This pic from NSA I hunt sysadmins sums up my view of Defcon, also there is lots of NSA and FBI there.(GCHQ is also probably there and they can die in a fire)

I volunteer at a security con in my area every year, but its mostly organized by like minded people , I also started a security meetup , but I'm hardly involved anymore.

I actually trust the BSD's more than Linux, I hear what you are saying about BSD, but remember Linux is not immune to security issues being purposefully inserted into the distro in whatever way. Did you forget about this one: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/random_number_b.html? :)

I am not longer a Gentoo person, sorry to say. I was involved in anapnea.net back in the day, just as a lurker mostly. So I've had my fair dose of Gentoo. I like Grsecurity, this is probably the most real Linux security related project and they are definately doing something right, otherwise they wouldn't be getting such harsh reactions from the rest of the world.