If you’ve been following our social media accounts, this is no surprise, but last year we at Vector 35 launched RE//verse, a new reverse engineering conference that’s happening in Orlando, FL from Feb 27 - Mar 1 (kickoff reception 27th, talks 28th-1st, trainings 24th-27th). As we’re a month out we wanted to highlight some of the goals behind the conference, talk about what it is and what it isn’t, and remind anyone that hasn’t already signed up and booked their hotel to move fast! We still have trainings and tickets available, but the conference room rate is ending soon so don’t wait.
The Motivation
With the end of ShmooCon and the untimely demise of Infiltrate, there’s been a lack of high quality, technical security conferences in the US. We love what OffensiveCon and HexaCon have been doing across the pond, and we wanted to replicate that plus “RE//vive” what Infiltrate was in spirit. (Sorry, we just can’t help all the great word-play RE//verse lets us get away with, as evidenced by some of the branding above!)
What’s Different?
So what goes into running a conference like this? There’s a few key ingredients that we think will make RE//verse great.
- Great Talks
- Great Trainings
- Great Gatherings
The first, and most important criteria is high quality talks. Thankfully, even for a first time event, we had a ton of fantastic talk submissions and have an amazing talk lineup.
Next, you take those talks and make every presenter do a dry-run before the review board to ensure that the presentations are polished and clearly articulated. This simple ingredient is more work for both the organizers and the presenters, but it pays off in being able to ensure we give you the best quality talks.
No good con is complete without great trainings, and we’re super happy with the amazing trainers we’ve lined up for this year. We’ve got great coverage across the spectrum of reverse engineering topics from hardware hacking to firmware reversing, from specific platforms to advanced program analysis and reversing techniques, from apps to basebands! There’s something for everyone. Plus, several of our trainers don’t often run trainings in the US and we’re excited to make them available to people for whom OCONUS travel is harder.
The other important goal was making sure that everyone has the maximum opportunity to engage with others. The talks are only one half of what makes in-person conferences great. After all, you could always just watch recordings later for most talks. (Related: we do plan to record and publish talks but speakers always have the option of not having their video published.) To that end, you’ll notice our schedule is packed full with events that will allow attendees to mingle and meet over high quality food and drinks. A huge percentage of every ticket (well over 70%) does nothing but cover the food and beverage costs for all of the meals and events.
We think this high cost is worth it though, not only for the chance to connect with others, but for companies that are hiring, researchers who are looking for jobs, or just for people who want to talk with some of the best peers in the industry – or catch up with old “con friends”, this time is invaluable.
It’s also important to take care of the people who make the event happen. All our speakers and trainers and sponsors will find some extra goodies we can’t wait to surprise them with at the event!
What Isn’t It?
Let’s also quickly summarize a few things that RE//verse isn’t. First, it is NOT a Binary Ninja conference (despite our cute image up top!) Our talks and trainers are full of people who use all manner of reverse engineering tools. Peter and Jordan are on the CFP review board, but so are 6 other people with no affiliation with Vector 35 or Binary Ninja. We want this conference to succeed and be a resource for everyone in the reverse engineering community, not just Binary Ninja users.
Second, the conference isn’t cheap! As mentioned above, running a conference of this caliber is expensive, this is not a money making operation. We expect to lose a significant amount of money on the first year, and while we hope that’s not the case in future years, we feel strongly that it’s important to support the community through this! Related to that, unfortunately this year we’re not able to support students or make it easier for folks with less budget to attend. But that’s an important goal for us to improve in future years.
Dates
While the main conference dates were listed as the 28th-1st, be aware that there’s actually an opening kickoff RE//ception the night of the 27th! Always double check the schedule for the latest schedule updates.
Join us!
Ready to join? Then if you haven’t already, sign up for the conference, join us for a training, and most importantly since it’s time limited, make sure to book your hotel!