For over five years we’ve been to hacker conferences all over the world, learned loads and had some great times. Hacker cons aren’t just conferences; they are social events for the security community. They’re a chance to make new friends, meet up with old ones and have fun, and you might learn some stuff too. SteelCon is a unique event; the North of England hasn’t (until now) had a hacker con to call its own and we thought that it needed one. This is a hacker con, for anyone who is interested in how things work, how things can be broken and how they can be fixed. This is not about criminal hacking and stealing people’s data for mass reward. If you like to tinker with things, aren’t happy with something until you know how it does what it does, won’t let something be broken without trying to fix it, SteelCon is for you. There will be something for everyone with a wide range of talks, workshops, challenges and good old fashioned social networking.