after the Challenger had exploded as it had plutonium onboard which would have taken out the entire state of Florida not just the shuttle. Which would you prefer: half a dozen people dead or an entire state obliterated in the blink of an eye?

          Man, thats a hard question. Maybe if you changed it to a different state?
    • thanks. I happened to be wearing my Alternative Tentacles T-shirt. :)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:25PM (#9653189)
    Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car ?

    If I were holding a conference like this, I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city that is cheap as shit and as easy as possible to get to. A small college town might do; it would have to be close enough to an airport serviced by Southwestern for cheap flights, that you could run a shuttle van back and forth to get people to it.

    For the venue, I would find an empty department store or closed factory that could be rented for a month or a couple of weeks.

    Finally, you have to be close to a Motel 6 and within driving distance of cheap-ass RV parks.

    With that setup, you could run a slightly longer conference and do some more interesting things. Like a "best mod to bzFlag written in 48 hours" contest. Or whatever.

    I guess elite pretenious snobs wouldn't show up, though. Probably no Mitnick or Jello. I wouldn't miss them.
    • NY is generally cheaper to get to by air, due to it being a major hub, and there's a whole lot more to do there.

      Sure, if you hold it in Bumfuck, Iowa, it'll be a whole lot cheaper, but what are the attendees going to do between talks or after hours? Watch the corn? Cow tipping?

      In a large city, you already will have a strong possibility of getting all interested parties (possibly many thousands) that live in the area, because it's easy for them to get to. In Iowa, the total number of interested parties
      • what are the attendees going to do between talks or after hours? Watch the corn? Cow tipping?

        What else would geeks do? Sit around the hotel or a cheap diner drinking coffee or coke, smoking cigarettes talking about EverQuest, Linux and the latest Mythbusters...

        I'm sure many of the attendees aren't going to go see the latest Broadway hit.
      • I vote New Orleans. Mostly becasue I live there, but also because it is a fun conference town. There is plenty to do after hours... as long as you like to drink and eat good food. I'm not sure about how cheap it may be though. It's not a major hub so flights may be a little more expensive. Also, hotel fares fluctuate wildly throughout the course of the year, depending on what else may be going on. But on the plus side (for male geeks, anyway) there are plenty of boobs to go around at all times of the
      • > Sure, if you hold it in Bumfuck, Iowa, it'll be a whole lot cheaper, but what are the attendees going to do between talks or after hours? Watch the corn? Cow tipping?

        Good point. If people bring their spouses or children, they might want to do something else during the day...

        I can think of something easier to access in the rural midwest than big cities: Nature. I know server room dwellers might not appreciate it but I can imagine horse riding, canoe trips, whitewater rafting, water skiing, hiking/bik

    • Well, since 2600 is headquartered in NYC and they do most of their work there, why should they be expected to go far away?

      Also, when the price is high, you'll get people there that REALLY WANT to be there, and not a bunch of idiots named Zer0ko0l and c3re4lk1ller whose main intention is to spend the whole time playing FPS games.
    • *sigh* Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car ?

      I work in NYC, and I ride 3 different subways to get to and from work. I have never been harassed or seen anyone harassed on the subway. If anything the security on the subway systems in NYC is lax. I'm fairly dark skinned, with a buzz cut in my 20's, etc. If you think the police in NYC are 'facist' you are living in a fantasy world. They are way to busy fighting REAL crime i
      • Your point about not being hassled by the NYC police--I worked on Long Island and Staten Island a few weeks ago. I drive a company van, with Ohio plates.

        Unfortunately, the way that New York defines "trucks" and Ohio defines "trucks" are very different. This caused me a lot of harassment by the local law enforcement bodies. Also, every time I went over a toll bridge, I was stopped, and my vehicle was inspected. Also, because I'm not from New York, I didn't have to have holes cut into the back of my van
    • I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city

      The cops there have nothing to, unlike the cops in NY. Now, these people aren't doing anything illegal, but I doubt they'd appreciate it if the entire local police department decided to drop in because they had nothing else to do... Then again, the cops might learn something. Or maybe not.

      Oh yeah, to the guy who wanted to smack Mitnick, I'll second that. Grrr...
    • While going to some tiny little town in Iowa has definate problems associated with their lack of ,well... everything, there are plenty of cities that aren't NYC/LA that can easily accomodate a few thousand visitors.

      Pretty much any city with more than a few hundred thousand people would do the job & have conference facilities that would fit the bill and cost a lot less than being in one of the top-10 biggest cities.
    • > Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car?

      How about an Native American reservation then? Finding one with a casino might fulfill the need for a nightlife that others have mentioned.

      > If I were holding a conference like this, I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city that is cheap as shit and as easy as possible to get to.

      I think you're on to something. People are complaining about nothing to do, but consider

  • I was wondering why they use Chinese style pictures in their banners? Does that mean something? Or simply "We are at war with Eurasia"?
    • I'm guessing it's a reference to Orwell and 1984. They were in a state of perpetual war against "Eurasia" or whoever. The point was that a state of perpetual conflict kept the populace malleable and obedient.
      Now, note that the banner doesn't say "Eurasia", it says "Eurabia". This is probably a dig at the current conflict we are being distracted by.
      Just my thoughts.
      Mitch
      • Thank you, and I read it again, and magnified the picture in gimp, and the banner reads "WE ARE AT WAR WITH EURABIA, WE HAVE ALWAYB BEEN AT WAR WITH...". And I am going to grab a copy of "1984" from lib.

        Really creative banner.

        However, why they use the Chinese scheme in the "speaker" section is more confusing to me. The Chinese in this banner including peasant, soldier, worker and intellectual, those are classified as "working class" in China. And the small red book they are holding is "Chairman Mao's ana"
        • Why the Cultural Revolution iconography? I think it's because of the methods of social control used during that era. The creator of the banner might be drawing a parallel between the Communists obvious attempts at social engineering with the more subtle methods used by the global elite.
          That's just my thought. It seems like a plausible interpretation given the iconoclastic bent of the hacker ethos.
          Mitch
  • I can't make it, but I want to know more about lockpicking. Can anyone recommend any references? thanks!
  • Preregistration over (Score:4, Informative)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:29PM (#9653238) Homepage Journal
    Well, I was planning to be in NJ this weekend, and tried to sign up for the conference (at the very least to hear Mitnick and Wozniac speak), but looks like the preregistration period has closed:

    From http://store.2600.com/2600hacker/

    FIFTH HOPE TICKETS
    NO LONGER AVAILABLE HERE!
    Preregistration has CLOSED.
    You can get tickets to the conference at the door.

    On the other hand, maybe this is their idea of screening the attendees to weed out the chaff from the uber haxx0rs.

    • So? It's still $50 whether you pre-register or not, the only difference is that you have to pay with cash at the door, instead of using your credit card to preregister. And for those who don't like using cash: considering that most major banks have ATMs within a block of Penn station and the Hotel, it's not like you're risking much to take out $50 and carry it a few hundred meters ;)
  • Photos (Score:5, Informative)

    by fulldecent ( 598482 ) * on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:32PM (#9653264) Homepage
    http://fifthhope.blogspot.com/

    We are taking photos at the event and will post asap.
  • cDc and 2600 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by trifakir ( 792534 )
    Cool, all the old geeks. I shall admit that I've always been sympathetic to the cause of the "good" hackers who fight for freedom of speach and all these liberties, many of your ancestors had died for...

    But on the other side, I wonder where is now and for them the border of what is allowed and what is not. Is this "hackers" ethics they define something too murky or it is non-existing at all? How do we prevent the "proceedings" about the "Distributed Password Cracking API" from their conference not going t

    • And last, I had a look at their schedule - they have a talk "How to talk to the press". Isn't this is the same old rotten smell of socialism (greenpeace)?

      Err....you think corporates and politicians don't have similar "How to talk to the press" meetings?

      Cheers,
      Ian

      • Sure, they have. But in combination with the Mao style banners [the-fifth-hope.org] they display, I wonder if all this is a combination of artistic interpretation and lack of technical topics or the "hackers" movement becomes yet another left-wing pseudo-technical pseudo-political organization. Because if the latter is true than it means that there are also some true hackers, who probably do not visit such events and I wonder if we can read more about the latter...
    • I would have to say the hacker ethic would be something along the lines of "Learn what is interesting to you" with a bit of "Damn the man" thrown in for good measure. Information wants to be free [as in speech].
    • An air traffic server has no business being available on the public Internet for terrorists to log on to.
  • Before I read the article, I thought 'Fifth HOPE' was related to that movie 'The Fifth Element'.
  • HOPE is boasting quite an impressive lineup [the-fifth-hope.org] of folks this year. I hope they offer videos [2600.com] again for the folks who can't make it.
  • I cancelled my trip to HOPE this year to avoid the political bullshit that's almost guarranteed to dominate the con. Here's what I wrote in my blog:

    I'm starting to get really disturbed by the politics going on right now.

    There's nothing wrong with questioning your government. When you start blindly protesting every single action of the government, I think it's time to take a step back and get a little perspective on things.

    I'm starting to think twice about going to HOPE [the-fifth-hope.org] next month. Last time I went (2002) it was *incredibly* political. Jello Biafra [yankthechain.com] gave a talk, and said a bunch of things about the "Bush conspiracy"--stuff that was easily debunked as bullshit on snopes.com [snopes.com]--but everyone there just ate it up like it was hard fact. Random people would yell out "Bush sucks!" and everyone would laugh like it was the funniest shit in the world.

    I've never seen a better example of herd mentality in my life. This is free thinking?

    This was before the war, and before I gave a shit one way or the other about Bush and his policies, and I was probably more than likely to say "fuck Bush" based on what I knew about him at the time... and I still remember looking around and thinking these were a bunch of anarchist-wannabe children (many of whom were well past childhood.)

    This was supposed to be a gathering of free-thinking people... individuals. Instead, it was a bunch of scene whores trying to act cool in front of "all the other hackers"... spouting ill-informed mass-media opinions without any actual information to back it up. And then they have the nerve to talk about how fucked up the media is. Hah. I'd feel different if I had seen anything but eagerly nodding heads slack-jawed idiots drinking up the bullshit like it was gospel.

    I donno, I'd like to go to HOPE, it'd be fun in some ways... but I just cringe every time I think of the immature shit that Emannuel used to spout on his radio show, and I can only imagine how much more political HOPE will be with the current assault on Bush [michaelmoore.com]. Something tells me I won't really enjoy myself too much there.

    I bet money that they show Fahrenheit 911 [davekopel.com] in the screening room and spend endless hours spouting mindless propaganda. And no, I'm not trolling. I'm not even a republican. I just hate people who don't think things through for themselves.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • My F9/11 review (Score:3, Insightful)

      by KalvinB ( 205500 )
      Fahrenheit 9/11 Review [icarusindie.com]

      I paid my $6.50 and saw the film. The above is my full review.

      ----------------

      The next conspiracy theory deals with the Bin Laden family. Moore pretends this is new information yet this was revealed long ago. The Bush administration has a relationship with the Bin Laden family. They're very wealthy oil tycoons. But they don't have much of a relationship with their son, Osama. On September 13th they were flown out of the country. What he fails to mention is that the flight restrict
    • Whatever.

      I stopped by today to catch Bruce Schneier's talk on my lunch break, and enjoyed it. I plan to hit Steve Wozniak's keynote, the Retrocomputing panel, and a few of the more esoteric technical talks. I'm not really interested in hearing Jello Biafra's rants - I've heard them before and the similarities in rhetoric and careless disregard of fact to Rush Limbaugh are striking.

      Yeah, there's a lot of political theater at HOPE - some of the posturing is really tiresome - but there are also a lot of very
  • The real 2600 crew (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pneuma_66 ( 1830 )
    I have had the misfortune of working with several members of 2600, including their leader Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley). From my experience with them, they are full of self importance, and, a lot of the times ignorance. For the most part, you do not want to argue with them, because they are so stubborn, and, they feel they are the pinnacle of technical knowlege. Even if you tried arguing that 1+1=2, when they say 1+1=3, there is no way to win.
    I could go on and on, however, this probably will be modded
    • Numerically, when considering floating point values as well as integers, the integer "1" constitutes floating-point values ranging from 0.5 to 1.4. Therefore, if you take the upper-bound range, 1.4, and double it, you get 2.8, which when converted to an integer equals 3.

      Damien
      Read, observe, understand, laugh.
  • Lockpicking talk (Score:3, Informative)

    by ttyv0 ( 203294 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:53PM (#9653534)
    The lockpicking talk is scheduled for Saturday morning
    The lockpicking talk is given by Matt Blaze [crypto.com]. I was lucky to attend his talk at my university. The paper he presented is avalable here [crypto.com].
    Not only was his talk educational, it was very entertaining. He actually brough some "tools of trade", and had an interactive demonstration of master key picking. It was fun.
  • Go ahead, show up. What better way is there to end up on an FBI watch list?
  • Today at 10pm:
    [the discussion will include] ways for hackers to combat terrorism, methods to fight terrorist tendencies of your country, and how hackers might actually participate in terrorism. [... plus,...] What can we do to protect against hackers being misperceived as threats and terrorists?
    Gee, I know: how about don't announce to the world that you're all getting together to learn how to "participate in terrorism"?

    /duh
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, I'm seriously wondering about the advisability of attending a conference like this, at a time when the gov't says it desperately needs the ability to get people's reading lists without a warrant. 'Evil Hackers' seem to be equated with terrorism, and we all know from the movies how '3vil' all hackers are...

      I've been thinking about going to one of these things, but decided not to because I'm afraid of what consequences there could be for me as a foreigner to be seen attending. Who knows what INS/FBI/Ho
  • ... with any full price purchase of Jello.
  • For a second there I though that they were talking about this HOPE [hopehelps.com]. Let's see...the beach, girls in Bikinis, or Nerd-fest 2004. Tough call :-P
  • This is a depressing post to read. I'm supposed to be there now but after they tried rebooting the plane they still couldn't get it work and they had to cancel the flight. I'll at least be able to get there tonight and attend sessions Saturday and Sunday.
  • Totally f-ing awesome. I wonder how many people took up the "kiss for a dollar" offer from that chick standing by the merchandise tables. It seemed that all of the girls were taken, but the ones that were there (and there were many more than I expected!) were exquisitely hawt and listening in on their conversations, I could tell they were hardcore.

    Keven Mitnick was there and it was awesome. The room was jam packed, look at the photos and realize that from the middle of the room, Kevin on the video scree
  • Oh, it said "underway"... darn.

    Umm... isn't it "underweigh"?
  • Okay, so I don't claim to be anyone special, but I am a Fifth Hope attendee. I'm journaling the sessions I attend at http://colz.livejournal.com [livejournal.com]. It's intermixed with my personal notes, too, which most of you won't care about. The journal is for me, but if you find any of it interesting, enjoy...

    ::Colz Grigor

All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin

Working...