Lockheed (DEFCON)

"This article is about Lockheed, the network architect for DEF CON."

Lockheed (sometimes shortened to "Lock" or "Lockster") (real name: Steve Kirk) (born in 1970 in California) is the pseudonym of an American network engineer who is an organizer and Chief Network Architect of the DEF CON convention.

Biography

Despite living in Las Vegas (where he attended UNLV) for DEFCON 1 & 2, he did not attend his first DEF CON until he'd moved out of Las Vegas, and attended DEF CON 3 at the Tropicana Resort & Casino. It was there he was introduced to Dark Tangent, the main organizer of the show. DT asked Lock if he'd want to run the network for the con the next year (DC4). Lockheed has been in charge of the network ever since.

DEF CON Network History/Evolution

DEF CON 4 (Monte Carlo Hotel & Casino) - 2 ISDN lines. They got one channel of one line working until someone stole the ISDN modem. Turns out the Telco had labeled the SPIDs wrong.

DEF CON 5 (Aladdin Hotel & Casino) - T1 line. Never worked. The line was successfully run into the hotel wiring room, but the in-house wiring was so poor a good signal could not be delivered to the convention space. The hotel electrician went on holiday that weekend, too.

DEF CON 6 (Plaza Hotel & Casino) - T1 + ADSL line. Two local ISP's brought in connectivity. Both lines were brought up & working. The T1 line was provided to attendees while the ADSL was used for DEF CON Goon use only.

DEF CON 7 (Alexis Park) - T1. Line worked. Line was split to provide multiple segments for attendees, speakers, and Goons.

DEF CON 8-12 (Alexis Park) - Shared the hotel's T1 line. The DEF CON NOC staff gave the hotel sufficient bandwidth for their business purposes, then segmented networks for the various convention groups.

DEF CON 13 (Alexis Park) - Brought in a point-to-point wireless ISP to provide 3Mb connection dedicated to the con.

DEF CON 14 (Riviera (hotel and casino)) - Wireless ISP returned, providing 6-10Mb connection via tower located across the street on top of the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel.

Trivia

* Lock picked his name from the Lockheed (comics) character from the X-Men.
* Lock once got a "please stop using our name" email from Lockheed Corporation; He referred them to "prior art" with the X-Men.
* Lock likes dogs - big dogs. His last two Great Danes were named after X-Men characters (Rogue & Storm).
* He doesn't like football, but loves his adopted Texas Longhorns.

References

* http://www.random-ether.net - Lock's blog/gallery
* http://www.defconnetworking.org - the DEF CON Networking team website