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49-462: The Hackers on Planet Earth ( HOPE ) conference series is a hacker convention sponsored by the security hacker magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly that until 2020 was typically held at Hotel Pennsylvania , in Manhattan , New York City . Usually occurring biennially in the summer, there have been fourteen conferences to date. HOPE 2020, originally planned to be held at St. John's University ,

98-439: A hacker con , is a convention for hackers . These serve as meeting places for phreakers , hackers , and security professionals. The actual events, time-spans, and details of various themes of these conventions not only depends on the specific convention attended but also its perceived reputation. Typically the actual details of any given convention are couched in mild secrecy due to the legality of certain panels, as well as

147-569: A plea bargain , Mitnick pleaded guilty in 1999 to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud, and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication. U.S. district judge Mariana Pfaelzer sentenced Mitnick to 46 months in federal prison plus 22 months for violating the terms of his 1989 supervised release sentence for computer fraud. He admitted to violating the terms of supervised release by hacking into Pacific Bell voicemail and other systems and to associating with known computer hackers, in this case co-defendant Lewis De Payne. He

196-490: A 10 Gbit fibre optic connection provided by Hurricane Electric . This geometric increase in bandwidth made possible live streaming of all conference talks in real time. The Ellsberg/Snowden keynote was seen in over 120 countries. This also was the first year all conference areas were fully connected to the conference network, albeit with the Workshop floor with slightly limited connectivity (a 1 Gbit connection, as compared to

245-627: A 24-hour link to the Internet at "T-1ish" speeds, made available by the DataHaven Project and an internal network. The Fifth HOPE, July 9–11, 2004, had a theme on propaganda, and commemorated the anniversaries of both the H.O.P.E. conferences and Off the Hook (with a live broadcast of the show from the conference, Beyond H.O.P.E.). Keynotes speakers were Kevin Mitnick , Steve Wozniak , and Jello Biafra. There

294-485: A computer network in 1979, at 16, when a friend gave him the telephone number for the Ark, the computer system that Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing its RSTS/E operating system software. He broke into DEC's computer network and copied the company's software, a crime for which he was charged and convicted in 1988. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Near

343-417: A day, bringing in 2,300 attendees. Jello Biafra gave a keynote speech. In a cultural exchange between the punk rock icon/free speech activist and the hacker community, Jello drew connections between the two communities, despite his lack of computer experience. The EFF also raised thousands of dollars. The conference provided a working Ethernet and a T1 link to the internet. H2K2, July 12–14, 2002, had

392-435: A federally issued amateur radio license. Mitnick's criminal activities, arrest, and trial, along with the associated journalism, were all controversial. Though Mitnick was convicted of copying software unlawfully, his supporters argue that his punishment was excessive and that many of the charges against him were fraudulent and not based on actual losses. John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura , who had both been part of

441-465: A firm that develops a mobile intrusion prevention system. He resided in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kevin Mitnick died from pancreatic cancer on July 16, 2023, at the age of 59 at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania hospital. At the time of his death, he was married and his wife was pregnant with their first child. In 2000, Skeet Ulrich and Russell Wong portrayed Mitnick and Tsutomu Shimomura, respectively, in

490-514: A licensed amateur radio operator with callsign WA6VPS (his license was restored after imprisonment with callsign N6NHG ). He chose the nickname "Condor" after watching the movie Three Days of the Condor . He was later enrolled at Los Angeles Pierce College and USC . For a time, Mitnick worked as a receptionist for Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles. Mitnick gained unauthorized access to

539-478: A paid security consultant, public speaker, and author. He carried out security consulting for, performed penetration testing services, and taught social engineering classes to companies and government agencies. He ran Mitnick Security Consulting LLC, a computer security consultancy and was part owner of KnowBe4 , provider of an integrated platform for security awareness training and simulated phishing testing, as well as an active advisory board member at Zimperium ,

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588-514: A panel discussion that covered some of their recent projects, accomplishments, emerging trends and shortcomings in technologies, and a deep dive into Windows NT password internals. A TAP reunion and a recorded live broadcast of Off the Hook took place. A 10 Mbit/s local network was provided to attendees. The July 14–15, 2000 HOPE returned to the Hotel Pennsylvania, where subsequent conferences have been held. The conference ran 24 hours

637-483: A presentation about internet censorship was served a cease and desist letter in an attempt to censor the presentation by Unisys and threatened with termination for a presentation titled "The Internet is for Porn! How High Heels and Fishnet Have Driven Internet Innovation and Information Security". Unisys demanded all information regarding the presentation be removed from the internet, but the Streisand effect occurred, with

686-412: A presentation about internet censorship. HOPE X took place from July 18–20, 2014 at Hotel Pennsylvania. The keynote speakers were Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden ; also featured was noted former NSA official and whistleblower Thomas Drake . The theme of the conference was " dissent ", and whistle-blowing was a topic of a good number of talks. But the conference also featured critical talks about

735-646: A theme focused on U.S. Homeland Security Advisory System . H2K2 included two tracks of scheduled speakers, with a third track reserved for last-minute and self-scheduled speakers, a movie room, retrocomputing , musical performances, a State of the World Address by Jello Biafra, keynotes by Aaron McGruder and Siva Vaidhyanathan and discussions on the DMCA and DeCSS . Freedom Downtime premiered on Friday evening (July 14). The conference provided wireless 802.11b coverage and wired Ethernet, an open computer area for access to

784-507: A video network. HOPE Number Six, July 21–23, 2006, included talks from Richard Stallman and Jello Biafra. Kevin Mitnick was scheduled to be at the conference but was unable to appear: while on vacation in Colombia an illness prevented his timely return to the U.S. HOPE Number Six had a 100-megabit Internet connection; the conference organizers claimed it was the fastest Internet connection to-date at any U.S. hacker conference. The event's theme

833-411: Is a regular part of the event, celebrating the event, the organizers, and volunteers, but also features performances. Since 2006, monochrom 's Johannes Grenzfurthner is a regular performer at the closing ceremony. Held August 13–14, 1994 at the Hotel Pennsylvania, the first HOPE conference marked 2600: The Hacker Quarterly' s 10th anniversary. Over 1,000 people attended, including speakers from around

882-463: Is the evolution of the conference badge. While many conferences use a fairly standard paper/plastic badge to identify attendees by name, many hacker con's have evolved to use more non-traditional badges, such as electronic PCB's with LED's, LCD screens, and can include wifi and advanced, often hidden functionality, to include games, that do not identify the individual, sometimes promoting a group identity or regional/local group affiliation. This has spurred

931-586: The Open Technology Fund (OTF), Flavio Aggio of the World Health Organization (WHO), Idalin Bobé of TechActivist.org, Tiffany Rad of Anatrope Inc, Yeshimabeit Milner of Data for Black Lives, Jaron Lanier , Cindy Cohn , Cory Doctorow , and Richard Thieme . Conference participants communicated primarily using the first year appearance of HOPE's own Matrix chat server. An in-person HOPE conference

980-421: The 10 Gbit backbone of the other conference spaces). Five different wireless networks were provided to conference attendees. The hammocks on the mezzanine level, which provided a place for some attendees to sleep if they were unable to procure a place to otherwise do so, were replaced by inflatable furniture in a dedicated "Chill Space" area. Mezzanine space was also explicitly dedicated to attendee meetups in

1029-454: The associated media coverage, books and films. After his release from prison, he ran his own security firm, Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC, and was also involved with other computer security businesses. Mitnick was born on August 6, 1963, in Van Nuys, Los Angeles , California. His father was Alan Mitnick, his mother was Shelly Jaffe, and his maternal grandmother was Reba Vartanian. Mitnick

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1078-605: The censorship attempt posted on thousands of websites instead. A first for the conference, a ghost speaker @JK47theweapon had to deliver most of the presentation due to legal threats against Kubecka. Prior to beginning, the MC invited "any hangers on or associates of the law firm of Baker & McKenzie" to speak to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Baker & McKenzie is the law firm of Unisys Netherlands which threatened to terminate its employee by letter for giving

1127-528: The claims as a hoax and said that the worm was nonexistent. In 1998, Mitnick was charged in the United States District Court for the Central District of California with 14 counts of wire fraud, eight counts of possession of unauthorized access devices, interception of wire or electronic communications, unauthorized access to a federal computer, and causing damage to a computer. As part of

1176-581: The country's largest cellular telephone and computer companies. Mitnick also intercepted and stole computer passwords , altered computer networks, and broke into and read private emails. After a well-publicized pursuit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Mitnick on February 15, 1995 at his apartment in Raleigh, North Carolina , on federal offenses related to a two-and-a-half-year period of computer hacking that included computer and wire fraud . He

1225-484: The creation of so-called "badgelife" where different individuals and organizations (such as local hacker groups) may design, create, and sell or otherwise distribute a separate badge attendees wear in addition to their conference badge. These badges may be purchased, but some may have to be earned by completing a challenge at the conference. One of the rarest and most desirable badges is the DefCon Black Badge . While

1274-538: The end of his supervised release, Mitnick hacked into Pacific Bell voicemail computers. After a warrant was issued for his arrest, Mitnick fled, becoming a fugitive for two-and-a-half years. According to the United States Department of Justice , Mitnick gained unauthorized access to dozens of computer networks while he was a fugitive. He used cloned cellular phones to hide his location and, among other things, copied valuable proprietary software from some of

1323-468: The form of villages, similar to assemblies at Chaos Communication Congresses and villages at hacker camps, specifically "Village Zone A" (primarily a soldering and electronics workshop), "Village Zone B", "Lockpickers Village", and "Noisy Square". Workshop tracks were published in the schedule and the conference took nearly all the hotel's available meeting space. HOPE XI (The Eleventh HOPE) took place from July 22–24, 2016 at Hotel Pennsylvania. Cory Doctorow

1372-470: The judge that he could somehow dial into the NORAD modem via a payphone from prison and communicate with the modem by whistling to launch nuclear missiles . In addition, a number of media outlets reported on the unavailability of kosher meals at the prison where he was incarcerated. Mitnick was released from prison on January 21, 2000. During his supervised release period, which ended on January 21, 2003, he

1421-799: The keynote address. Kevin Mitnick, Steve Rambam, Jello Biafra, and Adam Savage of MythBusters were featured speakers. Descriptions and audio of the talks can be found at thelasthope.org The 8th HOPE convention, "The Next HOPE", took place on July 16–18, 2010. The Next HOPE was held at the Hotel Pennsylvania, as the plans by Vornado to demolish the hotel are on hold. HOPE Number Nine occurred July 13–15, 2012 at Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan. Keynote presentations for HOPE Number Nine were given by The Yes Men (with Andy Bichelbaum as principal speaker and Vermin Supreme also participating) and NSA whistleblower William Binney . Chris Kubecka , principal speaker of

1470-610: The protocol and different implementations for both the server and the client. Kevin Mitnick This is an accepted version of this page Kevin David Mitnick (August 6, 1963 – July 16, 2023) was an American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker . He is best known for his high-profile 1995 arrest and five years in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes. Mitnick's pursuit, arrest, trial and sentence were all controversial, as were

1519-439: The pursuit of Mitnick, wrote the book Takedown about Mitnick's capture. The case against Mitnick tested the new laws that had been enacted for dealing with computer crime and it raised public awareness of security involving networked computers. The controversy remains and the Mitnick story is often cited today as an example of the influence of news media on law enforcement personnel. After his release in 2000, Mitnick became

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1568-457: The scheduled demolition of its venue, the Hotel Pennsylvania. The Save Hotel Pennsylvania Foundation was created to work toward keeping the building from being demolished by its then-new owner, Vornado Realty Trust . The "Next HOPE" was scheduled for Summer 2010. At the closing ceremony it was revealed that the use of the word "last" could also refer to the previous event, or one that had ended (referring to The Last HOPE itself). Steven Levy gave

1617-408: The state of hackdom, for example Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom spoke about the problems of rockstar martyrdom within the hacker scene and the creation of hacker cult figures (like Snowden, Appelbaum or Assange) by unreflective members of the community or the media. Notable changes included a massive increase in available bandwidth. Previous conferences had a 50 Mbit connection; HOPE X had

1666-568: The talks. The keynote was a conversation between Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang and Yan Zhu . Further notable occurrences: The 15th conference was held at St. John's University in Queens, New York City from 12-14 July 2024. Computer security conference General security conferences might be held by non-profit/not-for-profit/for-profit professional associations, individuals or informal group of individuals, or by security product vendor companies. A hacker conference , also known as

1715-433: The use of the badges are traditionally associated with DefCon, their use has spread to other conferences. Pixelflut is a common activity at hacker events. It is a protocol for software to draw a canvas . Usually this is done in a client-server architecture with multiple clients who send individual pixels and the server displays. The clients then overwrite each others images on the same server. There are various variants of

1764-518: The willingness of attendees to explain themselves to law enforcement and less computer-savvy individuals (see hacker definition controversy ). Common topics include wardriving , lockpicking , corporate and network security, personal rights and freedoms, new technologies, as well as general 'geek' motifs. Some may also have contests and general collaborative events such as hackathons . One facet of Hacker conferences that tends to differentiate many "HackerCons" from general computer security conferences,

1813-516: The world. Access to a 28.8 kbit/s local network was provided. This conference was visited and covered in the second episode of the "Your Radio Playhouse" show, later renamed This American Life . The August 8–10, 1997 Beyond HOPE conference was held at the Puck Building , in Manhattan, New York City. Attendance doubled, with 2,000 attendees. Bell Technology Group helped to support the hackers. The hacker group L0pht Heavy Industries presented

1862-471: Was Jewish, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. At age 12, Mitnick convinced a bus driver to tell him where he could buy his own ticket punch for "a school project", and was then able to ride any bus in the greater Los Angeles area using unused transfer slips he found in a dumpster next to the bus company garage. Mitnick attended James Monroe High School in North Hills , during which time he became

1911-523: Was also a presentation by "members" of the Phone Losers of America who celebrated their tenth anniversary. The Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective celebrated its twentieth anniversary at the conference. The conference provided access to a four-layer public network with two T1 lines, plus backup links to the internet via a public terminal cluster, various wired connections, a WiFi network on three floors and

1960-616: Was an additional influential predecessor. HOPE has been held at Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City every time except once since 1994. The event is always structured in a similar way. It consists of three days and three nights of activities, including talks, workshops, and performances. It also features hackerspace villages , a film festival, lock picking villages, a wide variety of vendors, art installations, live video, vintage computers , robots, an amateur/ham radio station , electronics workshops, and book signings. The closing ceremony

2009-427: Was based on the number six and The Prisoner (a designation shared by the titular "prisoner,"). Notable occurrences: The "Last HOPE" took place July 18–20, 2008 at the Hotel Pennsylvania. A change from past years was the use of an Internet forum to facilitate community participation in the planning of the event. The conference name referred to the expectation that this would be the final H.O.P.E. conference due to

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2058-428: Was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome , but it was not used as evidence because he pleaded guilty before going to trial. Mitnick served five years in prison—four-and-a-half years' pre-trial and eight months in solitary confinement , because, according to Mitnick, law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to "start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone", implying that law enforcement told

2107-466: Was found with cloned cell phones, more than 100 cloned cellular phone codes, and multiple pieces of false identification. In December 1997, the Yahoo! Web site was hacked, displaying a message calling for Mitnick's release. According to the message, all recent visitors of Yahoo!'s site had been infected with a computer worm that would wreak havoc on Christmas Day unless Mitnick was released. Yahoo! dismissed

2156-470: Was fully provided for in all areas, which came into use throughout the conference as many talks were filled to capacity and attendees either watched streams on their own devices or in designated overflow and viewing areas. The 12th HOPE conference, "The Circle of HOPE", occurred July 20–22, 2018. Speakers included Chelsea Manning , Barrett Brown , Richard Stallman , Jason Scott , Matt Blaze , Micah Lee , and Steve Rambam , among many others. The conference

2205-446: Was initially forbidden to use any communications technology other than a landline telephone. Under the plea deal, Mitnick was also prohibited from profiting from films or books based on his criminal activity for seven years, under a variation of the Son of Sam law . In December 2001, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) judge ruled that Mitnick was sufficiently rehabilitated to possess

2254-551: Was instead held as a nine-day virtual event from July 25 to August 2, 2020. The most recent conference, "HOPE XV", was held at St. John's University in Queens from July 12 to 14, 2024. HOPE features talks, workshops, demonstrations, tours, and movie screenings. HOPE was significantly inspired by the quadrennial Hack-Tic events in the Netherlands which also inspired the annual Chaos Communication Congress (C3) held in Germany. Summercon

2303-554: Was marked by protests from alt-right activists. A conference was originally planned for July 31-August 2, 2020 at a new venue, St. John's University in Queens . Due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was changed to a nine-day virtual event from July 25 to August 2, 2020. In addition to a longer schedule for talks, most of the originally planned events will be streamed, including workshops and musical performances. Keynote speakers are Libby Liu of

2352-456: Was planned for summer 2021, breaking from the typical biennial conference interval, but was cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The 14th conference, A New Hope, was held at St. John's University in Queens, New York City from 22-24 July 2022. The event was a hybrid event, combining a virtual online event with the in-person event in New York, using Matrix combined with video streaming of

2401-486: Was the keynote speaker. Like last time, HOPE XI was provided Internet transit by Hurricane Electric at 111 Eighth Avenue over a fiber connection leased from RCN Corporation . Aruba Networks sponsored 50 wireless access points which were used to provide 3 wireless networks for attendees, two of which were secured with either WPA or PSK , another network for the NOC , and one for the press and speakers. Network connectivity

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