All good things..

After DEF CON 21 I will be retiring from my position as Director of Security. I will be handing the Directorship over to Marc Rogers. Richard Fleason, Pappy, and Pescador will continue to head up the leadership team as well.

So, the big question folks have been asking is 'why'. Well, there's a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is that I've been going to DEFCON for 21 years and I've been staff for 20 of them. Each year the conference requires more and more of my time, but as I get older I have less and less of it to give. This isn't fair to Jeff and it's certainly not fair to my team.

Also, I think it's a good time for a change in leadership on the team. As DEFCON moves into the 'post-DC20' era I think it's a great time to bring in a fresh perspective and reorganize the team a bit to make us more effective.

Finally, I've been doing DEFCON my entire adult life and don't have any idea of what life is like without it. I schedule my world around DEFCON and planning for the conference. I've quit jobs over DEFCON. Eve and I scheduled our wedding around it. DEFCON makes up a huge chunk of my life. People understand that a lot of work goes into making the conference happen, but I don't think they truly realize how much work it is and how much time it consumes.

I do want to say that I am proud of what I have been able to help create. I am also deeply honored that my team has allowed me to lead them into the fray year after year. These people are my family, my goon brothers and sisters, and nothing will ever change that.

So what now? What's next? That's the most awesome part about this...I don't know, but I can do anything I want. I may get back into research and start presenting *at* the convention. I miss hacking firmware and embedded systems and would love to have time for it again. I may go get involved with one of the contests if something catches my eye. Or, I may just go walk the earth, like Caine in the Kung Fu. What happens next is all up to me and I like the sound of that.

...and so it begins

DEFCON 19 will be coming to the Rio hotel in Las Vegas, NV.

This will be our 9th venue in the nearly 20 years we've been doing this. How is the Rio going to work out for us? To be honest I really don't know. On the plus side, we have a shitton more room complete with gigantic hallways. On the negative side, it's a new hotel to us so I have no idea how we (staff and attendees) will mesh with them.

That said, planning has begun in earnest. All I can do at this point is make sure my team and I bring our A game to the table to make both the hotel and the attendees happy. Let's see how that all works out.