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Comment by dan000892 | Hacker News Reader

That’s been a constant DEF CON theme at least since the Rivera days but had (IMO) improved incrementally with the move to multiple larger venues and was expected to be all but resolved with the move to the new Caesars Forum

(New venue is/will be (?) absolutely enormous; featuring the largest “pillar-less” ballrooms in the world it promised the ability to accommodate not only all talks and villages in a single venue again but everyone in a single keynote talk. Looking forward to witnessing that next year.)

edit: It's occurred to me that it could conceivably be more difficult to get into talks at this year's virtual event than it would have been in-person. Perhaps they'll implement a virtual waiting room so we can get our LINECON fix.

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> but had (IMO) improved incrementally with the move to multiple larger venues

I feel like it is getting worse, and can't wait for Caesars. With the multiple venues and hallway congestion most the people in my company were able to get to 2-3 talks a day max.

Counterfeit DEF CON badges (and a sanctioned competition for them) have really added to capacity issues since about 2016. I know of one vendor that sold over 1,500 last year.

I'm sure I'm devoting more time to villages, workshops, and non-DEF CON talks than I used to (after all the official talks end up on YT a couple months after the event). It did seem to me--CP elevator choke point notwithstanding--that separating talks from the rest of the con by a 20+ minute walk did shorten LINECON but I'll concede there's a small chance that I'm becoming more patient or (more likely) that my experience was not representative.

Regardless, I am very intrigued by your experience with counterfeit badges. I'm familiar with the counterfeit badge contest and many jokes were made about last year's "urinal cakes on a lanyard" but this is the first I've heard suggesting there was effectively mass production of counterfeit badges. Can you tell us more?

there's a backup laminated paper badge for when the electronic badge runs out of stock, maybe it's that

While lame, that certainly seems much more feasible than mass-producing 1500 copies of an electronic badge (or even a mock thereof) in the span of a couple days but it also renders mention of the sanctioned (actual) badge counterfeiting competition (which to my knowledge involves paying competitors) irrelevant.

Given that #badgelife folks have difficulty manufacturing hundreds of badges they themselves designed and there's been no real scrutiny of attendee badges as would surely result if it were found that 5%+ of attendees had counterfeits, I have to call bullshit.

If reasonable evidence is presented to the contrary, I will eat my hat by donating the $300 I won't be spending for this year's DEF CON admission to the EFF.

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