Jennifer Hay

Jennifer Hay is a national security leader with deep expertise at the intersection of technology, policy, and defense. Most recently, she served as Director of the Defense Digital Service (DDS), where she led a cross-functional team of engineers, product managers, and designers delivering rapid software solutions across the Department of Defense.

Previously, Jennifer led Global Government Relations at DataRobot, an enterprise AI platform, where she shaped policy on responsible AI and supported deployments for the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and public good organizations.

Over her two-decade career, Jennifer has held key roles at the Department of Defense and the White House, including positions at the National Security Council, the Deputy Secretary of Defense’s office, the Office of the Under Secretary for Intelligence & Security, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

She holds an M.A. in International Affairs from The George Washington University and a B.A. in Political Science from Pepperdine University. She lives in Arlington, MA, with her husband, son, dog, and cat.

Vlad Ionescu

Vlad Ionescu is the co-founder and CTO of RunSybil, where they are working with a cracked team building AI hackbots and hackbot accessories.

OMAR

Omar is a Staff Security Engineer focusing on building secure and reliable systems, stopping fraudsters, and in general enabling people to do their best work safely and securely. Aside from hacking, Omar enjoys drinking iced coffee year round, collecting pointy toe boots, and tending to his plants with his lovely assistant, Dumpling.

Tom Ritter

Tom Ritter works for Mozilla and does security things. That includes anti-exploitation, the bug bounty program, security advisories, 0-day response, static analysis, and as of recently – web layer privacy stuff. He’s also a Tor Browser developer and maintains much of their code present in Firefox. He previously did consulting for iSEC Partners and NCC Group, and founded their Cryptography Services practice.

Guanxing Wen

Guanxing Wen is a security researcher with over a decade of experience uncovering critical vulnerabilities in low-level systems, spanning TrustZone, kernels, IoT, and infotainment. A two-time top winner in the Huawei Bug Bounty (2021 & 2022), he has presented at Black Hat, MOSEC, INFILTRATE, and 44CON. He currently works at CertiK, where he explores the messy edges where low-level systems meet blockchain infrastructure — most recently, DePIN.

Thomas Wilson

Thomas is a red teamer and penetration tester at Bishop Fox, originally with a background in mobile and cloud security, and always with a tendency to dig deep into weird edge cases. Whether it’s bending MDMs, abusing OAuth flows, or standing up cursed infrastructure just to tear it down again, he’s most at home when things aren’t working as intended. Outside of hacking, he makes glitchy pop music, which probably explains his love for beautiful chaos.

SUMMERCON 2025 – Dates, Tickets

As we said during the closing ceremonies of Summercon 2024, Summercon 2025 is July 11 – July 12, 2025, once again at Littlefield in Brooklyn, NY. We have a block of early bird tickets available.

Register now!

Volunteer for Summercon

Service Guarantees Admission

Use this Volunteer Form to enlist in the Summercon Volunteer Corps.

A vintage-style Summercon recruitment poster featuring a confident woman in a red "SUMMERCON" shirt and cap, saluting with determination. The background is cream and red with bold, patriotic design elements. Text reads “I’M DOING MY PART!” at the top and “SERVICE GUARANTEES ADMISSION” below.
Includes the link https://summercon.org/volunteer

Want to attend Summercon 2025 for free?
Step up. Pitch in.

Would you like to know more?

Volunteering isn’t just an honor—it’s how the show runs. Join the Volunteer Corps and earn your place on the front lines of America’s oldest hacker conference.

Mission Briefing: Volunteer Roles

“The bugs are inside the firewall. We’re deploying countermeasures.”

Volunteers are assigned to critical support operations, including:

  • ID verification and badge scanning
  • Cable deployment & field logistics
  • Speaker escort and green room security
  • Merch & T-shirt distribution operations
  • AV ops and comms monitoring
  • Crowd flow & line integrity enforcement
  • Afterparty support (DJ liaison, door ops, hydration logistics)

Everyone rotates. Nobody gets stuck. The Captain will debrief you daily.

Rewards for Service

Volunteers receive:

  • Full admission to Summercon 2025
  • Access to the green room and volunteer HQ
  • A limited-edition Volunteer Corps shirt
  • Snacks, drinks, and situational awareness
  • Eternal glory in the eyes of your peers

“Would you like to know more?”

Deployment Qualifications

We’re seeking candidates who:

  • Report on time and follow mission orders
  • Maintain morale under pressure
  • Are comfortable lifting, moving, scanning, or yelling (lightly)
  • Can serve 1–2 shifts (~3–4 hours each) over the course of the con
  • Are prepared for unexpected bugs—both literal and metaphorical

Experience not required. We’ll train you in the field.

Operation Timeline

  • Pre-Con Prep: Thursday, July 10
  • Main Engagement: Friday–Saturday, July 11–12
  • You’ll serve up to 8 hours across the weekend—plenty of time left to attend talks, party, and conspire

Enlistment Protocol

“Enlist now, and secure your place in hacker history.”

Use our Google Form
Deadline to apply: June 10, 2025
Confirmations sent: June 20, 2025

Questions?

Report [email protected]
For field chatter: DM us @summerc0n on Twitter, Mastodon, or Bluesky.

Hall of Heroes

These brave volunteers answered the call. Will you?

Wow, Such Tariff

STOP CODE: CRITICAL_TARIFF 0xFEE12025

Your 401k ran into retaliatory tariffs and is plummeting in value.
We’ve all been there.

When global markets crash and supply chains seize, we don’t panic—we patch.

At Summercon, we’ve been quietly preparing for this kind of systemic weirdness since 1987. We’ve explored the limits of trust, the implications of regulation, and the beautiful horror of what happens when “the system” works exactly as designed.


RECENT SYSTEM WARNINGS

🛠 The Debugging Uncertainty Principle
Jatin Kataria, 2023
Why your observations might be the problem—and the patch.

🧨 Da Bomb: Beyond Insanity
Steve Myrick, 2024
From physics to policy, how we keep handing over red buttons.

🌐 Chinese Discourse Power
Martin Wendiggensen, 2024
Narrative control, infrastructure alignment, and geopolitical side channels.

🗳 Zero Trust, Now We Must—But What It Means?
Harri Hursti, 2022
Trust models as post-crash survival tools.

🔥 Wassenaar You Serious?
Katie Moussouris & Ryan Naraine, 2020
Exploit regulation, export control, and laughing through the red tape.

🧠 That Intimate Talk About Responsibly Hacking Your Govt
Mudge, 2016
No comment.


These aren’t just talks. They’re field notes for surviving systems built without failsafes.

If you’ve reached this page because you saw a Blue Screen of Domestic Exploits—don’t worry. You’re already rebooting.


JOIN US FOR THE FIX

🗓 July 11–12, 2025
📍 Brooklyn, NY
🎟 Tickets
📡 #scon2025

Summercon: Supporting domestic 0day development since 1987.

OUR CODE OF CONDUCT

CODE OF CONDUCT

It’s been a few years since our last update, and a lot has changed. The world isn’t as isolated as it was in 2021, but we’re still mindful that community spaces work best when everyone is clear about the expectations. Since some folks might be joining us for the first time (or the first time in a while), here’s a quick reminder of our Code of Conduct.

Many years ago, Summercon published its first real Code of Conduct. That was kind of a landmark, since the Summercon team has always prided itself on a certain amount of constructive chaos. That early code looked like this:

If you love anarchy, want to break things, set off fire alarms, or generally behave like a twelve-year-old, you probably should stay away—even if you are a twelve-year-old. Especially if you are a twelve-year-old. It’s not that kind of event, and we’re not those kind of people. Even though we’re a group of hackers, breaking the law is still illegal.

If you’re interested in meeting your peers in the security world, connecting with some of the finest people you’ll ever know, putting names to faces, and learning about the latest trends in security analysis, we’d love to see you. Mingle, socialize, make lifelong friendships. That’s what we’re all about.

We still believe in that.

But the world has grown. And while we still love that constructive chaos, we’ve grown a lot too. We want everyone to have a good time. And because not everyone agrees on what that means, we’ll be very clear:

Summercon is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for conference talks or exhibitors. The conference reserves the right to eject anyone who engages in behavior that is threatening or patently offensive to the community, regardless of whether it occurs at the conference venue, parties, or online.

Conference participants violating our rules may be thrown out of the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organizers.

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of the conference staff immediately. Anyone wearing a red Summercon Staff shirt is empowered to intervene.

In case you don’t feel comfortable approaching a staff member, you can call us at 720-586-4225 (720-586-HACK) to speak directly with the organizers.

TL;DR: Legal says we’ve gotta say it, so here it is: We reserve the right to remove anyone, anytime, for any reason. No drama, no debate, no refunds, no takebacks. Don’t test us.

Thanks for sticking with us. We know vibes matter, and it’s just easier for everyone to enjoy themselves when the expectations are clear. Play nice, stay weird, and have fun!