Defcon V

Back in the 1990s, I was a big fan of 2600, a hacker magazine. The 2600 name comes from the 2600 Hertz tone phone phreaks used in controlling phone systems back in the day.

In the back of the magazine they listed meet ups in various parts of the world. There was the Vancouver 2600 meetings, which I used to attend. Sadly, it seems they no longer take place.

We used to meet in the the Pacific Centre food court to discuss all sorts of things. We would meet near the fountains, which they have since removed from the mall. You can see what it used to look like in this article.

I digress. One meeting we discussed attending the DEFCON conference happening in July 1997. DEFCON V. Sounded like fun, so I bought a ticket and headed down for an amazing booze soaked nerd fest.

Fast forward to last weekend, I had the idea to see if there was any remnants online of me attending that conference. I started trolling through video footage and photos to see if I was in the background somewhere.

After digging for a while, I found myself in a photo. Well, part of myself. It is a crowd shot where I am in profile, however the front half of me is cut out.

I continued on digging through archives and almost fell out of my chair. I happened across this photo.

It’s a tiny photo with only about 7.5 pixels, but that was pretty kick ass in 1997. So, it’s a bit hard to make but I am the one on the right. Seeing the photo brought back memories of that moment. A bunch of us dipped outside to get a break from the noise and lights of the casino and this group TDYC walked by and took our photo.

I found the image on InfoCon website here.

Okay, I think that is a long enough ride on the WayBack machine for today.