Early August saw some very interesting characters visit Las Vegas. Thousands attended Queercon, the self-described “largest social network of LGBT hackers from around the world.” For the 12th year in a row, Queercon was a standout highlight of Defcon, one of the world’s largest annual hacker conventions. 

Although Queercon owes its beginnings to Seattle where its founders are from, today it’s a San Francisco-based nonprofit that has expanded to become much more than just an LGBT meet-up group. Queercon is on a mission to increase LGBT visibility in the tech industry.

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That mission has really gained momentum as of recently. Pride-themed convention T-shirts sold out at Defcon this year, and you could see hundreds sporting rainbows and Queercon badges at Bally’s Hotel and Casino, which hosted the conference. But the pièce de résistance was something else entirely: hacking gay hookup app Grindr.

The point was to expose Grindr’s security flaws, and all of Defcon’s 16,000 or so attendees could take part. There were boundaries in place to protect those who use the app, and, according to Queercon co-founder Robert Walker, the group will send the reports to Grindr once completed. 

Queercon has certainly grown leaps and bounds. This year attendance nearly tripled at all their events (including close to 2,000 at their pool party and hundreds squished into their lounge), exposing a need for more space and the opportunity to expand into other tech niches. It’s a far cry from the environment the group established itself in more than 10 years ago, which was known to be homophobic at times. Homophobic slurs in the computer community were common and the possibility of losing your job if you were out or someone outed you was very real. Many, including LGBT individuals, simply preferred to not address LGBT issues in general, which only served to increase the perception of intolerance.

The group’s well-promoted events hope to draw out those who still feel hesitant to come out and join the wider LGBT computer community. Queercon recently expanded into other cyber security conferences, such as RSA and BSides, and the sense is that the sky really is the limit. Or, to use computer lingo, the cloud.