I (tried) to participate in Defcon 19’s “Crack me if you can” contest with the “John Users” group, but I did not manage to contribute much to the team (more then CPU-cycles on my quad-core server). I have analyzed why I couldn’t contribute more and it came down to “time” and “internet access”.

Time: I went to Defcon to watch the presentations, not to crack hashes (although it is fun to crack hashes). I over-estimated how much time I could spend on cracking hashes while attending the talks.

Internet access: Free internet access was available at the conference area, if it wasn’t attacked by someone. Internet access at the hotel room was about $25/day, a bit more then I was willing to spend. Next year I’ll buy a MiFi from Best Buy and a month pre-paid subscription (@ USD$ 50) for my internet needs.

If I solve the internet access problem I can make more use of the time between the presentations, social activities and sleep at Defcon, which should add up to at lease a few hours every day. As most of the time the computer chugs along cracking hashes anyway it should be enough to take a 30-60 minute look at it a few times a day.

I hope that Defcon 20 will also have a “Crack me if you can” contest.