So… Howdy. This post is LONGGGGG… I’m sorry about that. It was initially designed as a talk for DefCON 34’s Main Stage, but it wasn’t accepted. FULL DISCLOSURE… The story is mine. The words are mine. The voice is mine. The construction relied heavily on Claude.ai due to the time constraints. It’s the only way I would have been able to get this out there in time for the conference given my work schedule.

This talk is a six-year field report on an unnamed Crew of forty-six hackers — how we built it, how it holds, and why the smallest unit of Agency is two strangers in a LineCon choosing to look out for each other.

Five of us showed up that year as first-timers — friends and colleagues who’d worked together online but had never spent four days in a hotel together. None of us had been to Vegas. We didn’t know anybody else at the con. So we did what hackers do when they’re scared. We built a tool. A Signal chat. We named it “DefCON 27,” because we figured we’d use it once and delete it.

Six years later, we’re at forty-six members. In six years, exactly one person has left, for reasons unrelated to us. Every new member gets in the same way: someone in our Crew spots a terrified first-timer in LineCon, strikes up a conversation, and sends a DM to the group that reads “found another LineCon newb, cool story, genuine person, can we admit them?” The answer is always yes.

The talk walks through four governance mechanics we accidentally built — anyone can admit, participation is membership, two missed cons and the door closes, and assholes don’t survive here. It walks through the two seasons of a real Crew: curiosity and argument for fifty-one weeks of the year, mutual aid and protection for one. And it argues that the Agency theme is pointing at something deeper than starve the beast, feed the community — that the smallest unit of Agency is two strangers in a line choosing to look out for each other.

The close is a charge: don’t join our Crew. Find or build your own. Find a group you can be safe around. Find a group that will come get you at 2am. Find a group that reminds you to eat and hydrate. Find you a group that has bourbon.

Continue reading Find You a Group That Has Bourbon – Agency, Mutual Aid, and the Unnamed Crew →