DEF CON Is Cancelled? Sort Of

The decades old joke that “DEF CON has been cancelled”, is now a reality. Well, not cancelled as much as moved online to become a virtual conference for the first time.

On Friday May 8th, 2020, DEF CON tweeted “The #DEFCONiscanceled meme has crossed over into real life, courtesy of #COVID19. In early March we had hopes that things would be stable by August. That is no longer realistic.”

DEF CON is referring to this virtual conference as, “DEF CON in Safe Mode, with Networking.” A witty title that plays off of Windows Safe Mode, which is a boot mode that loads a limited set of files and drivers for troubleshooting problems. The DEF CON Safe Mode FAQ starts off by stating, “For the health and safety of our community, the decision has been made to put DEF CON 28 into “safe-mode with networking”. The DEF CON in-person conference scheduled August 6-9, 2020 has been canceled.” Refer to the FAQ for more information about this virtual event. The FAQ will be updated as new information becomes available.

Sister conference, Black Hat, has also been moved to a virtual setting according to an announcement by Black Hat General Manager, Steve Wylie. Wylie stated, “While we will not be meeting in person, we are moving forward with a plan to transform Black Hat USA into an all-virtual event in order to best serve our community.”

Black Hat and DEF CON are always scheduled during the same week each summer in Las Vegas, along with B-Sides Las Vegas and a few other, smaller security conferences, earning that week the nickname of Hacker Summer Camp. This year, Hacker Summer Camp will be virtual and run from August 1st - August 9th.

Image from defcon.org

Besides learning, hacking, and seeing friends and colleagues, DEF CON is also famous for it’s swag and music. This year will be different, but you can already order DEF CON swag and while a new DEF CON 28 album is sure to be available closer to the con, for now you can enjoy the music from all previous DEF CON conferences. One song in particular is becoming very popular now, that is the DEF CON 25 song by Skittish and Bus, called, DEF CON is Cancelled, which you can play below.

A short video version of this song was released this week as part of the DEF CON Safe Mode marketing campaign. You can play that video below.

Plans for next year’s Hacker Summer Camp are in motion and expected to be in-person in Las Vegas. In a blog post from DEF CON’s founder, Jeff Moss (a.k.a Dark Tangent), Moss stated, “The good news is DEF CON will survive, and DEF CON 29 is planned for August 5-8 2021, you can reserve your rooms now.”