[Updated] DerbyCon security conference shutting down due to ruckus over #metoo joke?

Updates to this story are being added at the bottom…..

The organizers of DerbyCon, a popular security conference, have announced the conference is being shut down. This year will witness the final DerbyCon meetup. The announcement was made by the organizers in a blog post, which has been linked through their social media channels as well.

2019 will be our last year of DerbyCon. Please know that this decision was not done in haste, and it was one of the most difficult decisions we have ever had to make in our lives

So what’s the reason behind this surprise shut down? Was it money? Well, the organizers revealed they raised enough money for charity and other noble things, but also admitted they put in their own money to make DerbyCon better.

DerbyCon and our attendees raised so much money each and every year for charities, helped families, the homeless, cancer research, worked with organizations for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico, and reached people not just inside the Information Security industry, but outside as well

we always either invested more personally (financially) into the conference to make it awesome or used whatever funds we had to make the conference even better. We were even offered a buyout of the conference, which we turned down

So was money the reason? Apparently no. The blog post specifically points out to an incident during last year’s conference in October, wherein they say they had to deal with someone who was “verbally and mentally abusive.”

To put it in perspective, we had to deal with an individual that was verbally and mentally abusive to a number of our volunteer staff and security to the point where they were in tears

Admittedly, we had no idea how to handle this person, and in fear of repercussion of removing this person, allowed them to stay at the conference in order to “not upset the masses”. The best we could do was just apologize, for other apologies, and apologize more for another’s actions

So who was this person they are referring to? And why did they apologize and allowed the person to stay fearing forcing them to move out would “upset the masses.” Well, I did some research, and stumbled upon online chatter that suggests the DerbyCon organizers may be referring to cyber-security enthusiast Lindsey Ledford.

Reason? Well, she was the one who pointed out a misogynist #metoo joke at the conference. The following tweet from Lindsey should give you a better idea on what joke she highlighted:

https://twitter.com/deborahlindseyl/status/1048401891913334785

Here’s some other info she shared related to that episode:

https://twitter.com/deborahlindseyl/status/1048401909353209856

I want to make it clear that there is no direct proof that suggests Lindsey was the person who DerbyCon referred to as “verbally and mentally abusive,” but it’s hard to ignore the connection especially given that Lindsey raised a sensitive matter and the “not upset the masses” concern the organizers shared in the blog post.

And not to miss this:

There is a small, yet vocal group of people creating negativity, polarization, and disruption, with the primary intent of self-promotion to advance a career, for personal gain, or for more social media followers

Of course, many of those who liked being part of the conference aren’t happy.

We will reach out to Lindsey to get her side of the story as well, and will update the story as and when we have more information on the matter. Until then, let us know your thoughts on the matter in the comments section below.

A related story we thought you might like: Amid all the backlash as well as boycott it’s facing, we found Gillette is also being accused of deleting negative comments on its latest #metoo ad. For details, head here.

We got in touch with Lindsey, who told us she did talk to DerbyCon founder Dave Kennedy about the incident, but categorically denied making anyone cry at the conference. Here’s what she told us:

The logic doesn’t even make sense- do you (they) think *I* made organizers cry?

I had a one on one conversation – in person – w dave kennedy the night of that incident. we spoke for an hour. there were no tears

Lindsey called our original coverage of the matter biased, effectively saying the #metoo joke wasn’t the only thing wrong at the conference.

Your article doesn’t mention anything about people raising concerns re security staff over the past few years

We researched more, and found that people have been raising issues with DerbyCon for quite some time now. Here’s a Tumblr post from 2017 highlighting some problems.

Moving on, referring to the DerbyCon shut down announcement blog post, Lindsey said:

There are issues going back years that people have addressed publicly and privately, none of which were addressed directly in that blog

She further said:

and how the situation w 2 guys dressed as 4chan pedophile bears were handled, how security staff responded. who reported

For those who aren’t aware, Pedobear refers to a pedophilic cartoon bear. And evidence suggests Derbycon has had people dressed as Pedobears.

https://twitter.com/d0tslash/status/1048771941723779072
https://twitter.com/hacklaw/status/911797748097339393

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