DC416 turns ten.

The Toronto DEFCON group our founder started in 2016 is now 2,880 people. Where hackers meet hackers, still, ten years on.

DC416 is the Toronto chapter of DEFCON. Nick Aleks founded it, ASEC has backed it since, and in 2026 it reaches ten years and 2,880 members.

Where hackers meet hackers

That has been the line since the beginning, and it is meant literally. No vendor pitch, no badge scan, no lead capture. People bring what they are working on and other people take it apart, which is the only reliable way any of us got good at this.

A meaningful share of the operators in this company came through that room, on one side of the table or the other. That is not a coincidence and it is not charity — a city with a strong security community produces better engineers, and we hire in that city.

Ten more

The group keeps running independently of us and always has. If you are in Toronto and you have never come, come.