Hackers on Planet Earth

"H.O.P.E." redirects here. For other uses, see Hope (disambiguation).

The Last HOPE, 2008

HOPE (abbreviation of Hackers on Planet Earth, in addition to being the first two letters in "Hotel Pennsylvania", the venue where the conference is held) is a conference series sponsored by the hacker magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. Held biennially in the summer, there have been eight conferences to date with the next scheduled for 13 - 15 July 2012.

Conferences

HOPE: Hackers On Planet Earth

Held from August 13 to August 14, 1994, at the Hotel Pennsylvania, the first HOPE conference marked 2600: The Hacker Quarterly's 10th anniversary. Well over 1,000 people were in attendance, including speakers from around the world. Admission included access to a 28.8 kbit/s local network.

Beyond HOPE

From August 8 through August 10, 1997, Beyond HOPE moved the conference to the Puck Building. Attendance doubled, with 2000 attendees. Bell Technology Group helped to support the hackers. A TAP reunion and a live broadcast of Off the Hook took place (hear it here). Admission included a 10 Mbit/s local network.

H2K

In 2000, HOPE returned to the Hotel Pennsylvania, where all its successors would also be located. Between July 14 and July 16, 2000, the conference ran 24 hours a day, bringing in 2300 attendees. Jello Biafra gave a keynote speech. In this historic cultural exchange between the punk rock icon/free speech activist and the hacker community, Jello managed to draw powerful connections, despite not having any actual computer experience, and the EFF raised thousands of dollars. The conference admission included a working Ethernet and a T1 link to the internet.

H2K2

H2K2 (July 12-14, 2002) also ran 24 hours a day, this time with a theme of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory System. H2K2 included two tracks of scheduled speakers, a third track reserved for last minute and self scheduled speakers, a movie room, retrocomputing, musical performances, a State of the World Address by Jello Biafra, keynotes by Aaron McGruder and Siva Vaidhyanathan and discussions on the DMCA and DeCSS. Freedom Downtime premiered on Friday evening (July 14). The conference admission included wireless 802.11b coverage and places to link in with wired Ethernet, an open computer area for access to a 24-hour direct uplink to the Internet at "T-1ish" speeds, made available by The DataHaven Project, as well as an active internal network.

The Fifth HOPE

The Fifth H.O.P.E. (July 9-11, 2004) had a theme of propaganda and commemorated the anniversaries of both the H.O.P.E. cons and Off the Hook (with a live broadcast of the show from the con like at Beyond H.O.P.E.). Keynotes speakers were Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak, and Jello Biafra. There was also a media presentation by some of the "members" of the Phone Losers of America who celebrated their tenth-year anniversary. Additionally, Cult of the Dead Cow celebrated its twentieth anniversary at the conference. The conference admission included access to a four layer public network with two T1 lines + backup links to the internet via a Public Terminal Cluster, various wired means, a WiFi network on three floors and a video network.

HOPE Number Six

HOPE Number Six (July 21-23, 2006) included talks from Richard Stallman and Jello Biafra. Kevin Mitnick was scheduled to be at the conference but was unable to make it; while on vacation in Colombia an illness postponed his return. Hope Number Six had a 100-megabit Internet connection, claimed by the organizers to be the fastest Internet connection at any US hacker conference. The event's theme was based around the series The Prisoner (as this event is titled "Number Six," a designation shared by the titular "prisoner,") and around the number 6 itself. Notable occurrences:

• Steve Rambam, a noted private investigator who runs Pallorium, Inc., an online investigative service, was set to lead a panel discussion titled "Privacy is Dead ... Get Over It." A few minutes before the start of the panel, Rambam was arrested by the FBI on charges that he unlawfully interfered with an ongoing case prosecutors filed against Albert Santoro, a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney who was indicted in Jan. 2003 with one count of money-laundering. The charges were eventually dropped and the talk was held in November 2006, long after the conference ended.
• Jello Biafra began his talk by referring to the above arrest, noting the convention had been more "spook heavy" than usual. He then announced a "special message" to "any Federal agents that may be in the audience", and mooned the convention.

The Last HOPE

The Last HOPE took place on July 18 - 20, 2008 at the Hotel Pennsylvania. A notable change from past years was the use of an Internet forum to facilitate community participation in the planning of the event.

The name referred to the expectation that this would have been the final H.O.P.E. conference due to the scheduled demolition of its venue, the Hotel Pennsylvania. The Save Hotel Pennsylvania Foundation was created, and that The Next HOPE was scheduled for Summer 2010. It was at the closing ceremony that it was revealed that the use of the word "last" could also refer to the previous event, or one that had ended (referring to The Last HOPE itself).

Steven Levy gave the keynote address. Kevin Mitnick, Steve Rambam, Jello Biafra, and Adam Savage of MythBusters were also featured speakers. Descriptions and audio of the talks can be found at TheLastHOPE.org and their wiki.

The Next HOPE

The most recent HOPE convention, named "The Next HOPE", took place on July 16 - 18, 2010. The Next HOPE was held at the Hotel Pennsylvania, as the plans by Vornado to demolish the hotel are on hold.

HOPE Number Nine

HOPE Number 9 is scheduled for 13 - 15 July 2012 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan.

See also

• Computer security conference

External links

• Current HOPE conference site
• HOPE videos
• 2600 Magazine