This year marked the third edition of OrangeCon, a Dutch cybersecurity conference. As some of you might know, and as my top level domain implies, I’m Dutch, making this a welcome local conference! The conference being local to me does not imply that its scope is local: with speakers from around the globe, this event is a worthy international conference. This edition was held on the fourth of June 2026. Next year they will be back on the 25th of June 2027.

I felt the atmosphere of the conference was similar to the vibes of Germany’s Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) with a more strict focus on cybersecurity. For those who haven’t been to CCC but have been to DEFCON, it is also somewhat similar, but still somewhat difference given its European background. OrangeCon had villages (or as CCC refers to them “Assemblies”, to keep making the comparison), where you can interact with the stands. Additionally, there were workshops and talks, spread out over several tracks.

There was room for some sponsors as well, which weren’t pushy and were happy to engage in general conversations. The non-profit nature of OrangeCon focuses on making the conference affordable for everyone, including students. To sell student tickets at a lower price, they need to generate other sources of incomes as well. This is done via their trainings, and via sponsors. The transparency of OrangeCon regarding this, as well as any other question one might have, is commendable.

After the lunch, I gave a talk titled Successfully Failing As a Reverse Engineer. This was my first non-technical talk at a conference, and I felt OrangeCon’s atmosphere and audience matched with this topic. The talk goes over my experience as a reverse engineer. I’ve tried a lot, and failed a lot. And while the failures did not seem positive to me at the time, they were a great mentor. I hope that the lessons I learned along the way are useful for others, regardless where they are skill wise.

As the non-technical talk was a bit of an experiment for me, I was a bit doubtful about the outcome. While the abstract made clear it wasn’t going to be the technical stuff I usually talk or write about, I still felt it might not be what people expect. It turns out my doubt wasn’t warranted at all. I got a lot of positive reactions in-person and via chat messages afterwards. While this is always great to hear, it seems that my experiment worked out. So who knows what else is to come in the future!

After my talk, I joined the Angry Nerds podcast for a live-edition. While this is generally a Dutch podcast (and the start of the episode is), not everybody present spoke Dutch. Hence, the specific live edition is in English. I had a great time joining in with the Angry Nerds and their guests.

All in all, I hope OrangeCon is here to stay. They are already proving they are, given that their fourth edition has already been announced. An internationally focused conference with great talks while being reachable by public transport from my home: need I say more?

To contact me, you can e-mail me at [info][at][maxkersten][dot][nl], or DM me on BlueSky @maxkersten.nl.