LayerOne Hits Los Angeles

Nck writes "This weekend in L.A. will house LayerOne conference where hundreds will gather at the Los Angeles International Airport Westin to hear discussion on subjects from WiFi, crypto, security and how the DMCA is threatening to strangle reverse engineering and the future of interoperability to a presentation on network white ops by Dan Kaminsky. The conference is a collaborative effort put together by a hack-savvy group to educate the masses."

WiFi, the DMCA, and strippers!

[tyoob]

And, if you get bored during the proceedings, that "LIVE LIVE NUDE NUDES" place is just across the street.

Not that any self-respecting geek would want to go THERE, god forbid. :)

hmm... not quite...

[Fry-kun]

The conference is a collaborative effort put together by a hack-savvy group to educate the masses.

From my past experience, nearly all efforts by a group that contains "hack" in their name or description hasn't been able to "educate the masses". Most of these people just don't have what it takes to do that. What they need to do instead is to educate the media (TV, newspapers, radio, et cetera) and those will "educate" the populus.

blah.. bad grammar...

[Fry-kun]

me == grammar fiend :D

--> nearly all efforts by any group that contains "hack" in their name or description have not been successful in "educat[ing] the masses" --

Re:hmm... not quite...

[RAMMS+EIN]

``What they need to do instead is to educate the media (TV, newspapers, radio, et cetera) and those will "educate" the populus.''

And you think the media will be willing to spread the gospel? Keep in mind that the media are largely controlled by large corporations, and hackers and large corps tend not to be friends, exactly. (grammar?!)

Re:hmm... not quite...

[Fry-kun]

well, at least hackers can talk to the media... and some media personalities actually know the difference between white-hat and black-hat hackers...

Re:hmm... not quite...

[growlydog]

Most of these people just don't have what it takes to do that In other words... Most of these people just can't hack it.

Clarification

[boogahsmalls]

Hey, Jason from LayerOne here. I just thought I'd go on record and run down some of the commentary as well as the article itself. LayerOne was started to infuse the traditional hacker style conventions like Defcon and Toorcon with some of the spirit and ideas of conferences like Emerging Tech. Encouraging use of collaborative spaces such as wikis and IRC while the conference is going on. We've set up a note exchange where people can leave their notes or comments on a talk. The whole concept is to add a nurturing environment onto a conference and seeing where it goes from there. Then again, we also want the people who can't make it out to see what they're missing... We've also kept it simple this year, with a single track of speakers. There's no worrying about two talks you really want to see being placed back to back. We'll also have what's known as a classroom setup in part of the conference area, so if you bring your laptop or a notepad you'll have a space to get your thoughts organized. It's a comfort thing. Sure, we've got some decent talks of the hacker variety lined up, but I wouldn't go so far as to call this a "hacker conference". We've also got some great soft tech talks on the line-up. That's why we're calling it a "technology conference". To be perfectly honest we know that there's no way we can educate the masses. In fact, everyone we'll be reaching this weekend will be people who are already clued in. In a way, we'll be preaching to the choir this year, and probably for a couple years to come. Hopefully we'll turn someone else on to a viewpoint they haven't considered, but that may be a few years out. I hope to catch at least some of you there this weekend. Cheers!