Tech shows/conventions

Anyone familiar with any worthwhile cons, shows, or gatherings in the New england area?

Being a CS student, I went to the Embedded systems conference back in sept of 2007 in Boston MA. I had a blast being around that much of the industry. Was great to just sit and listen to some experts talk.

I know some of these shows can be very expensive to get into. Sometimes there are ways around that though. Ive heard that employers would love to fork over the dough for their employees to attend a learning show/seminar.

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Mod Edit - Off topic for General[H]ardware.

If you're employed, ask your boss. If you're a student, join an org that has good sponsors to help pay for registration. If none exists at your school, create one... the world needs leaders.

ESC is nice, but I'd only attend it once, lol... or I guess once every 5yrs or so, or when new stuff comes out. Sorry, I'm unaware of any other tech shows in the New England area. I'm afraid to say, you're in the wrong area, lol. Make a vegas trip out of CES or COMDEX.

Yeah...we have a severe lack of computer/electronics-related conventions up here in Boston and the New England area.

Digital Life is held in New York. The cool ones are held out west, like CES, COMDEX (R.I.P). Vegas is also home to Black Hat Briefings security conference, which is the security industry show that costs a couple thousand to attend. That's a show you usually get a company to pay for you to attend.

Digital life sounds neat. I wouldn't care to drive all the way down there. Definetly make a vaca of it.

Anyone been to DefCon?

I hear stories about no sleep, lots of alcohol, and this wall of shame.. $100 to get in, and the hotel where its held is fairly decently priced. I'm planning to go for my first time this summer if things work out.

I understand that if one brings their laptop/computer to the show to wipe it clean and make a fresh temp install as for three days of the year DefCon's LAN is considered the most hostile in the world.

kr0sys said:

Anyone been to DefCon? I hear stories about no sleep, lots of alcohol, and this wall of shame.. $100 to get in, and the hotel where its held is fairly decently priced. I'm planning to go for my first time this summer if things work out.

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Yes. I would describe it as a alcohol fueled hacker-event with good intentions, and is definitely worth going to if you are in the tech industry or interested in any of the many subjects covered at Defcon.

I understand that if one brings their laptop/computer to the show to wipe it clean and make a fresh temp install as for three days of the year DefCon's LAN is considered the most hostile in the world.

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Last year I brought my Ubuntu laptop to DefCon, and didn't do a clean format for it before or after. Plenty of people do full reformats though, I'd highly suggest against bringing a Windows system, or any system that you aren't completely sure is fully patched/secured/fully utilizing all encrypted protocols. Plenty of people use unencrypted protocols and get their names up on the board. One year a friend created a fake POP3 server which would accept any login/password and to a script to try and log in to it. People saw through it and he got verbally bitchslapped on the wall. As soon as they announce a date I am buying a hotel room and plane tickets.

***Gah! Defcon 16 is announced, August 8-10th. Time to book early

BillLeeLee said:

Digital Life is held in New York.

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I'll be trying my best to attend that one this September as I also live in Boston.


AS concerning the OP though other than these once in a while conventions (like the ESC and LinuxWorld in '06) Boston or the New England area really isn't the premiere location for any conventions like that though the BCEC(Boston Convention and Exhibition Center) is the biggest in the North East.