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DNA202.003
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Wrap
Text File
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1998-03-02
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10KB
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231 lines
DEF-CON III REVIEW
written live from Vegas
by Arclight
Okay folks, here is the scene live from DEF-CON III, brought to you by DNA
The following is a mostly factual account of the events taking place
around the '95 DNAs-DEFCON trek.
Actual itenerary of trip. Written as it happened on Arclight's Laptop.
Frida, August 4, 1995
4:00-6:00pm
Get the DNA crew together. Arclight, Renegage, Vandal, and Stormbringer are all
rounded up, and the equipment is stowed. I am seriously doubtfull about my
car being able to make it up to LV with the 2.5 metric tons of SHIT we
brought. A partial inventory reveals the following items:
(3) Laptop Computers
(5) Pagers (None of which work in Vegas, go figure)
(1) 28.8K modem
(1) 14.4Kmodem
(1) 2400 BPS pocket modem
(1) Cellphone to be chipped up at con
(3) Beige Boxes
(3) Red Boxes
(1) 4W Pirate FM transmitter set to 104.7FM
(2) 1/4 wave antennas for pirate TX
(1) Radio Shaft stereo mixer board
(1) Radio Hack microphone w/ 50' cable (For the live remote)
(1) Sony Mini-Disk player/recorder
(1) Pair 24" boltcutters
(1) Digital multimeter
(1) Camera (Gotta generate lots of evidence)
(1) Uniden Scanner
(9) Assorted chargers/Power supplies for above shit
(100) DNA Flyers (Courtesy Arclight's work)
(600) Useless flyers with no advertising (Courtesy Renegage's work)
<Lots of other stuff not mentioned>
9:30pm
Stop at In n Out Burgers in Barstow for Smoke/Piss/Food/Masturbation break.
Play Scorched Earth (c) (tm) in restaurant with laptop.
10:00pm Drive by Death Valley turnoff. Decide to continue with original plan
of going to Vegas for Defcon
11:00pm Somewhere in the desert
One of the four people in the car releases nasty cloud of noxious gas. I start
to feel dizzy, and instinctively slam all four electric window controls to
DOWN. In true geek fashion, someone's 2" stack of printouts starts flying out
the window. I slam all 4 controls back to UP, and in even truer geek fashion,
Vandal's hand gets caught in roll up window. Intense scream of pain fills
the car.
11:30pm Arrive at Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas. Check in at Con. "Renegage who?"
A quick talk with Dark Tangent gets our last-minute reservations confirmed.
Meet up with Zephyr, Big Brother and the other DNAers. BB is totally shit-
faced. Hacker Jeopardy starts. After round 1, Renegage is picked for the
Jeopardy team. Free beers circulate. After 2 rounds, we leave the site for our
$25.00 Sahara hotel room. Renegage is kicked off casino floor for playing
slots.
1:30pm We gather up the equipment and trek it up to the 20th floor. 'Gage
and Vandal go scope out the hotel scene. No accessable phone panels can be
found, so Stormbringer and I proceed to move out the beds and take apart the
phone jacks. After a quick beige box test, it is determined that we can't jack
into any other hotel lines. One of the phones has an RJ-11 jack, so we hook up
the modem and Vandal's laptop. A disposable Circle-K promo card gets us a
5-minute call to Netcom in SoCal, where we obtain the Las Vegas dialup number. A
quick call to the front desk confirms what the card by the room phone says:
local calls cost 50cents. But there is no time limit. We decide to log into
Netcom and leave it logged in permanently, saving 50c a call.
3:00am We assemble the pirate transmitter, solder a new connector on the
antenna, and hook it up. The radio built into the television serves as a
monitor, and we lock onto 104.7 MHz FM.
4:00am We begin broadcasting. Defcon updates and music follow. A feature is
the live Ferret remote (Apparently ferret smuggling is a big topic here in
LV). Another update tells the radio public about Weasel showing off his
heavily pierced penis to the DEFCON crew. This gets bizarre.
6:30am It's getting light outside. We decide to crash for a couple hours
before the 10:00am keynote speach. The radio goes off-air, various devices
are set charging, and we crash. We'll be waking up at 9:30 for the Con.
11:20am I get up, look at the watch, and spend the next 20 minutes waking
everyone up. After showering, we migrate out to the Circus Circlejerk
buffet and fill up. Vandal and PB come close to tossing cookies.
2:30pm We cruise back to the Con. We meet up with Lightray, Vipurr, and
several other Digital Decay users. We consult with Noid, DT, and various
Con-life. Vandal, 'Gage, Phreakboy, and I wander through the Casino, play
nickel slots, and note the Rasta "You are coming to the end of walkway. Do
not light anymore bowls." voice that accompanies the moving walkway. 'Gage
gets carded at the slots again.
3:30pm We explore the hotel, wander, and generally cause havoc. The stick-on
lettered signs are re-arranged numerous times. Some combos that come out:
(Wedding signs,etc)
BITCH
FRIED
XENON
NEXT
B3
NEKED
DIKEZ
FEDZ
ON
EX
COLON
FED CON 3
FEDZ
FO
HIRE
DARK TANGENT
IS
A FED
FOR AOL
(Cheating; they used extra letters)
7:45pm We leave the Con, with Big Brother, Ratt, and other miscreants. Vandal
is sent for the $1 Heinekens. We party on. Our Net conenction is admired.
Everyone logs on to their various accounts and checks mail. And we forgot to
load the keystroke logger!
10:00pm It is time to get the pirate station rolling. We pack up the mixer,
microphone, cables, transmitter, power supply, and antenna into a duffel bag.
We head out for a certain hotel room on the fourth floor of the Trop.
11:00pm After fighting traffic, slot machines, and getting lost, we arrive at
the hotel room. Weasel, Light Ray, Bucket Man, and at least 4 others are jammed
into the room. We break out the gear, assemble the antenna, and hook up the
audio. Fifteen minutes later we are on the air with KDNA, as advertised at
the con. Vandal, Stiletto, and I drive out for reception reports. We're hitting
the strip well, especially considering the antenna is propped on a chair by
the window. We broadcast music, Con highlights, and general chatter. A crew
is sent to scope out some payphones for call-in use. They call back and give
an on-air report of payphone and voice-bridge numbers. Several other call-ins
are made by Con folks and people in rooms. (The televisions all have FM radios
built in! :) We advertise the station vocally at the conference room, and
Stormbringer hangs up a massive banner advertising its presence. We try to
get people to tune in, or set up a receiver hook-up to the conference sound
gear. Not one person has an FM receiver. Two hundred and fifty hackers, and
nobody has a fucking walkman! TDK ends up saving the day with his DC-to-Daylight
scanner.
12:00am Sunday Ratt, Stiletto, Stormbringer, Vandal and I take off in search of
food. We visit a grocery store and purchase $20.00 worth of munchie material
using food stamps somehow acquired by Ratt. We come back and eat. I am so
hungry at this point that eating feels like having sex.
1:30am The DNA crew takes off to the Hot Tub Party advertised on the con
billboard. It is a welcomed relief from a room full of computer freaks. We
are ready to beat GTE Man. (Note: GTE Man = annoying, insane person wearing GTE
flag as cape) The warm water lulls me into a comfortable state of numbness.
2:45am We return to the "studio room." Ratt has been DJing the past 2 hours,
and is getting amusing. We are sure to ID ourselves as being "Live from the
_________." Hotels we identify include the Luxor, top of Circus Circus clown,
and the abandoned El Rancho. We have a blast. Stormbringer's recordable
mini-disk gets the day's speaches out.
3:45am We are getting tired, and want to pick up the gear, so we start pre-
paring to sign off. The last songs are played, Everyone says their FUCK YOU!'s
to the FCC and hotel security (It was rumored they were looking for us by this
time) and go off the air with a click. Static breaks from the monitor RX.
We disassemble the gear, stash it back in the duffel bag, and head out. A
group shot is taken. (To be released in the future?) We head back to the hotel
room, to crash and finish up the DNA articles.
5:45am We decide to crash for a couple of hours before heading back to the
last day of the Con. Big Brother crashes out with us on the floor. We will
wake up at 10:00am.
1:00pm Sunday afternoon. I wake up, check watch. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! Checkout
is 12:00, so I dash to the phone to ask if we can check out in the next half
hour. "How about the next ONE MINUTE?" is the reply. Shit. We cancel showers
(got mine last night, ha!) and throw all the gear in duffel bags.
1:15pm Checkout. I examine our phonebill and verify that out net connect cost
a grand total of $1.50. But the 1-800 numbers we called cost 75c each. BASTARDS!
We lug the gear down to the car and head out to the Trop.
2:00pm We wander the convention, take some pictures, and talk with friends.
The buffet at the Excalibur is a much better scene than Clown Town. After
filling up, we head back for more mischief. Vandal and Gage take off for the
pool and I stay behind to finish the article.
9:30pm Time to get the hell out of Dodge. We gas up and head out of Vegas.
The con is over and it's time for some sleep. It is a successful con!
10:30pm We meet up with Ratt and Stiletto at the In n Out in Barstow. (If Vegas
sucks, Barstow is really Hell on Earth!) We munch out, then take off caravan
style.
11:30pm We are chasing each other across the desert. Insults come out of the
P.A. system of the FED-mobile (Arclight's white Chevy Celeb.) Notable quotes
from both sides include:
"You suck Emamnuel Goldstein's dick for dead 950's!"
"Beware of mousetraps"
"Yo momma is stupid, she can't even build a Beige Box!"
1:20am After 2.5 hours of Road Warrior action, we depart the Ratt/Stiletto
crew and head down the 57fwy.
3:30am Vandal, Renegage, and Stormbringer have all been dropped off, and
Arclight heads for bed. I will be waking up at 6:00am for work. With our
previous record for waking up on time, I should be right on schedule at 10:00am.
The trip is closed successfully, with no arrests or deaths.