Information Technology Events in Las Vegas
- DefCon is one of the most widley known annual hacker convention in Las Vegas.piratage image by dead_account from Fotolia.com
Las Vegas is known for its casinos and entertainment, but for those into information technology, both professionally and as a hobby are likely familiar with the annual conferences held at various Las Vegas hotels or convention center. Las Vegas has been the annual location for widely publicized computer technology and security events. Newer technologies, such as social media and website marketing, have begun to develop their own annual presence with annual IT conferences. - Def Con is the world's largest, and oldest, yearly hacking convention held in Las Vegas in the last week of July or first week of August. The first convention was held in 1993 and during its early years generally only attracted self-taught and advanced or knowledgeable hackers discussing past and future plans to hack into networks, websites, and private infrastructures. But now, everyone from lawyers, government and corporate security specialists and journalists attend. The weekend has various speaking events on emerging and topics of interest to the hacking community and games such as capture the flag. Capture the flag is played with computers where the objective of the game is to hack, or break into one's network, while simultaneously working to protect your own from intrusion.
- The black hat conference is a computer security conference held yearly in Las Vegas since 1997 and run by the founder of the DefCon conventions, Jeff Moss. Moss is now on the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. Everyone from hackers to federal and corporate IT professionals attend the event. "black hat" is a term typically used for rogue hackers or computer hackers with bad intentions (white hat are those who work with the governments and corporations, assisting them to secure their networks). Various speakers from all types of information technology sectors speaks on current and emerging topics, called "black hat briefings". The other portion of the conference consists of hands on training, with some offering formal certifications upon completion.
- A social media and search marketing conference, it has been held in Las Vegas almost every year since 2003. The types of conferences held are on issues such as search marketing, search engines optimization, analytics, and social media. Webmasters, producers, marketers, and managers have the opportunity to have their business and personal websites reviewed by professionals and feedback on how to improve their website. Everyone from start up web ventures to large well known corporations with a new or growing web presence attend the event to improve and discuss new technologies and social media. It is also an opportunity to network with those in the same or similar industry.
