DEF CON in the news

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1=Coder Journeys From Wall Street to Prison

Story about people being tried as accomplices with Albert Gonzalez (wired story on that) who, according to this story, was convicted last month to 20 years in prison for identity theft. This is mostly about the fate of people believed to be accomplices to the crime.

Defcon has peripheral mention here twice, and as a reference to a picture included in the story.

Project Mayhem’s “anti-sec” stance wasn’t completely unwelcome in the security world. There was a sentiment among some in the DefCon crowd that the security community’s focus on profit was at odds with hacking’s roots.

In 2002, Watt had appeared on stage at the DefCon hacker conference as the “Unix Terrorist,” touting the purloined files that Mayhem had seized from white hats. His deep voice and towering height made him easily memorable.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1=How young upstarts can get their big security break

Only a reference to Defcon in passing:

3. Learn how to dress: ... But then there are times to dress to match the crowd you are in, particularly at security conferences. Business attire won't help you network in a crowd of hackers at ShmooCon or DEFCON....

For full story, see article. The above quote is the only Defcon reference.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1: Death, where is thy password?

Eventually, we paid £199 to Elcomsoft (the company whose employee Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested in 2001 at Defcon for cracking Adobe eBook files) for its Advanced Office Password Recovery software and it found the password after about 18 hours of constrained brute-force attempts.

That is the only mention of Defcon in the article. The story is about a widow that was trying to gain access to their departed husband's financial records, and the troubles of dealing with such information when people die.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1

Talking Cyber-Security With Homeland Security Advisor (and Former Hacker) Jeff Moss
by Jon Chase — Apr 13th 2010 at 2:50PM

What exactly does your government gig as an advisor entail?
...
I'm one of 24 members of the council. In the post-9/11 world an act was passed that imposed advisory councils on various aspects of Homeland Security to prevent groupthink and provide an outside opinion to the secretary or other people who want it.
...

Many more Q&A in the article. Visit link to read them all.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

In Spanish:
URL1

Using Babelfish:
URL2

Attempt at using babelfish translation to create meaningful English of portions of the article By Rosalía Stream [13-04-2010]

Some “Hacker Contests”, are extreme challenges for leading experts in security.

Three of the more important contests of `hacking' at international level occur at DEF CON, Codegate and PWN2OWN cause some companies to tremble with fear.

...

DEF CON is one of the more important Hacker Conventions in the world. It takes place every year in Las Vegas, NV, US and was founded by Jeff Moss. The first DEF CON was held June of 1993. In 2008, DEF CON 16 was able to bring together 8,500 skilled people from governments, corporation as well as security professionals, journalists, lawyers, employees, crackers and hackers, interested in systems, architecture, programming and more.

...

One of the most famous DEF CON contests is Capture the Flag (CTF)
...
It is a challenge involving hackers that try to attack or to defend networks and systems. Over the years, it has even become well known in academic and military circles with people competing from each.
...

For the full story, visit the original link or the one from babelfish.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Closer to advertising than "Defcon in the News" but it is about Defcon:

URL1

[EDIT: Also boingboing:]boingboing

April 12th, 2010
EFF Proudly Presents the First Annual Defcon Getaway Fundraising Contest!

The contestant to raise the most money for EFF between now and June 30, 2010, will win...

(Stuff for first, second and third place.)

Details about the fund-raising contest are available at the URL1 listed above. I estimate that the above should be enough information for you to know if you really want to follow the link to make money for the EFF or not.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1

"Glitch diverts net traffic through Chinese ISP"

At the 2008 Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas, researchers demonstrated a BGP attack that allowed them to redirect traffic bound for the conference network to a system they controlled in New York. Also in 2008, large chunks of the internet lost access to YouTube when BGP tables inside Pakistan spread to other countries.

The above is only a partial quote of the story. Visit top link to read whole story.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Hackers Exploit Windows 7 in 2 Minutes (URL1)

...
Both hackers were awarded with the notebook they attacked, $10,000 in cash and a paid trip to the DefCon hackers conference in Las Vegas this summer.
...

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

An article in Spanish was posted on a website in Spain:

Original Article.

BabelFish attempts to translate it

Summary:
Story is primarily about http://www.rootedcon.es/ rooted-con and Defcon is mentioned as a convention previously attended by one of the people in the story.

[theprez98]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Its interesting to see how many people are able to find government jobs at these types of events. I wonder if the government will ever start using these as a normal means of advertising. I can see it now, a US Navy Recruitment Table by the front door.

Probably more than you think. My company (government contractor) was a sponsor at Black Hat, and did a good bit of recruiting at DEFCON.

[Angel x Jess]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Its interesting to see how many people are able to find government jobs at these types of events. I wonder if the government will ever start using these as a normal means of advertising. I can see it now, a US Navy Recruitment Table by the front door.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1: US Cybersecurity Chief Defends Use Of Hacking Talent

...
US news site NetworkWorld reported that the US Department of Defense's director of futures exploration Jim Christy claimed that he attended the Defcon hacking show as far back as 1999 and "several thousand federal employees" attended the event this year. The show describes itself as "one of the oldest continuous running hacker conventions around, and also one of the largest".

US Air Force Colonel Michael Convertino also claimed to have attended Defcon in 2009 and 2008 when he reportedly found "about 60 good candidates for both enlisted and civilian positions", according to NetworkWorld.

Both Black Hat and Defcon were set up by US hacker Jefff Moss who despite going by the moniker Dark Tangent - sits on the US Homeland Security Panel.
...

[eris]

Re: DEF CON in the news

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/biztech...kers.security/

[eris]

Re: DEF CON in the news

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=7994

video accompanies short article.

excerpt:

Shawn Moyer and Nathan Hamiel spent some time last year looking at this problem as it related specifically to social networks, but that left a lot of the territory unexplored. This time around they're talking about a previously unnoticed attack vector for lots and lots of web applications with user-generated content, and releasing a handy tool to exploit it. Bundled in are some thoughts on Web 2.0 attack surface, a few new exploitation techniques, and as in last year, a hefty helping of lulz, ridicule, and demos-of-shame at the expense of a few sites.

[Angel_Hacker]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Well I'm sure will be all right.