The first 100 tickets for Hope XI went on sale on 11 November at 11:11. The special presale sold tickets at $100, and those lucky enough to purchase did so in a matter of between 3 and 4 seconds. I’m surprised to say that I was one of the lucky ones! The next presale will be in December, so you’ll get another chance soon.
HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) is a hacker conference. Here, hackers are people who are curious about technology, not someone who wants to cause harm with a computer. Hackers are interested in how things work. They love to become intimately familiar with systems and understand them at their lowest levels. Hackers may try to change a system’s behavior to make it more suitable for them. Someone who’s interested in tweaking a car engine for more performance is a hacker. Someone who improves your website to make it sell more widgets is a hacker. Someone who takes apart the lawn mower and puts it back together is a hacker. Its a few hackers with a dark side who’ve spoiled the name for the rest of us.
The HOPE conference will have talks on new and interesting technologies, but will also have a focus on preserving the rights and freedoms of technology users. These are usually the more compelling talks for me. Hackers, in the sense described above, look out for their common man by making sure that technology isn’t abused by nefarious individuals, organizations and even governments, for their own gain. They advocate for equal and open access to the Internet, and they advocate against laws that infringe on the rights of the individual or favor corporate interests. Hackers test and improve security, privacy and anonymity technologies to ensure safety to all users, and are generally a very interesting bunch to hang out with.
It’ll be a great event, as usual. Be sure to get check xi.hope.net for your next chance to get tickets!
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