Policy @ DEF CON | Talks, Events & Archives

From the archive · DEF CON 32 / 2024

Katie’s Policy recap

Watch on YouTube

Katie Noble at the DEF CON 32 closing ceremony beside the Policy team photo and 2024 results slide.

Watch from 25:13

Katie Noble explains why Policy brings this community together, thanks the team, and shares the year’s results.

Policy talks: 10
Creator Stage talks: 6
Reported total attendance: 1,592

These are 2024 figures from the closing slide, not DC34 totals.

Read the closing transcript · Policy starts at 25:13.

Talks & roundtables

August 7–9 · Las Vegas

AI accountability, vulnerability disclosure, healthcare, election security, and digital rights. The published program lists 29 sessions across Policy Village and the Creator Stages.

Friday, August 713 sessions

10:00-11:00

Not Your Parents' Schoolhouse Rock: Getting Tech Policy Done in a Non-Functioning Congress

Jeff Rothblum, Michael Flynn

Policy Village
10:00-11:00

Sovereign by Design, Vulnerable by Default

Devin Lynch, Haley Ring

Creator Stage 1
11:00-12:00

Morbidity and Mortality: Hackers, HIPAA, and a New Prescription for Healthcare Cyber Policy

Christian Dameff, Jeff "r3plicant" Tully

Policy Village
12:00-13:00

Election Security in the Age of AI: Governance, Trust, and the Systems Behind Democracy

Lester Godsey, William Gates, Tim Harper

Policy Village
13:00-14:00

The Cyber Crystal Ball: The Annual Policy @ DEF CON Contingencies Survey

Matthew Wein, Bruce Schneier, Chris Painter, Heather West

Policy Village
13:00-14:00

Connectivity as Control in the European High North

Szymon Skalski, Patricia Vargas Leon, Jorge Acevedo Canabal

Creator Stage 1
14:00-14:30

The Liability Stack: When Code Becomes Conduct

Carole House

Creator Stage 1
14:00-15:30

Strengthening the CVE Ecosystem

John Banghart, Elizabeth Eigner, Lisa Olsen, Lindsey Cerkovnik

Policy Village
15:30-16:30

When AI Finds Everything: Vulnerability Policy for the Coming Discovery Surge

Alec Summers, Lindsey Cerkovnik, Madison Ficorelli

Policy Village
15:30-16:30

Privacy's Defender: How Hackers Protected the Internet Before and Can Do It Again

Cindy Cohn

Creator Stage 1
16:00-16:30

Building a Statewide VDP: Lessons from Maryland's First Year in the Trenches

01dbae

Creator Stage 5
16:30-17:00

Legally Hacked: How Countries Decide When Security Research Is Allowed

Katharina "Kat S" Sommer

Creator Stage 1
16:30-18:00

Filibuffer Overflow: Hackers Stage a Congressional Hearing

Katherine Pratt, Jeff Rothblum, Maurice Turner, Ayan Islam, Beau Woods

Policy Village

Saturday, August 813 sessions

10:00-11:00

Journey to Create an All-State Cybersecurity Plan for Oklahoma

Craig "jafo" Buchanan

Policy Village
10:00-11:00

Whose Agent Is It Anyway? Agency, Authorization, and Accountability in the Year of the AI Agent

Andreas Kaltsounis, Jacob Wall

Creator Stage 1
11:00-12:00

From Policy to Prod: How a Frontier AI Lab Enforces Its Cyber Rules

Grant Versfeld, David "0xdf" Forsythe

Policy Village
12:00-13:00

Europe's Expanding Role in Global Vulnerability Management

Nuno Rodrigues Carvalho, Razvan Gavrila

Policy Village
12:30-13:30

Privacy You Inherit: How Cultural History Writes the Source Code for AI Surveillance Policy

Tati

Creator Stage 1
13:00-14:00

Surprise Session

The official schedule listed this as a surprise session.

Policy Village
13:30-14:00

The Subverted Hacker

Robert "zizkill" Shala

Creator Stage 1
14:00-14:30

The Best of Three Bad Ideas? Ransomware Taxes in Lieu of Bans or Doing Nothing

Joe Uchill

Policy Village
14:30-15:30

From Disclosure to Defense: Rebuilding Vulnerability Management for the AI Era

Lindsey Cerkovnik, John Banghart, Ben Flatgard, Elizabeth Eigner

Policy Village
15:30-16:00

Assume Breach, But For Real: Rewriting Infrastructure Policy for the Adversaries Who Never Left

Travis Berent, Adam Hickey

Policy Village
16:00-17:00

Securing the Safety Net: Why Healthcare Cybersecurity Policy Keeps Failing Patients

Sahan Fernando, James Bowie, Nancy Brainerd, Phil Englert

Policy Village
17:00-17:30

AI Safety Theater: What the RAISE Act Regulates - and What It Does Not

Joshua Marpet

Creator Stage 1
17:00-18:00

The Closing Window: Governing Agentic AI Security in a Post-Mythos World

Taylor Roberts, Mitch Herckis, Katie Trimble-Noble, Razvan Gavrila

Policy Village

Sunday, August 93 sessions

11:00-12:00

Strategic Resistance: How a Global Network Is Fighting the Spyware Industry

Michael Brennan, Nadine Farid Johnson, Rebekah Brown

Policy Village
12:00-12:30

Inference in the Infrastructure: Developing NIST AI RMF Resources for Resilient AI in Critical Systems

Raymond Sheh, Martin Stanley

Policy Village
12:30-14:00

Tactical Advocacy: Panel & Peer Sessions with EFF

Thorin Klosowski, Cooper "Cybertiger" Quintin, Alexis Hancock, Cindy Cohn, Rory Mir

Policy Village

Archived schedule; all times PDT. Session titles link to the published descriptions. The Saturday surprise slot remains unnamed in Hacker Tracker.

Beyond the talks · 2026

Around the village

Capture the Vote

Can you move a vote?

Our DC34 policy challenge put players in front of a fictional congressional office: get past the front desk, make a case, and earn a staffer’s time. The practice edition is available to play.

Play Capture the Vote

Policy Mixer · August 7

After the sessions

The Friday happy hour brought people together at 6:30 p.m. It also had a plate-smashing station. Yes, really.

Mixer listing

From the archive · 2023–2025

Watch Policy talks

Policy on YouTube

Full talks and a panel from past Policy programs, published by DEF CON.

DEF CON 33 / 2025 · Talk · 29 min 20 sec

Secure Code Is Critical Infrastructure: Hacking Policy for Public Good

Tanya Janca

Tanya makes the case for secure coding policy and shares ways to push governments to improve their software.
Read transcript
DEF CON 33 / 2025 · Talk · 37 min 1 sec

State of Open Source in the Federal Government

Jordan Kasper

Jordan walks through federal open-source policy, the obstacles agencies face, and what could work better.
Read transcript
DEF CON 32 / 2024 · Talk · 23 min 35 sec

Cybersecurity Schoolhouse Rock

Avi McGrady

Avi argues for teaching privacy, security, and online safety throughout K–12 education.
Read transcript
DEF CON 31 / 2023 · Panel · 1 hr 47 min 40 sec

A Global Approach to Tackling Software Resilience

Policy panel

Government representatives discuss software security, procurement, standards, and working with the hacker community.
Read transcript

Short program previews (2)

DEF CON 33 / 2025 · Preview · 1 min 23 sec

A short preview for Policy @ DEF CON 33

Policy @ DEF CON

The team's short introduction to the 2025 program, published before the conference.
DEF CON 32 / 2024 · Preview · 2 min 54 sec

DEF CON 32 Policy Preview

Harley Geiger

Harley's introduction to the 2024 Policy program, recorded before that year's event.

English auto-captions are available on YouTube; captions and transcripts may contain errors. These recordings reflect their event year.

Keep digging

Recordings & earlier work

DEF CON 33 team recap
2025 · Starts at 39:17. The team reported hundreds of CTF players and more than 20 talks, including critical infrastructure, encryption, and education.
Cyber Contingencies Survey: Year 1
2025 · Survey results (PDF). The annual survey returned to the DC34 program with Matthew Wein, Bruce Schneier, Chris Painter, and Heather West.
Policy @ DEF CON on YouTube
Interviews and program previews. Conference recordings are also published by DEF CON.