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PAKCON I, 22-23 December, 2004


Karachi, PC --- A DEFCON look-alike hacking convention in a country 
whose people don't give a hoot or three about computer security was
something that took everyone by surprise.  PAKCON I had no precedent;
it was, as the founder had said, the first of its kind in Pakistan.
And it was a blaring success for those few who take computer security
more than what the average Joe does.

I was there;  I saw it all;  I played a part in it;  and I survived
it.  PAKCON I was nothing short of a dream that morphed into and
became a part of reality.  When you see something you thought was
impossible to see, you pinch yourself hard to be sure about it.  For
the few weeks before PAKCON I, I painfully pinched myself to try to
distinguish what was what.  PAKCON came, rocked us, and left back
nostalgia.

What is a hacking convention without contests?  Essentially nothing!
PAKCON, like DEFCON, was not without its share of hacking
competitions.  For hackers, the highlight of day one was the infamous
``Capture the Flag Contest'' (CTF).  I took the lead in organising
it and seemed to have done a good job.  The underground was mostly
unanimous in their decision not to partake of the competition.  For
them, anonymity was crucial and they could not bring about themselves
to trusting our words.  I guess it means that the undergound does not
know much, if at all, about hacking conventions like DEFCON.  However,
we did find teams to play CTF -- four teams, at best.

The ``Capture the Flag Contest'' was involving and stretched to more
than five hours straight.  Only one team succeeded in compromising any
systems.  Our score server was compromised in the beginning.  It was
all my mistake:  I had not hardened the default slackware installation
on it.  The contest progressed smoothly and near the end of the day
the winners were announced unofficially only among the competing teams
- -- the official annoucement would come on day two during the closing
ceremony.

The competitions we had planned for day two were all war-driving
contests:  Running Man Contest, War-Driving Contest, Wi-Fi Contest.
Sadly, as day two prowled to a halt, most of us were drawn to the
realisation that Wi-Fi technology is still not common enough among
people of this country.  Maybe, I think, at PAKCON II we will find
people interested in bringing their Wireless-enabled equipment to the
convention hall and participating in the contests.  Maybe!

Knowledgable experts spoke throughout the two days on diverse topics
that converged to computer security.  I was busy with the other half
of the convention and could not attend most of the briefings.  From
what I have heard, the papers presented were unavoidable.  I regret
having missed them.

I spoke at PAKCON.  I amplified on a paper written by Fyodor of the
Nmap fame and titled ``Methods of TCP/IP Stack Fingerprinting''.  My
speech was brief, without a visual aid, and ill-prepared.  I had
semester's final papers a day before and after PAKCON and could not
prepare properly for the speech.  Nonetheless, I spoke.

Looking back, I find PAKCON to be more than just a dream coming true.
But being that, PAKCON was not perfect.  It had its share of mishaps
and missings.  Much of what was missing from PAKCON I has been noticed
and penned down.  We are making efforts not to leave any loose ends
dangling about at PAKCON II, which is our major goal this year.  Like
code matures over subsequent releases, so will PAKCON each year.  I
hope.

- -- 
Ayaz Ahmed Khan
 ``A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.''

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