Call For Papers

Important Dates:

• 2024.09.10 - ✅ CFP opens ✅

• 2024.11.01 - 🚫 CFP closes, 11:59 PM EST 🚫

• 2024.12.20 -  🎉 CFP notifications go out 🎉

• 2025.02.21-22 - 🪩 DistrictCon 🪩

WhAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

We are looking for new presentations, showcasing your 🌶️ spiciest technical talks 🌶️ (bizarre reverse engineering projects, tool releases, exploits and vulnerabilities, etc). Non-technical and policy talks are accepted, but preference will be given to those with a technical flavor. 
Infosec veterans and novice presenters both welcome!

We will politely decline talks that are primers on well-known technologies, vendor pitches, or refactors of old talks (except if they were recently presented in a venue that most DistrictCon attendees would not have been able to consume). If you aren’t sure if your talk fits – submit it! We’d love to see it and discuss it with you.

Conference Format

DistrictCon has a number of hands-on events and contests, so for this year we are maintaining a single talk track that will run in parallel with those other events. 

🔮 Hacking Magic 🔮: technical offensive or defensive topics 

Talk Duration: 20 or 50 minutes, including Q&A

Presentations are encouraged to show demonstrations of techniques, working code, hardware projects, or other items that you personally developed and that are open-source and released to the public. This helps the community get the most from your presentation.

In your submission, please note what you are releasing - or if you are not releasing something, why your findings or techniques to be presented provide value independently.

DistrictCon, in the spirit of engaging with the wider DC area, will also be accepting a select few (read: 1-3) talks on the main stage for exceptional research 📍 Informing Policy 📍, or policy content that directly engages with the hacker community.   

Original research or projects on cyber security in the policy arena will be considered (feel free to read the term policy broadly to include impacts on people and communities, not just government-type work).

Hackers do not enjoy being read talking points - we are looking for your spiciest content that will resonate with DistrictCon participants.

Other Tracks: In addition to submitting a talk, please consider participating in our other tracks, such as the Junkyard End-of-Life Pwnathon!

✨ Suggested TOPIC IDEAS (For inspiration )✨

🔮 Hacking Magic 🔮: [Most talks accepted will fall under this category]

• Bizarre Reverse Engineering side projects

• Exploits and Vulnerabilities

• Tool-release talks (we want to hear about why you made it and its impact)

• Security automation tools that provide defenders asymmetric advantage via open-source tooling and data

• Novel ways to cluster and track threat groups, information operations and/or disinformation

📍 Informing Policy 📍: [only 1-3 talks accepted]

• Research projects with policy consequences that impact cyber security

• Actionable insights to protect marginalized communities in cyberspace

• Bureaucracy hacking (interpret this as you see fit, as long as it’s legal)