DEF CON 33 begins today: Hackers, tinkerers, and cyber geeks unite in Vegas
DEF CON 33 kicks off in Las Vegas with a four-day marathon of hacking challenges, privacy talks, and underground tech culture. With its "Access Everywhere" theme, this year's focus is on memory safety, inclusive tech design, and decentralised communities.
New Delhi: Las Vegas is buzzing this week as DEF CON 33 officially kicks off from August 7 to 10. What started as an underground hacker meet-up back in 1993 has now grown into one of the biggest cybersecurity conventions in the world. And even in 2025, it hasn’t lost its raw, chaotic charm.
If you’ve never been to DEF CON, imagine walking into a room filled with laptops, lock-picking kits, code puzzles, and people talking in screen names instead of real names. Now multiply that by ten buildings, add a few dozen Capture the Flag (CTF) tournaments, and throw in some serious discussions on privacy, safety, and system vulnerabilities. That’s DEF CON.
What’s hot at DEF CON 33
This year’s theme is "Access Everywhere". The goal? To make the digital world open to everyone, no matter where they live or what device they use. Organisers are pushing for services that work with older phones, support screen readers, and protect privacy for users under surveillance or censorship.
They’ve even enabled access through the Tor network and are experimenting with Veilid, a privacy-first communication platform. It’s DEF CON’s way of saying: let everyone in, but lock down what matters.
Workshops on Buffer Overflows, Rust, and Sandboxing
Cybersecurity folks love memory corruption topics, and this year it’s front and centre. Expect hands-on sessions on:
- Buffer overflow hardening
- Memory-safe programming languages like Rust
- Secure memory allocators
- WebAssembly sandboxing
- Advanced runtime defences
And if you're the kind of person who reads bug bounty reports for fun, the CTF challenges on memory vulnerabilities will probably be your jam.
Here’s a breakdown of what DEF CON 33 is focusing on:
| Area | What’s Happening |
|---|---|
| Memory Safety | Deep dives into Rust, fuzzing, and buffer overflow handling |
| Access Everywhere | Tech for all: screen readers, Tor support, and more |
| Villages | Mini-conferences on IoT, car hacking, voting tech, and more |
| Community Learning | CTFs, workshops, researcher meetups |
DEF CON Villages
DEF CON’s "Villages” are small event spaces focused on specific themes. From IoT to car hacking, each one feels like a pop-up lab. Want to learn how voting machines can be broken into? Head to the Vote Hacking Village. Interested in poking around a connected toaster? That’s the IoT Village.
There’s also the Aerospace Village, the Lockpicking Village, and even a Biohacking Village. It’s serious research mixed with curious minds, all packed into a hotel basement.
Here’s a fun bit of history: DEF CON was never supposed to be a global thing. Back in 1993, Jeff Moss planned a farewell party for a Canadian hacker network called Platinum Net. When the original organiser vanished, Moss turned it into an open invite for hacker groups across the US. The name DEF CON came from a mix of hacker phone lingo and a nod to the movie War Games. And because Las Vegas got nuked in that movie, he figured it was the perfect place to start.
Three decades later, DEF CON still welcomes everyone, from security researchers and students to penetration testers and privacy activists. Just don’t expect anyone to use their real name. Hacker culture runs deep here.
The DEF CON crew isn’t a tech conference. They're redesigning how people interact with the internet. The DEFCON.social platform focuses on healthier, human-sized online communities. They’re also promoting federated alternatives like Loops and Pixelfed, which aim to give users more control over their data.
It’s a rebellion against everything broken in modern platforms. No targeted ads, no algorithmically manipulated feeds—just honest, raw conversation.
DEF CON 33 is where old-school hacker ethics meet modern digital problems. It’s gritty, sometimes weird, but always forward-looking. And that’s what keeps people coming back.