Category: Travel

I’ve been in South Africa for the last week on business. I did have the opportunity yesterday, thanks to a kind co-worker at this office, to explore a bit outside the realm of my hotel and workplace.

It’s been a very good trip. South Africa itself is very much a country of two worlds: the white elites, and the black underclass. The whites drive the cars, have the white collar jobs, afford the luxuries. They go from fortress to fortress, in their own mobile fortress. The blacks are relegated to the spaces in-between: walking the dusty streets or transiting in over-packed unpredictable minibuses, and work to serve the whites.

It’s not that there is discrimination per se. The government has enacted policies to encourage greater diversity in workplaces. I’m guessing that though the segregationist policies of Apartheid ended, the socioeconomic impact of those years have too much momentum to be rid of so easily.

I’ve been having a wonderful time. It’s a beautiful, raw, country.

A few weeks ago I attended the 19th edition of Defcon in Las Vegas. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Defcon is a large annual hacker conference. There are a number of talks on various topics of interest to this subculture, such as computer security, the law and digital rights, novel uses of hardware, lockpicking, etc. There are also a number of workshops, contests, “villages”, vendors, and art expositions. It’s really a fantastic experience.

I arrived on a Thursday and left that Sunday. But in that short space of time, I was able to see old friends, make new ones, and see some really interesting talks. My favourite one was on bit flipping due to what the speaker suspected was non-ECC memory being affected by cosmic radiation, and how that could be exploited.

All the contests they had running were really cool, but this one had me laughing out loud. It was the beer cooling contest. As these guys had their set up running, you could see the liquid nitrogen escape out onto the ground.

Another fun event to watch was the hacker jeopardy. You got points for getting the answers right, but you also got points per beer bottle you consumed during the match. By the end of one game, all three teams had negative scores (until the beers were taken into account.)

 

But it was really hanging out with friends that made this so fun, and with my interest in compsec taking a back seat, it’s really the prime reason I’d come back again. So cheers to Alex, Jean-Marc, Logan, Nick, StankDawg, Lattera, Zandi, Murd0c, and Jason Scott.

Everyone attending was fantastic to be around. Whenever I sat down for a talk, I’d talk to the people around me. I met individuals from all walks of life – nursing, security, hardware architects, etc. I had breakfast with a really nice attendee from the Bay area, and we were both into food. We started to trade recipes and advice.

The talks were good. I already mentioned the one about memory corruption, but I also liked Jason Scott’s talk on the value of archiving sites that host people’s personal expression, Mikko Hypponen’s presentation on malware history, Steven Levvy’s thoughts on his writing career, the talk by Adrian Crenshaw (Irongeek) on de-anonymizing TOR, and the Defcon network team on how they set up and secured it all.

Other fun stuff to see at the con:

• The “Wall of Sheep”, which displayed usernames and passwords of people who used unsecured connections on the unsecured network.

• “Mohawk Con”, one of the many fund raisers at the conference. If I remember correctly, I think close to $40,000 US was raised that weekend for non-profits. You can see a girl shaving someone’s head behind the sign in the image below.

• The robotic cock fight, in the midst of the capture-the-flag contest.

• A showing of the movie “Hackers”, starring Angelina Jolie and um… Angelina Jolie. Jeff Moss (aka. Dark Tangent, the guy behind Defcon) prefaced the film by talking about how it was actually intended to be based a bit off of the early nineties rivalry between Legion of Doom (LOD) and Masters of Deception (MOD). One character in the film has an overbearing mother, and according to Moss, there was really a guy whose mom you could hear yelling in the background during telephone calls.
• A lockpicking and hardware hacking village, where you could get your hands dirty and learn the basics or work on your own projects. I wanted to buy a lockpick gun, but didn’t think I could get it across the border back home.

• “QueerCon”, where LGBTers and allies could socialize. Unfortunately, the music at the main party was quite loud, so it was really tough to talk to new individuals – and I missed the quieter socials. Next time.
• A chillout lounge where you could sit down and relax. A dragon with psychadelic video projected onto it hung from the ceiling, a DJ was there spinning tunes, and neat artwork peppered the area.

…and this is just scratching the surface of what there was to do.

As for Vegas itself, I enjoyed good food and good weather. I was kicked out of a restaurant with my cousin and his friend, a first for all of us, for what I assume was being obnoxious/loud in French.

So many people I encountered complained about the heat while I was there. I found it really pleasant. Yes it was hot, but it was dry heat. I’d take a 42C in Vegas over a 30C in Ottawa any day.

Relevant: My blog post about attending Defcon 17 two years ago.

One month ago, I embarked on a road trip with Jay and two of his friends.  The trip started out from my home town of Ottawa, and we would hit up Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City, Boston and Montreal. We did all of this in seven days.

 

One of the guys estimated that we drove around 5,700 kilometers. Five of the days were spent on the road. Among the sights while driving were the Great Lakes, the awe-inspiring storms of the Midwest, the beautiful rolling hills of Pennsylvania, and the small forest Eden that was Connecticut.

Of course, we did do plenty of stops as well. We stayed a full day in Washington D.C. and New York City. We toured the Capitol building. We walked around the MIT campus in Cambridge. We took a nice break in Milwaukee. We wandered around the Chicago water front, which you can see in the picture below.

For the most part, things went smooth. There were a few surprises a long the way as well. As this was my first time doing extensive driving in the US, I hadn’t realized to what extent Americans love toll roads. Most major routes between the big cities were toll roads. I remember one day costing us over $60.

The extensive advertising for basic medical care and for religion were also a bit of a culture shock. I know that Americans treat basic medical care as a privilege rather than a right, but I always get taken aback seeing those ads.

If I could go back to any place, it would be New York City. I really felt like I only touched the surface. On our first night, we visited the core of Manhattan, ate dinner in the Empire State Building, after which we took a ride to its top (second photo below.) Then the following day, Jay and I went shopping while the two other guys we were with (picture below) went off to Ellis Island and toured the statue of Liberty. We got back together at Central Park and went off for a supper in the city’s vibrant Chinatown.

 

The day complete, we headed back to our hotel in New Jersey. But there was so much more to see: Queen’s, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem, SOHO, etc. Most of the cities were like this actually – there was so much to do and see, and so little time to do it in.

After all was said and done, I felt like I needed a vacation from the vacation. Too much driving and too little time for the places we were at. But despite these minor gripes, this was a great experience, and one I’m glad I had the opportunity to take part in.

An operations manager approached me last Thursday.

Him: Are you busy this weekend?
Me: Yeah, a little.
Him: Oh.
Me: Why?
Him: Well we’re looking for a volunteer to go to Paris.
Me: Ontario?
Him: France.
Me: I’ll go!

Within 24 hours, I was on a flight. I did what I had to do there, and then I had nearly three days to myself. The hostel was a little interesting. Because I was at the airport a little longer than expected, I arrived at the hostel at 1PM instead of the expected 12PM.

The girl at the desk of the hostel promptly informed me that I was late, that she had given my room away, and that there were no more availabilities. When pressed, she said she had a bed for tonight – but nothing else. This added a bit of stress, but I didn’t concern myself too much. I suspected that she had a chip on her shoulder.

I came back after the girl’s shift was over, and approached the new person at the desk. “Oh yes, we have tons of free beds tomorrow night! You might have to change rooms, but there’ll be no problems.” Good news.

I set off for the city. I’m weary of touristy stuff, so while I did go up the Eiffel tower, visit Notre Dame and l’Église Sacré Coeur, I did make sure to walk around the lesser travelled parts of the city as well. I got off at random metro stops and explored, and also walked the stretch from Sacré Coeur to the Latin quarter, stopping often along the way.

A few experiences stood out. It was late Saturday night, and I couldn’t sleep – so I set out for the city. As I walked, I heard guitar playing. This wasn’t the type of smooth mainstream sounds you’d hear at a restaurant. This was the guitar-playing of people doing it for friends.

I followed the sound. It brought me to the side of the Seine, where I found hundreds upon hundreds of youths, all engaged in picnics. Some had candles, nearly all had wine or beer, along with snacks. Everyone was having a great time. I sat down by the guitar-playing group. We started to chat.

As it turns out, it was the beginning of Easter break, which is two weeks for them. I people watched and looked on to the river with the music as a background. It was magical.

The next night, after a full day of exploring, I went to an indie movie theater. We crowded to watch the Swedish-French film, “The Sound of Noise.” It was a cool film, and the audience didn’t hesitate to laugh out loud.

At the hostel, I met some great folks. One was a university professor in Morocco, who was there for a conference. He had snuck through oranges from a tree his garden in his baggage, one of which he gave to me. It was the best orange I’ve ever had.

All in all, this was a great trip.

This weekend, Jay, Jon and I made a trip to Washington, D.C. to attend Glenn Beck’s “Restore Honor” rally. It took 10 hours of driving to get down there, but we all found it well worth the travel time.

The purported point of the rally was to focus on what was good about America and celebrate it. It was espoused as being non-partisan, with Glenn specifically asking the participants not to bring political signs. For the most part, the audience complied.

However, this lack of signs did not change the fact that this was a rally specifically for Tea Partiers, by its most recognizable spiritual leader – Glenn Beck. The second he got on stage, Beck took a pot shot against what Tea Partiers see as the “liberal media”, which is to say all outlets that aren’t the ultra-conservative FOX News or radio personality Rush Limbaugh. He then spoke out against progressivism and liberalism of 1960s onwards, telling his audience to bring America back to how it used to be.

Beck called on his audience to inspire themselves on the Founding Fathers, virtual deieties amongst Tea Partiers. Their words are second only to those written in the Bible: unfaltering, regardless of cultural advances. This kind of idolization was somewhat eerie, as it bordered on a personality cult.

God was also referenced multiple times during the event. This rally, according to Beck, was the will of God. The Lord, he revealed, had spoken to him. Naturally, a pastor was brought on for a morning prayer. As Beck and the Tea Partiers see it, America is a Christian nation, and should be run with Biblical ideals. He spoke of bringing “God back to America”, and would later speak out against the exclusion of the Church from government. As for the prayer, the pastor took the opportunity to speak out against gay marriage, likely in reference to the recent advances of marriage equality in California.

Another theme was the military. Sarah Palin came on, and praised herself for having raised a combat veteran, her twenty-year old son. She said she came on not as a politician, but as a mother of a soldier. There was then talk about the greatness of America’s military, about how it shouldn’t be questioned, and three soldiers with heroic stories were talked about. Palin’s speech was essentially otherwise fluff, filler material.

The event was well attended. I’d venture a guess at 100,000 participants. The aura was decidedly anti-Obama, pro-Palin, pro-Reagan, pro-guns, and pro-Christianity. A number of people had “NRA” hats, while others sold off buttons that painted Obama as “socialist.” There was also “Don’t tread on me” flags abound.

The attendees were almost exclusively white – I only saw one black person, and she was there with her white boyfriend. The people there were also almost all certainly over 45 years of age. The only younger people I saw were children and teens brought along with their parents, and a group of twenty-somethings holding signs.

All in all, I’m really glad I went. This was double-digit IQ in action, as my friend Jon put it, and I look forward to repeating the experience once again. Perhaps during 2012, when the Tea Partiers hope that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck will team up and vie for the presidency.