I also find Eric Hughes much easier to rally behind than Julian Assange, although John Gilmore is better still (although largely focuses on drug policy, now). Or John Perry Barlow or Mitch Kapor.
It's too broad in scope for me to be really interested, I think -- meetings more focused on specific problems and solutions to those problems, vs. "the overall concept of cryptography and secure communications" seem more likely to be productive.
There are really no shortage of events like this in the Bay Area. I think "how to help mainstream developers build and operate services securely" would be the only thing I'm really into; end users are too varied and stressful for me. (there are usually a critical number of true tinfoil hat, "I've been marginalized by society and need someone who hack my girlfriend's email" types at open end-user crypto meetings...) At least based on the previous several attempts at this kind of thing (2600, Ian/Len's key signing parties, cypherpunks physical meetings, etc.)
I've certainly found the experience of talking about Tor to end users quite stressful, but I haven't had the experience of tin-foil hat users. There was an obvious low-level cop asking about the Silk Road at one of them.
In-fact if I look around the room, I'm the one talking about what William Binney has said & Echelon, so I'm probably the tin foil hat.
I agree about the focus. What's interesting is some of the bugs that I've found because I don't often see things from a UI perspective, and talking to end users has made me see some new bugs, also see problems that remain to be solved that I am currently working on.
I think the bay area is unique, there is nothing much of it's kind like this in Sydney.
I also find Eric Hughes much easier to rally behind than Julian Assange, although John Gilmore is better still (although largely focuses on drug policy, now). Or John Perry Barlow or Mitch Kapor.