Since 1994, Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) has been on the short list of must-see hacker events in the United States. Held in New York every other year (global pandemics notwithstanding), it’s an event where hackers, makers, artists, and luminaries can meet and swap ideas into the wee hours of the morning. With hands-on demonstrations, art installations, an incredible roster of speakers, and all the Club-Mate you can drink, there really is something for everyone.
Tickets are now available for HOPE XV, which will be held from July 12th to the 14th in Queens. It will once again be held on the campus of St. John’s University, as the historic Hotel Pennsylvania which played host to the con since its inception was converted into a somewhat less luxurious empty lot in 2022.
Now under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t have to run a post like this. In previous years, the tickets have sold out so quickly that there was little point in making an announcement about it. Even if you had the store page open when another batch of tickets went on sale, you only had a window of a few minutes to hammer in your credit card info and grab your prize. As us how we know.
But according to the folks at 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, who organize HOPE, something seems to have changed this time around. They believe part of it has to do with the implosion of Twitter, which used to offer them a fairly reliable platform to communicate with the technorati, especially those in the infosec circles. Those individuals are now scattered among a handful of competing services, with little to no interoperability between them. Worse, 2600 believes that Gmail has been automatically sending their emails to the spam folder, presumably because the benevolent megacorp that operates the world’s most popular free email service has unilaterally determined them to be scary balaclava-clad criminals.
Naturally, the concern is that there won’t be a HOPE unless enough folks kick in to make it a reality. Luckily, the solution is simple: go buy a ticket. There’s even a reduced-cost ticket available for those who can’t attend in person but want access to the virtual aspects of the con, which were first introduced when HOPE had to go online-only during the pandemic.
Even if you don’t plan on attending, you can still help the cause. Spread the word amongst your tech-loving friends and colleagues that HOPE has survived the destruction of the Hotel Penn and the existential threats against 2600, and is gearing up to be even bigger and better thanks to their spacious new venue.
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