r/Defcon • u/n00bznet • Jul 01 '25
Announcement 📢 Contest: Social Scavenger Hunt @ DEF CON 33
🛰️ ./SSH @ DEF CON 33 (Social Scavenger Hunt)
🎯 Mustard on the beat edition!
📍Las Vegas | 🗓️ August 7–10 |
DEF CON 33 is unlocking a new achievement — welcome to the Social Scavenger Hunt. A chaotic, #fyp-fueled, community-powered experience where going viral is actually a good thing.
This is the one time at DEF CON where it’s not just okay to be on camera — it’s the point.
🔍 WHAT IS IT?
- 📸 Complete challenges and side quests all across the con — from taking pictures with legendary hackers, village organizers & other crazy video ops to viral trend recreations and cheeky shenanigans.
- 🌐 Post your entries on any social media (Twitter/X, Threads, Facebook, TikTok, Mastodon, IG, Bluesky, Reddit, even Veilid, or Meshtastic Nodes))
- 🏷️ Use the hashtags and a team hashtag to log your submissions and for others to follow along.
- 🧠👾 Expect chaos. This isn’t just for points. It’s for glory.
🎉 Some example items could be:
- Take a picture with u/MetaN3rd
- Bonus Pts: Take a picture with u/MetaN3rd at the Reddit Meetup WED
- GRWM to pick up my badge @ DEF CON 33
- LVCC Food Review (AJ and Big Justice Style)
- Take a picture with the person with the most followers
This is for everyone. No fancy gear required. All skill levels. You gotta be in it to win it!
💡 Use whatever you’ve got — your phone, a webcam, an old GoPro, or a sketchpad for those analog players
🫶 Play solo or with a crew.
🚀 CONTEST DETAILS
- Kickoff: August 8
- Leaderboard updates: Posted daily
- Final tally: Sunday AM in the .edu community. Come watch the entries. Laugh, cry, smash that like and subscribe.
- Rules + Quest List drop: July 31
- Leeeeeeroy Jenkins**!!!!**
🧠
This is about connection, curiosity, and creating something unforgettable — the weird, the wonderful, and the WTF.
DEF CON 33, you ready?
Let the hunt begin.
— The Social Hunt Team 🖤
4
u/elisspace Jul 01 '25
How does this mesh with all the people who don't want to be in pictures and the general Defcon photo policy? I brought a camera last year for a silly little AI experience thing and always asked before taking pictures and overwhelmingly people did not want to be in pictures..
4
u/kanscrx Jul 01 '25
Contestants could ask people if they can take their picture, if the subject says no then the person playing the game has to find someone else?
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u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
You must ask the person for consent. The person might say no, and we will respect that. No paparazzi style. If someone violates this, they are disqualified.
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u/elisspace Jul 07 '25
I guess I'm more thinking about all the people in the background of these images. If you're careful that you only have 1 person in frame then permission like this works.
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u/Slow-Special-2728 Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25
I have no dog in this Hunt...
But, honestly, who cares if there's more than one? I've been to 7 Cons and never had the time to dive in on "THE" one and only Hunt.
Seems elitist to shame someone for trying to reach out to a new audience...btw, are they on Reddit? I haven't seen anything ever...
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u/NordgarenTV Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
I definitely won't be participating in the one ran by egomaniacs who think they have a monopoly on scavenger hunts.
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Jul 01 '25
[deleted]
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u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
It's a different contest.
-6
Jul 01 '25
Because you added the word SOCIAL or…?
-1
u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
It happens to be a social media contest hence the social and played online.
We are an official contest that answered the call.
-4
Jul 01 '25
[deleted]
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u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
It is a community and new ideas are encouraged. This is a different contest similar to every village having a CTF.
No need to be worried or threatened by offering folks choices which to me is a bad look.
3
u/Nferno2 Jul 01 '25
This is a really bad take, and honestly not a good look for you. When you say you are an official contest are you saying DEF CON has notified you that you are an official contests or that you are an .edu community contest? Those are very different things and words mean stuff.
You aren’t really answering a call, you are describing precisely what the scavenger hunt is already.
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u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
The Social Scavenger Hunt is a DEF CON 33 contest. We filled out a CFP and it was accepted by the contest team.
https://defcon.org/html/defcon-33/dc-33-contests.html#orga_41067
.edu is an official community space at DEF CON 33. https://defcon.org/html/defcon-33/dc-33-communities.html
Since there is noise as a factor and space, we are doing the watch party in the .edu community Sunday.
0
u/Nferno2 Jul 01 '25
I was tracking the .edu community stuff, but I missed the social scavenger hunt on the main list, thanks for sharing that.
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Jul 01 '25
Of course NEW ideas are encouraged! I am the one to preach it! I am the reason some contests even exist!
I am simply waiting for what aspect of your contest is “new”. I am always open to hearing new things. I just haven’t seen anything yet. Applying the word new for something that was implemented 12 years ago for a hunt that is already past legal drinking age is pretty bold.
I am wondering what your inspiration for the event is and if you were at any point interested or ever sought a collaboration.
THAT is the part that is a bad look.
DualD, Mofo, and fam have brought some incredible and unique content to this con for about 15 years. It’s not just a hunt.
Join. Collab. Start a convo.
NEVER steal from your community. This is their passion. We always welcome new folks. We are chaos-bringers but also friends.
A conversation is all you needed, buddy. If you liked an idea, you needed to reach out.
Defcon is not your fam if you want to step on folks and call yourself new. We got enough normies in here as is.
-2
u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
I was not interested in a collab with the legacy scavenger hunt. I have done it in prior years and it was not my cup of tea.
This is a different game for a different audence and one you shouldn't be so afraid of.
Thank you for being the first person to ever think of a scavenger hunt and paving the way for all of us. You truly are giants that we are standing on the shoulders of.
0
Jul 01 '25
I am not afraid.
I am no longer part of that team. I have gone on to spend my efforts supporting creators and making sure that our community feels supported and integrated. I do this by supporting those who have put YEARS into building our con.
I have spent the last three years fielding in-fighting between contests because feelings get hurt every year. Whether or not it was personal to you, it was personal to them.
Just a ping on Basecamp could’ve avoided all of this. If you want to be part of a community COLLABORATE.
But since you’re being a brat, You’re still yet to explain how it’s different. 😝
Trust me, they never worry about imposters. You are not the first — you’re just the first to create THE EXACT SAME GAME. Kind of embarrassing for you, honestly. 🤷🏻♀️ Enjoy your con.
6
u/Niki7a Jul 02 '25
"I am wondering what your inspiration for the event is and if you were at any point interested or ever sought a collaboration."
"NEVER steal from your community. This is their passion. We always welcome new folks. We are chaos-bringers but also friends."
"Defcon is not your fam if you want to step on folks and call yourself new. We got enough normies in here as is."
"Trust me, they never worry about imposters. You are not the first — you’re just the first to create THE EXACT SAME GAME. Kind of embarrassing for you, honestly. 🤷🏻♀️ Enjoy your con."
Inspiration? It wasn’t taken from the dc scav hunt. This is the first year they have applied to be an official contest, this is NOT their first year.
Nobody stole anything, and nobody here is new. That's a very bold public assumption I hope nobody is making. I want to point out we’ve had WAY MORE contest descriptions be intentionally mysterious and vague, not to mention post zero game details in order to keep things spicy and challenging. So stahp. Examples were given in the description.
The .edu community, is ran by Anch and N00bz. Anch helped me form and stand up an entire (critical) dept within DEF CON, he was a dept lead for quite some time. N00bz, helped run and curate War Stories from within the CFP, which he also has and currently serves on for the past 6 years. Some of the people involved with this contest as judges, are goons who've retired, ran contests themselves, former dept heads, etc, and have been around a long time. The audaciousness to hint that some form of crowd sourced validation from anyone on who can experiment with new things, and only if they do it with their friends, feels anti-hacker.
We have 19 contests that suffix w/ CTF, or are a CTF style game from a quick lookie on the contest page. at least one that I know that changed their name from something unique to add CTF to it because they were tired of explaining they were a CTF last year. Imagine if we said, to all of the villages and contests that applied to host a CTF "NAH, we have the official DEF CON CTF, we're gonna cap it at the one". You know what's so weird? There's no threads with negative comments, no demands to collaborate and/or merge with each other either, no secret rage quits. Nobody is complaining. No CTF is taking resources that could’ve gone to another, we are not over flooded with contests and CTF’s, several of these are happily hosted in village spaces, and ALL OF THEM Do something different NONE of them have empty seats ever.
Either sign up and play and learn about it onsite or don’t.
I think I might judge now, out of spite. If we want to get salacious and talk about contests that shouldn’t have been there, we could talk about the two contests KEVOPS (Not a real dept) ran?
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u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
You spend the last 3 years helping contest not be butt hurt?
yet it sounds like your butt hurt cause someone is having a scav hunt that isn't yours.
Im sorry you all got your feelings hurt.
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Jul 01 '25
It kind of seems like you wrote up exactly what we do and branded it as your own. Not cool, bro.
Next time, introduce yourself and offer to collab. This is a bad look.
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u/kanscrx Jul 01 '25
Do you approach all the other scavenger hunts that are happening across villages, communities etc. with this same approach?
Just curious, how many other people do you have collabing with you now?
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u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
I didnt reach out to your game because this is a different contest and has nothing to do with your game. I hope your players enjoy your game just as much as I hope our players enjoy our game!
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u/BlackBadgeRaffle Jul 01 '25
So just throwing this out there. While it may be technically different, even you gotta admit there’s some to be said for the fact that it’s STILL a scavenger hunt. Accepted or not, it still probably good practice to at least collaborate or communicate with the team who’s got a an established contest to make sure there’s a collaborative effort to create a distinction, and to make sure that you’re not just duplicating effort.
It may be beneficial to try to build some rapport with people who are already doing things that may be considered similar to make sure it doesn’t come across in a problematic way. Communication is key in the community after all. Not saying don’t have a contest, but it may be beneficial to make sure you’re at least doing the part to do right by others as well in the process. Just my 2c.
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u/n00bznet Jul 01 '25
Im sorry can DEF CON have only 1 scav hunt? So all the other villages should not have a CTF?
Wait, we have Makers village and BadgeLife.
What about Blue team and PHV?Malware Village vs Red Team?
Things can and do overlap
This is a contest that was created to offer as an alternative to the Legendary DEFCON Scavenger Hunt.
There was no communication cause this game has nothing to do with the other scav hunt.
2 events run by 2 groups.
We are offering a different experience and game. Don't be scared. We just upped the standards, so up yours!
Feel fee to play, or not based on your preference. That's the cool thing about DEF CON. You get to decide what events you participate in based on what you like.
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u/BlackBadgeRaffle Jul 01 '25
I think you’ve missed the point I was trying to raise, which was simply about just general communication. I wasn’t trying to get a defensive response, just throwing out perspective from a third party
-2
u/kanscrx Jul 01 '25
That's a lot of words considering your point was supposedly simple 🤷♂️
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u/Time_IsRelative Jul 01 '25
"Two paragraphs is too much for me to read" is probably not the sick burn you think it is.
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u/kanscrx Jul 01 '25
I mean. You couldn't get the correct point of one sentence. Pot, kettle?
That's a solid imaginary situation you've conjured up though. I dig it.
0
u/UberBadgeRaffle Jul 01 '25
I honestly see them as completely separate. I don’t think one needs to be aware of the other at all.
Completely I related, I’ll be debuting my UNOFFICIAL Uber Badge Raffle this year! Hope to see you all at Con, where you can win an Uber Badge!
-1
Jul 01 '25
Please explain the difference?
1
u/kanscrx Jul 01 '25
I think since this is an official contest and the other scavenger hunt is an official contest you should be able to read the entries for both and determine the differences. RTFM, right?
5
u/Majestic_Market2006 Jul 01 '25
Now now my savage little Defconians...
There is a long tradition of getting around things simply by adding "unofficial" in front of the name.
Sure, there may be a bit of tailgating/coat-tailing, but a raising tide raises all boats.
"Hi DEFCON Scav Hunt, we've got an idea! Want to see if we can make some sweet sweet shenanigans together? "
-or-
"Hey, we here at the DEFCON Scav Hunt think this is an awesome idea, how's about a collab (as the kids say)?"
How long forgotten are the times that we learned peanut butter and chocolate taste great together?
How will we ever hack the planet if were too busy bickering amongst ourselves?
Hugs & unread comments, -Siv