Some people had come from
as far away as Germany and Canada.
The hackers and phreakers slept four or six to a room--if they slept
at all. The feds slept two to a room. I could be wrong; maybe they
weren't feds at all. But they seemed far too well dressed and well
pressed to be anything else. No one else at HoHoCon ironed their
T-shirts.
I left the main conference hall and wandered into Room 518--the
computer room--sat down on one of the two hotel beds which had been
shoved into a corner to make room for all the computer gear, and
watched. The conference organisers had moved enough equipment in there
to open a store, and then connected it all to the Internet. For nearly
three days, the room was almost continuously full. Boys in their late
teens or early twenties lounged on the floor talking, playing with
their cell phones and scanners or tapping away at one of the six or
seven terminals. Empty bags of chips, Coke cans and pizza boxes
littered the room. The place felt like one giant college dorm floor
party, except that the people didn't talk to each other so much as to
their computers.
These weren't the only interesting people at the con.
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