Frequently asked questions

Yes, Please contact us for more details.

We have your ticket purchase on record. You may redeem and pickup your badges and/or pre-ordered merchandising at the registration desk during our event.

Yes, with some conditions: You’ll need to contact us less than 3 weeks prior to the event to transfer the ticket. We may need to verify your information before confirming the ticket transfer. We may require you to prove you are the owner of the ticket via order information or original email. In addition may require onsite verification such as showing an ID at the door to grant entry. Each ticket is redeemed at registration during our event. We reserve the right to deny any requests for any reason.

No, we have a strict no-refund policy, however we would be happy to help you find an eager student willing to attend on your behalf as a donation.

Our strict no-refund policy states, “Any and all payments made to SecretCon are not refundable for any reason, including, without limitation, failure to use credentials due to illness, change in attendance availability, acts of God, travel-related problems, acts of terrorism, government shutdowns of any kind, loss of employment and/or duplicate purchases.” unless our event insurance gets activated and contributes to reimbursement. We also reserve the right to revoke tickets and access to the event for any reason. So, basically behave and be respectful. I accidentally sent a duplicate order or forgot I can’t be charged tax, can you refund?

We will help you refund your order, however we get hit with a processing fee of 2.9%+30c, if it was our system’s fault, we’ll refund that. If the fault is on your side, we ask you pay this processing fee as our payment processor does not refund that to us.

CypherCon is an annual hacker conference based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We enjoy puzzles, mystery, and discovery. We pride ourselves with a unique culture that focuses heavily on retro-futuristic 70s,80s,90s,00s hacker culture blending the art of dancing between fantasy and reality. Our core event consists of several tracks of speakers about computer- and hacking-related subjects, as well as cyber-security challenges and competitions. In addition we publish puzzles made by the community in unique story worlds. Lastly, we offer a blank canvas for hacker specializations ran by volunteers called villages.

Our 2019 event had 1000 attendees. We cancelled 2020 & 2021 due to the pandemic. Our 2022 event returned with over 1100 attendees. Our next scheduled event is CypherCon 6 on March 30-31, 2023.

The event aims to offer a blank canvas for the community to lead, convene, and connect locally with our neighbor of hackers, information security friends, and the general public for an open discussion on strong cryptography, become advocacy outlet for privacy, and strive for the betterment of education of the general public in a diligent, loyal, honest manner, and not knowingly be part of any illegal or improper activities. We also enjoy publishing community puzzles and diving into hacker culture such as retro futuristic themes. CypherCon will accomplish this by providing that blank canvas and being the interchange of knowledge and ideas, advancing the industry forward, while never forgetting our cultural hacker past and present. Today, We define our future.

Our event is a blank canvas. Beyond presentations, puzzles, and contests. Our conference format allows for the community of volunteers to create specialized areas called villages. These villages may offer displays, interesting talks, informal discussions, socializing, challenges, contests, and competitions. CypherCon may seem like it’s purely security technology and hacking as the primary purpose of the con however the community defines what CypherCon shifts into, such as emerging hacker related topics. Examples may include attendees picking locks, hacking the badge, playing capture the flag, or discovering interesting presentation topics beyond hacking such as mushroom cultivation or dark skies.

Presentations are very diverse, some examples include: decoding cypher puzzles, corporate and network security, privacy, personal rights and freedoms, new technologies, modern exploit techniques, security philosophy, hardware hacking, forensics, reverse engineering, protocol analysis, cryptographic algorithms. The community can even go beyond the standard hacker themes with mushroom cultivation and dark skies. Expect a blank canvas and all-around security and cypher topics with added comedic ‘hacker’ motifs. Lastly, our event is flexible and for anyone, you never have to touch a computer, and can relax and socialize with the community.

We would love to have you! Click here for the SecretCon Slack.

We would love to have you! Discord is at: https://discord.gg/VfNezRYkrY

Everyone is welcome to CypherCon. CypherCon is a blank canvas shaped by the community. If you are reading this, YOU are this community! Looking forward to meeting you.

*Anyone in good standing with CypherCon and/or the community-at-large may attend. The organizer has the right to deny access or remove anyone for any reason from the event.

CypherCon has no age limits. Adults are ultimately responsible to decide if this community is appropriate for their children. Feel free to contact us for further details in your discussion process.

To guarantee the independent nature of the conference, SecretCon has always had the following sponsorship guidelines:

We recommend staying at the Hilton or Hyatt hotel connected to the conference venue.

If you are looking for a premium place to stay. We recommend the historic hotel downtown Milwaukee called The Pfister Hotel. The Pfister Hotel happened to be the venue for our first year.

We value your privacy. Privacy is a core expectation for these conferences. For many of us we use handles instead of our real names. We honestly try our best to protect your information. We do not provide sponsors with attendee lists. However, We still want you to be informed and involved so we may email you occasionally about the event. We will not sell your information to third parties. That would be super weird anyway.

Still Worried? We can figure something out. Contact us.