Hackers on Planet Earth NYC announces keynote speakers

New York's Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference has announced its summer lineup of keynote speakers for the conference, which runs July 18-20 in NYC:

The very first of the speaker slots for The Last HOPE have been announced with many more to come next week. We have had more submissions than ever and will need to add an additional track in order to accommodate the best of them. What follows are some of the highlights to date.
Steven Levy, author of Hackers: Heroes of the American Revolution and chief technology writer and a senior editor for Newsweek.
Adam Savage, co-host of the popular TV show Mythbusters and "a maker of things."
Kevin Mitnick, "the world's most dangerous hacker" in the eyes of the government and mass media, imprisoned for over five years, and now a successful computer security consultant.
Jello Biafra, a tradition at the HOPE conferences, former lead singer of The Dead Kennedys and one of America's most interesting social activists.
Steven Rambam, private eye extraordinaire, who can find out anything about anybody and has always been willing to share his knowledge of privacy with the hacker community. (The FBI prevented his 2006 talk from being given by swooping in and arresting him moments earlier. The case against him was later found to have no merit.)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by killian101 , May 30, 2008 6:40 AM

Really...Jello Biafra "one of America's most interesting social activists...?" Thats an epic fail...

#2 posted by Orky , May 30, 2008 8:18 AM

This looks to be sponsored by The Register :-)

#3 posted by Brian Damage

, May 30, 2008 9:37 AM

Just wanted to say that Steven Levy's "Hackers: Heroes of the American Revolution" is a really fantastic book, though more about "hackers" in the hobbyist/tinkerer/programmer sense of the word. The voice of the narrative reads somewhat like a work of fiction unfolding in real time so you get a great feeling of what it's like to be working as or amongst Steve Wozniak or Ken Williams. This book really is a must-read for computer enthusiasts or for those who want to know what the real definition of "hacker" is.

#4 posted by seanpatgallagher , May 30, 2008 1:33 PM

Pardon my ignorance, but why is this "The Last HOPE" ?

-Sean

#5 posted by Jardine

, May 30, 2008 1:41 PM

Is he uninteresting? I've listened to some of his spoken word albums and thought that his tale of what happened in his obscenity trial was very interesting.

#6 posted by Jardine

, May 30, 2008 1:46 PM

The company that owns the hotel they hold these conferences at wants to knock it down. So it'll probably be the last HOPE conference (at the hotel Pennsylvania at least). It may also be a Babylon 5 reference. Emmanual Goldstein is a big fan of B5.

#7 posted by Sketch , May 31, 2008 8:18 AM

#6: From the website, it does sound like that is the reason. However, the second HOPE conference was not held at Hotel Penn, so they haven't all been there.