Written by Highwiz with contributions and editing from Jericho

Being on the DEF CON CFP Review Board can be as exciting as {something}; as frustrating as {something}; as thought provoking as {something}; and as enriching as {something}. It’s like mad libs, I hope you’ve filled in this section with something good.

Each year, myself and somewhere between 16 and 20 other reviewers take on the responsibility of selecting the best possible talks for DEF CON.

Oh, I should also apologize in advance as you read this first entry in the CFP Blog series. I apologize because I am not known for my brevity. In the “written word” and especially when it comes to something I’m passionate about, I tend to be wordy AF. [See, like that sentence: Could have just said “Hope you enjoy”, but nope – not me…].

I do genuinely hope that someone finds these blog postings helpful and that it will allow submitters (or potential submitters) some insight into the way we work so as to better prepare their submissions in the future.

In its original form, this post was about as dry as some of the white papers we read that were included in several submissions. Speaking of, white papers help tremendously when we’re reviewing your submissions, and if you include one, you’re already ahead of the pack. Sadly however, while White Papers do indeed help your chances during the CFP, they make for really shitty blog posts.

While we’re on this wildtangent of things that are related to the CFP Board but not actually part of the CFP Process itself, let’s talk about the term “CFP”. Above, I mentioned white papers; while the term CFP originally did mean “Call For Papers”, it doesn’t anymore. Most people don’t submit papers. When you think about the term CFP, you should really think of it as Call For Presentations. I know I’m not the first person to say that and I definitely won’t be the last, but still, it bears saying.

Alright, back to the topic at hand…

This year, the DEF CON Call for Presentations (CFP) Review board was made up of 16 “General Reviewers”, six “Special Reviewers”, and two members of the DEF CON staff.

The DC CFP process is not “blind”, meaning reviewers can see each other’s votes, and we see who submitted it unless they specifically opt to stay anonymous (and properly scrub their submission). There are merits for both open review and blind review, but we’ve found that an open review significantly helps our process as there is a lot of good discussion about each individual submission. One reviewer may spend considerable time digging into the topic, researching prior disclosures or talks along the same lines, or offer their personal in-depth knowledge which typically helps several others better understand the topic and state of research.

If you submitted a talk to DEF CON this year, then all of the General Reviewers most likely reviewed and discussed your talk. While these reviewers tend to agree on many talks there are also submissions that cause arguments and intense heated discussions. Most of the review board members have a very extensive vocabulary and seem to enjoy finding new and creative ways to use the word “fuck” in a sentence (both in the positive and negative). Though, why the topic of vocabulary is at hand, let me say this to my fellow review board members: y’all motherfuckers need to find a new word besides “pedestrian“. I’ll leave it at that.

As reviewers, every year we’re often left wondering why certain people have chosen to submit to DEF CON and whether or not they actually understand what type of conference it is. A prevailing sentiment on many submissions is “This is not a DEF CON talk”. While the content may be of significant quality, the question we often ask ourselves is “is this talk right for DEF CON?”. Sometimes the answer is that while it would be good at a developer conference, RSA, or BlackHat, it simply wouldn’t be right on a main stage at DEF CON. DEF CON is, or at least it strives to be, a hacker con first and foremost.

TL;DR : This is DEF CON, please bring your “A” Game.

The Time Commitment

Often times people ask to be on the CFP Review Board because it is an honor and privilege to be among the group that selects the presentations for DEF CON… It’s also a giant time suck, which people sometimes fail to realize (or believe us when we tell them).

Now for the more formalized explanation of that so my “editor” doesn’t get pissed:

It’s been stated before, but being on the DEF CON CFP Review Board is an enormous time commitment. In the first few months, the average time a reviewer spends on talks is ten to twenty hours a week, depending on the volume of talks received. In the last two weeks, when everyone is rushing to submit before CFP closes, the time required rises to forty or more hours a week. The DEF CON CFP Review Board, like many other CFP Review Boards, is an entirely volunteer activity that many times becomes a second job. This is one of the big reasons we encourage people to submit earlier, and not wait until the last minute. Total time spent for a General Reviewer is probably in the range of 280 working hours.

The rule of the board for a General Reviewer is to do as many talks as you feel you are able to, but hit at least 70% of the talks. In practice and as far as the other general reviewers are concerned, you should be getting as close as you can to 100% of the talks. If the other reviewers feel that you’re not pulling your weight (so to speak) they will call you out. We’re like the fremen in that sense, crysknife and all. In less nerdy terms, no one wants to get shanked in the exercise yard because they didn’t review enough talks.

The topic of the exercise yard leads us into our next area, the prisons guards.. I mean, the DEF CON CFP Review Board staff.

The Defcon CFP Review Board Staff

Nikita and Alex are the foundation of the Review Process. They post the talks, interact with the submitters, deal with the reviewers when we’re cranky and obstinate (we can really be bitches sometimes), reshape the feedback given by the reviewers and transmutate those turds into flowers and candy before the submitters view it. They are the fecal alchemists and without them, the process would not work.

Similarly, there is the non-official review board staff member in the form of Jericho who tracks our submissions, votes, and other information. He categorizes the talks for us while providing amazing feedback and insight into anything vulnerability disclosure related. Like Nikita and Alex, Jericho is an integral part of making the DEF CON CFP Review Board function and prosper.

The fourth person (another unofficial one) who deserves a great amount of credit for making sure that people keep up with their reviewing is our own special CFP Vocal Antagonizer in the form of Roamer. If a review board member is slacking they can be certain that Roamer will “gently” remind them that they need to review talks. This is an important role as we want as many of the review board to provide feedback and vote on a talk as possible. This ensures more reviewers see it, and provide commentary based on their diverse background. In other words, Roamer is like a shot caller; if you don’t sack up and do the tasks assigned to you, you’re going to wake up with a horse head in your bed.

Both Jericho and Roamer are inspiring examples of what it means to truly care about the hacker and DEF CON communities. On a personal note, it’s also pretty cool that I get to call Nikita, Jericho, and Roamer, these amazing people, my friends. I say that because after all these years, they still talk to me, even though I can be a bit dramatic.

While we’re on the topic of dramatic people, let’s talk about our special reviewers. I’m just kidding, where drama is concerned all of them pale in comparison to yours truly.

Special Reviewers

Our special reviewers are subject matter experts who specifically comment and give their feedback on talks in their “wheelhouse”. There are many talks where the “general reviewers” simply don’t feel fully qualified enough to make the necessary judgement of a “yes” or “no” vote. Sure, they are familiar with a topic to some degree, but just don’t spend their lives immersed in that corner of security.

Everyone in InfoSec “knows” about pen-testing and social engineering for example. However, unless that is their primary tradecraft and they have been doing it for a decade or more, they may not be keeping up with the latest tools and techniques. In such cases, the general reviewers will typically “defer” to the subject matter experts. The input provided by the Special Reviewers this year has been invaluable in helping shape what DEF CON 26 will be.

Discussions

The DEF CON CFP Review Board has a unique style in how they (we) review talks in contrast to many other CFP Review Boards. There is oftentimes a lot of discussion that goes on about individual talks that plays a key part in the process. The reviewers do not live in a vacuum when reviewing the individual talks, rather, they are encouraged to communicate with one another openly on the system so as to provide a higher quality of talk selection. Sometimes the discussions may turn heated, but at the end of the day it does improve the final selection. “Heated” is a really nice term. It’s a really nice term because when we say it, you may think we might mean like a “hot summer day” when it fact we mean the fires of Mordor, or whatever is causing a burning sensation in the nether regions.

The being said, on the Review Board, it’s very important to be open to new ideas and perspectives which such discussions strongly facilitate. I don’t think the DC CFP review board would work nearly as well under any other type of system. Conversely, what works for “us” may not necessarily work as well for other CFP Review Boards.

How do I get on the CFP Review Board?

First, are you really sure you want to? Do you really have the time? The numbers we posted before about the time commitment wasn’t an attempt to oversell things (in fact they are probably conservative estimates). As a review board member you will be dedicating that much time to reviewing talks over a three to five month period, with the final weeks being absolutely brutal. And if you don’t? You’ll find yourself being called out or greenlit by a shot caller. And then the best option there is you may not be asked back the following year. Remember, you are helping to shape the tone, feel, and content of DEF CON, the longest-running hacker convention now attended by over 25,000 people. That is an incredible responsibility and you are helping ensure that attendees get value from the talks they attend.

Still want to do it though? OK. Talk to some CFP Review Board members at DEF CON 26. That’s it… just do that. Judge for yourself based on how they describe it, the good and the bad. If any of them describe a breezy stroll through a nice park with flowers and chipmunks, walk away. They aren’t telling you the whole story.

Why don’t you have a CFP Review Board Panel at Defcon?

First, it would be super boring. Invariably the attendees are going to ask us a lot of questions that we can’t answer about specific submissions. While we may “vague” tweet or generally answer a question, we can’t and won’t provide specifics on submitted talks beyond what Nikita and Alex have provided as official feedback, and then only to the person that submitted the talk. So the panel would consist of a lot of jokes, high-level “CFP tips”, and not much more value. If you really want to “know” more about the CFP, just find out where some of us hangout at DEF CON.

Before we end this first entry in this series of three or four posts. I would like to take the opportunity thank you for reading along thus far. Jericho and myself worked on this entry, but he shouldn’t be held responsible for my tangents, side notes, and improper use of some punctuation.

Credit Roll

First and Foremost, we really need to thank those people around us (friends, family, significant others) that deal with us during the three to five month a year process of reviewing talks. They truly are the unsung heroes. They know we can’t go into specifics, but they’re there to listen to us bitch and moan about “that talk”. They understand us during this endeavor when we forgo plans to hangout with them or we’re not in bed until three hours past normal time. Without their support, we could never accomplish the task laid out in front of us.

General Reviewers

Special Reviewers

DEF CON Staff

DEF CON Founder

The Dark Tangent

Shoutouts

We’d also like to give a big shout out to the Workshops Review Board. While they are a separate entity from the CFP Review Board, their contributions to DEF CON are just as important.

In part two of the series we will be covering the statistics, because that’s the type of thing that makes some of us (but especially Jericho) super wet.

With part three will come our thoughts, and comments on the Submission Form and the Questions we ask.

Part four will be some lessons we’ve learned along the way as well as ideas for improving things in the future.

One last thing, Jericho is totally the Jimmy McNulty of the CFP Review Board.

Continue reading the second blog in this series, “DEF CON 26 CFP Basic Statistics and Observations“.