[wkat4242]

Black hat is just one giant bunch of sales pitches. No I haven't been there but I've had to sift through recordings that my boss (who did attend) wanted me to look at because he was too drunk himself to do a proper evaluation.

It doesn't provide information, it just provides sales suits a chance to blow their hot air :P

If I'd ever go there it would just be an excuse to go to vegas to see DEF CON as well :P I work in security but I have no time for corporatism and sales bullshit.

Edit: I know it's a bit of a hot take but I've been to so many conferences where sales goons spew all the pretty pictures and then later when we actually got our hands on the product it turned out that it couldn't do half the stuff that was promised. Or there were other weaknesses like excruciatingly bad support. I've become very cynical due to this.

[nopeYouAreWrong]

if we're going with hot takes, I've watched a lot of DefCon vids and many presenters come off as outlandish arrogant. not simply smug, more "I am levitating above the normies."

[jstarfish]

That's not specific to presenters; there's a lot of insecurity (no pun intended) on parade in this industry. The sort of people who can bridge air-gapped networks using bubblegum and popsicle sticks tend not to minor in human relations.

Just read it as showmanship. They're trying to be over the top for the sake of performance.

[wglb]

>Black hat is just one giant bunch of sales pitches.

> No I haven't been there

The first sentence is not true. Many good talks are give, often breaking ground. Yes, you can find sales pitches, but there are good fundamentally technology talks.

[tptacek]

This isn't a hot take. It's just wrong.

Black Hat is peer reviewed and accepts a tiny fraction of submissions (tracks will accept 3-5 talks out of a typical pool of 20-50). Reviewers --- all of them vulnerability researchers --- barely have time to read outlines and look for any possible excuse to DQ a submission and move on to the next one, and the single most common DQ is "the presenter has a commercial interest in this topic, vendor talk, 1.0 rating".

There is also a giant vendor expo that runs alongside Black Hat, and vendors do whatever they can to stage events that look like Black Hat talks but are not. I submit that you have probably confused those for actual talks. Or: you watched the keynote? I don't understand what the keynote is for.

Here are the actual 2023 talks:

https://www.blackhat.com/us-23/briefings/schedule/index.html

[jeltz]

Keynotes are terrible at almost all conferences I have been to. They mostly seem to be there to stroke the egos of management of major sponsors.