DEF CON in the news

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1

Smartphone security follies: A brief history

...
August 2006: Researcher creates first-ever BlackBerry Trojan

RIM made its name by developing well-engineered mobile devices that could securely deliver corporate email by routing it through the company's own network operations center. In 2006, however, security researcher Jesse D'Aguanno began poking holes in RIM's Teflon by creating the world's first piece of Trojan malware for BlackBerry devices. Demonstrating his creation at the Defcon hacker conference, D'Aguanno showed how he embedded the malware into a harmless-looking tic-tac-toe game download. Once the game was downloaded onto the device, the malware worked with a separate piece of code, called BBProxy, to launch attacks on enterprise networks.

D'Aguanno said he created the Trojan to serve as a heads-up to both RIM and BlackBerry users that they should be more alert to the potential dangers that lurk for mobile devices. Over the past five years, events have proven D'Aguanno's concerns to be accurate.
...

There is more to the story. This was just one article in the mix of stories that are part of the topic or title of this article.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

In this article, Wall of Sheep gets a shout-out as well as Defcon:

URL1

How safe is your net connection?
Author: Paul Wallbank on 19 April 2011

...
Poor security isn't just a feature of unprepared computer users, every year the world's leading hackers and security experts gather at the Las Vegas DEFCON conference which since 2001 has featured the Wall of Sheep, an embarrassing display of user information captured off the convention's network.
...

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

News Media Fail:

URL1: Feds versus the hacker underground: army of informers turned by fear

The Defcon 2007 hacker conference at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, seen through the Black Hat logo of computer security hackers. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP

So, Defcon 2007 was at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas behind a BlackHat logo? I guess I learn something new every day. How can I unlearn this? :-)

[ This article, on the heels of the other article on slashdot:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/06/0...ICIA-Informers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...s-fbi-informer ]

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1: "DEF CON 19 Getaway Contest Update!"

We're pleased to report a great response to our second annual DEF CON Getaway Contest! Now at the halfway point, thirty-one participants have raised over $2,500 so far!

Who will win the mind-numbingly good Grand Prize Package including a standard suite at the Rio Hotel and Casino, two DEF CON 19 Human badges, two tickets to Vegas 2.0's (in)famous kickoff party theSummit, two badges for the ultra-exclusive Ninja Networks Party, AND an EFF Swag Super Pack? With just weeks left, it's all up to you!

...

See the article for more details.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Using Google Translate Swedish to English and intelligent clean-up:

URL1: Bumping at Defcon in Las Vegas: Title: "The Last Word At Def Con in Las Vegas: people recently demonstrated lock by-pass skills up until recently, secret to locksmiths, police and criminals," wrote Oscar Swartz.

On youtube I [?found/put?] more advanced video content from the Def Con hacker convention in Las Vegas where a secret known for a long time by locksmiths, cops and criminals was demonstrated: a standard cylinder can be "bumped" using a specially designed "bump-key" and a hammer.
...

URL1 linked through translate.google.com

[HighWiz]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Haven't seen either of these posted yet:



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_872814.html

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/37681/

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Defcon mentioned in URL1 as well as the Social Engineering contest:

Pragmatic insecurity: How staff, ID cards render infosec defunct
By Darren Pauli on Jul 20, 2011 3:07 PM
Filed under Networks
...
Wayne is obsessed with this practical social engineering approach to security.
...

In competition, Wayne bested dozens of skilled hackers from around the world and tied in a Defcon social engineering competition, where he convinced a staffer at one of the world’s largest beverage companies to hand over information about its anti-virus, gateways, document disposal process, and even where it orders its food.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Apple patches iOS interception flaw:
By SC Staff on Jul 26, 2011 11:59 AM

Apple has patched a vulnerability in the way its latest operating system handled X.509 certificates that could allow for data interception.
...

Kehrer and Percoco will present their findings at the Defcon conference in Las vegas.

The vulnerability is just one of several holes that Apple has patched in the lead up to the Defcon and BlackHat conferences which begin next week.
...

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

15 Members of Trustwave's SpiderLabs Selected to Present at DEF CON
(Cyber Security Experts Talk About Mobile Security, Disaster Preparedness and Unlikeliest Attacks Ever Seen)
July 26, 2011 12:36 ET
CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwire - Jul 26, 2011)

Trustwave [chop] announced that fifteen cyber security experts will deliver talks, training sessions and a kids demonstration at DEF CON 19, the world's largest hacker gathering, in Las Vegas, August 4 through 7. The presentations will be delivered by members of Trustwave's SpiderLabs ...
...
For a second year, Nicholas J. Percoco, [chop] will present [chop]. After a successful talk on the implication of malware and rootkits on mobile devices during DEF CON 18, this year's presentation will look at potential flaws in the Android OS.
...
(Robert J. McCullen, chairman, CEO and president of Trustwave) : "Additionally, we're honored that two of our speakers have been asked to run newly created training sessions at DEF CON, which we feel is an important step towards further educating the public about cyber security."
...
David Bryan and Luiz Eduardo, along with other panelists, will present Building the DEF CON Network, Making a Sandbox for 10,000 Hackers, which will cover how the DEF CON network team builds a network from scratch, in three days with very little budget, to support several thousand users concurrently.
...
... DEF CON workshops [chop] Rob Havelt and Steve Ocepek, [chop] will deliver MITM: [chop] a workshop covering how man-in-the-middle attacks can be useful for everything from snooping to session takeover. [chop] ... it is the first year that DEF CON is implementing such training sessions.
...
Trustwave is also excited to participate in the first annual DEF CON Kids...

Excerpts with mention of DEF CON included. The excessive [chop]s and "..." were designed to reduce the content and provide a summary. If you want to original, wollow the link.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

This first one is pretty much written for a, "security professional," with emphasis on, "how these conventions can help your career":
URL1=Black Hat, DefCon and B-Sides survival guide, 2011
by CSO, Salted Hash – IT security news analysis, over easy!

Wed, 2011-07-27 10:20
Topic(s): Data Protection

I'm sad to say it, but I won't be going to Las Vegas next week for Black Hat, DefCon or B-Sides.
...
* Don't let the noise get to you
...
* Make time for B-Sides
...
* It's more about the networking, anyway
...
* Too much drink in public can hurt your career
...

Three better sources for MOST attendees (in my opinion) are:
* The Official Defcon FAQ
* The Unofficial Defcon FAQ (Assembled by HighWiz with contributions from many people.)
* DC101 (site) and [forum=540]DC101 (forum)[/forum] which is run by HighWiz as a Thursday Event. (See the schedule.)


Our next installment is a story about HB Gary Federal and the pull-out/back-out of CEO Aaron Barr:
URL2=Former HBGary Federal CEO bows out of DEFCON talk
by Angela Moscaritolo
July 27, 2011

Former HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr has backed out of a scheduled appearance at next weekend's DEFCON hacker conference after attorneys from his former company threatened legal action.
...
Barr was scheduled to participate in a presentation, titled “‘Whoever Fights Monsters...' Aaron Barr, Anonymous, and Ourselves," alongside Joshua Corman, research director at consultancy The 451 Group, and "Jericho" of Attrition.org.
...
DEFCON was to be the first time Barr has spoken publicly since Anonymous in February hacked into an HBGary Federal web server and used that foothold to crack into sister firm HBGary's email server to post tens of thousands of its emails online, the content of which revealed that HBGary Federal was engaged in shady, potentially illegal, activities.
...

Many more details and content can be found by visiting the original article.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

Anyone that wants to post links to stories here is allowed to do so. Replies in this forum should work for all non-lurking registered users, but starting new threads in this "General Announcements" forums is restricted.

More news about Defcon that nobody has linked to:

URL1: "US gov’t building hacker army for cyber war", Andrew Couts, August 2, 2011

...
To find new recruits, representatives from the NSA, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and NASA, will be attending the annual DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas, which takes place this weekend.

Started in 1993 by hacker Jeff Moss (aka Dark Tangent), DEF CON is the preeminent meet-up for US hackers. The four-day conference costs $150 — in cash only — to attend. There is no registration, no credit cards allowed, which keeps everything anonymous. About 10,000 computer savvy individuals are expected to attend this year’s conference.

...(Sources who attended last year’s DEF CON tell us that members of the US nation security complex were also in attendance then, as well, with similar recruiting goals.)
...
...
Still, some hackers have crossed over to the other side. In fact, DEF CON founder Moss is himself now a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council.

URL2: "NSA is looking for a few good hackers", Tabassum Zakaria, August 2, 2011

...an alphabet soup of federal agencies — DOD, DHS, NASA, NSA — are descending on Las Vegas this week for Defcon, an annual hacker convention where the $150 entrance fee is cash only — no registration, no credit cards, no names taken. Attendance is expected to top 10,000.
...
...at Defcon, the NSA and other “Feds” will be competing with corporations looking for hacking talent.
...
Jeff Moss, a hacker known as Dark Tangent, knows something about bridging the two worlds. He founded Defcon and the companion Black Hat conference for security professionals and is now a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council, which advises the government on cybersecurity.

“They need people with the hacker skill set, hacker mind-set. It’s not like you go to a hacker university and get blessed with a badge that says you’re a hacker. It’s a self-appointed label — you think like one or you don’t,” Moss told Reuters.

Other stories on this same topic of feds recruiting at Defcon:
* CNN: "Department of Defense tries to court hackers": John D. Sutter, CNN
August 4, 2011 5:24 p.m. EDT
* Wanted - hacker expertise Sue Gee, Friday, 05 August 2011 00:00
* NSA hiring recruits for cyber Cold War David Gomez , August 16, 2011 - 12:30
* It’s official: Hacking has been gamified , Brian D. Fung , 06:00 AM ET, 08/31/2011

URL3: "An Open Letter to Defcon Hackers: Don’t Sell Out to the NSA", By DJ Pangburn Thursday, August 04, 2011

Dear Hackers,

Word on the internet is that the National Security Agency (NSA)—of which I’m sure you’re well aware—has very publicly stated it’s setting up shop at Defcon alongside corporations to recruit hackers to the dark side.
...

URL4: by CSO, Salted Hash, Thu, 2011-08-04 19:47

An open letter to the hacking community is making the rounds, urging the Defcon crowd not to go work for the NSA. I disagree.
...
If the NSA people at Defcon are there to pull you into a do-nothing job or, worse, a job that does indeed threaten the liberties of innocent Americans, you'll be in a pretty good whistle-blowing position.

URL5 "Black Hat 2011 notebook" , Dan Kaplan , August 04, 2011

Conspiracy theories are running rampant after Riley Hassell and Shane Macaulay, two researchers with Privateer Labs, didn't show up for their planned (and highly anticipated) 10 a.m.Thursday talk at Black Hat: "Hacking Androids for Profit."
...
... Nico Sell did say the pulled presentation was not related to any legal threat, as has been the case before.

"It happens," she said of the talks when the speakers simply fail to show. "DEFCON (Black Hat's sister show), more."
...
With Black Hat winding down, attention now turns to the less formal, even more unpredictable, DEFCON event, held for the first time this year at the Rio hotel.

SCMagazineUS.com reported on Monday that the National Security Agency will be on hand to recruit hackers at the $150-cash-only event.

But there's at least one person who argues that attendees should stay far away from the men in suits.

DEFCON is known for allowing attendees to remain anonymous at the show. Event registrants don't even ask for a name.

URL6: "Click Here
Viruses: Destroying your systems for 25 years", Seth Rosenblatt August 5, 2011 1:24 PM PDT

LAS VEGAS--The hacker conference DefCon kicked off this morning with the rare public sighting of a now-archaic piece of technology: the 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. Mikko Hypponen, the chief technical officer for the Finnish security company F-Secure, waved the disk above his head to start off his history of PC viruses, and said, "This is Brain."
...

URL7 "Want to plan a cyber war? Ask Bruce Willis", Dean Takahashi, August 5, 2011

If you want to plan a cyber war, look no further than the Bruce Willis movie, Live Free or Die Hard. That may sound fishy, but that is what a former government cyber war expert told the Defcon security conference today in Las Vegas.
...

Mostly about BlackHat. I pulled the only reference to Defcon in the quote.
URL8 (Has ad-system, requires Javascript) "Black Hat Organizer Touts Value of Publicizing Cyber-Security Research", Fahmida Y. Rashid
2011-08-05

[BlackHat]; Launched as a vendor-neutral alternative to industry security conferences 15 years ago, Black Hat attracted more than 8,000 researchers and security professionals, according to organizers. The more technical and edgy DEFCon follows a week of Black Hat training sessions and briefings. DEFCon begins Aug. 5.

URL9 (google-hosted article)Insulin pump hack exposes medical device danger, (AFP) – Aug 5, 2011

Jerome "Jay" Radcliffe's demonstration at DefCon in Las Vegas will spotlight a critical need to build software defense into pace makers, insulin pumps and other medical gadgets getting "smarter" with computer chips.
...
Radcliffe didn't disclose his insulin pump model nor did he outline critical details of the hack to allow time for the maker to address the situation and to avoid tempting DefCon attendees known for software mischief.
...
Radcliffe was wearing his insulin pump at DefCon on Friday and urged diabetics not to panic.
...

More articles on this:
* Vulnerable Insulin Pumps Demostrate Pervasive Risks joltsik , Wed, 08/10/11 - 1:43pm.
* Insulin pump hacker gets federal attention as Reps ask for GAO investigation MassDevice staff , August 18, 2011
* Congress: How’s FCC doing on mobile health oversight? Brian Dolan , Aug 18, 2011
* Medical Device Security Under Fire At Black Hat, DefCon John H. Sawyer , Aug 18, 2011 , 05:05 PM
* Researcher battles insulin pump maker over security flaw Elinor Mills , August 26, 2011 2:42 PM PDT
* Smartphones And Tablets Targets For Getting 'Juiced' John H. Sawyer , Aug 29, 2011 , 11:42 AM
*

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1 "Facebook Offers Cash To 'Bug Bounty Hunters' At DefCon Hacker Conference" ,Gerry Smith, First Posted: 8/6/11 12:42 PM ET Updated: 8/8/11 10:03 AM ET

LAS VEGAS -- At the DefCon hacker conference this weekend in Las Vegas, a team from Facebook has been making the rounds and delivering an unusual message: Please hack us. We'll pay you for it.
...
Sullivan said DefCon is fertile recruiting ground for Facebook because the company is looking to hire people who live and breathe security.
...

Related:
* Who missed Facebook's bounty party? Sean Martin , August 12, 2011


URL2 "Picking Locks and Hacking Servers at Defcon", Somini Sengupta, August 6, 2011, 6:27 pm
Also mentioned with little detail:
* Tamper Evident Contest
* Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest
* MohawkCon
* Vendors
CTF, and LP Village had enough details to get posts in their respective forums on this article.

...
Contests are a big deal at Defcon, the somewhat circuslike hacker convention that takes place every year amid the circus of Las Vegas.
...
To win at Defcon is to earn the respect of the tribe. It’s refreshing: conventional power and money take a back seat to skill and tenacity. ...
...
Defcon wouldn’t be Defcon without a degree of public humiliation. ...

Articles about LulzSec, AntiSec, etc. at Defcon
* Defcon panel: Anonymous is here. LulzSec is here. They’re everywhere Dean Takahashi, August 6, 2011
* Is LulzSec's Leader at DefCon? Damon Poeter, August 5, 2011 10:37pm EST
* AntiSec hackers post stolen police data as revenge for arrests Elinor Mills, August 6, 2011 9:38 AM PDT
* Researchers: Anonymous and LulzSec Need to Focus their Chaos Kim Zetter, August 6, 2011, 10:44 pm
* Defcon: The lesson of Anonymous? Corporate security sucks Tim Greene, August 08, 2011 10:08 AM ET
* Antisec hacker checks in at Defcon Dave Neal, Mon Aug 08 2011, 09:25
* Security rundown for week ending Aug. 12 Ellen Messmer , August 12, 2011 02:49 PM ET


URL3 "DIY aerial drone monitors Wi-Fi, GSM networks: Passwords cracked on the fly" , Dan Goodin, 5th August 2011 22:54 GMT

Defcon Hobbyist hackers have built a DIY flying spy drone that's capable of intercepting communications over remote Wi-Fi and cellular networks and beaming them to snoops located half a world away.
...
“Our goal was to take all these things, Black Hat and Defcon's greatest hits, and to put them in a target remotely from a long way away and offer it to a distributed user base,” Mike Tassey, one of the creators of WASP, said at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas on Friday....
...

More on the drone and a grenade-launcher style camera:
* Do-It-Yourself Hacker Drone Highlight of Hacker Conference James Lee Phillips , August 7, 2011 8:19 AM EDT
* U.S. Agents, an Aerial Snoop and Teams of Hackers Somini Sengupta, August 7, 2011
* How to build a spy drone-launching flare gun in your basement Evan Ackerman, 12:07PM on Aug 9, 2011
* Now, a home-made drone that can launch airborne cyber attacks ANI, Las Vegas (US) , Tue, 09 Aug 2011
* Garage-built DIY drone plane can cause serious damage worldwide Erick Hansen , August 10th, 2011

Grenade-launcher fired camera:
* Build Your Own Camera, Launch It Like a Grenade Robert McMillan, IDG News, Aug 7, 2011
* The Firefly is a military-grade grenade launcher that shoots a wireless camera Julius Motal , Aug. 8, 2011 (1:06 pm)
* Now that’s what I call a point-and-shoot camera (Author? ? ?), Aug 9, 2011
* Military-inspired camera launcher offers better look at surroundings Edwin Kee 08/10/2011 08:07 PDT



URL4 "Android App Turns Smartphones Into Mobile Hacking Machines", Andy Greenberg, 8/05/2011 @ 7:05PM

... app called Anti, or Android Network Toolkit, hits the Android market next week. The program, which Israeli security firm Zimperium revealed at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas Friday and plans to make available to Android users in coming days....
...

More stories on this:
* Killer Android app allows the clueless to hack, pwn like a pen tester Darlene Storm, August 8, 2011 - 10:54 A.M.
* Android Has A Flaw Allowing For Phishing And Pop-ups [DefCon Shares A Vulnerability With An Android Core Design Feature] Tim Lenahan, 8 August, 2011 at 10:47 am
* Android Based Hacking Toolkit ‘Anti’ Unveiled at Defcon Radu Tyrsina, 09 August, 2011
* Soon-to-be-free Android app puts hacking in hands of anyone Phil Hornshaw , August 9, 2011 1:17pm
* Free Android app to allow hacking for dummies Robert Leedham , the 9th August 2011
*
Student's Android app could hijack computers Matt Liebowitz , Aug 12, 2011


URL5 "Photos show the cultural difference between Black Hat and Defcon hacker events" August 7, 2011, Dean Takahashi

...
Defcon (named after the old code for nuclear war, or defense condition) is now in its 19th year. It was started in 1993 by Jeff Moss, a hacker also known as Dark Tangent. Defcon began as a party for a visiting Canadian hacker. Now it has become the big hacker event of the year with more than 10,000 attendees. The Defcon conference is anything but corporate. For many years, it was at the downscale Riviera Hotel; this year it moved upscale to the larger Rio Hotel. Defcon is more tolerant of alternative views, such as open support for Anonymous...
...
... you’ll see more suits at Black Hat and more T-shirts at Defcon ...
...
... You can pay corporate rates at Black Hat, but at Defcon, they don’t accept credit cards, since hackers do not want to be identified. You have to pay in cash, and attendees are identified as “human,” “goons,” (for staff) and “press.” (Yes, evidently press are not human). There are no names on Defcon badges, which are typically a product of the hacker imagination. I’m killing myself because I forgot to take a picture of the fake automated teller machine at Defcon. ...
...
... At Defcon, people heckle the speakers and drink beer in the middle of comic presentations. ... A few years ago, a CNBC reporter tried to sneak into Defcon to shoot undercover film of hackers — a big no-no at Defcon if you don’t ask permission of those you’re taking images of first. ...
...
Jeff “Dark Tangent” Moss founded both Black Hat and Defcon. He is now vice president and chief security officer at ICANN, the international body that sets the rules for the internet.
...
[Many images in this article compare and contrast Defcon to BlackHat. See the article for more.]

URL6 "DefCon Dings Reveal Google Product Security Risks" , By Jack Loftus, Aug 7, 2011 3:00 PM

...
... the Android flaw was revealed by researchers Sean Schulte, SSL developer at Trustwave, and Nicholas Percoco, senior vice president of SpiderLabs at Trustwave.
...
... security experts at DefCon argue mobile exploits are a much more viable target for hackers because the OS is more similar to mobile devices and apps.
...
I suppose it's ultimately a good thing we're reading about this at DefCon and not as a breaking news investigative report in the WSJ. [CNET, ]

More articles on this:
* Android could allow mobile ad or phishing pop-ups Elinor Mills August 6, 2011 8:01 PM PDT

URL7 "10-year-old hacker finds zero-day flaw in games" , By: Seth Rosenblatt , August 7, 2011 4:00 AM PDT

LAS VEGAS--A 10-year-old hacker who goes by the pseudonym CyFi revealed today at DefCon 19 a zero-day exploit in games on iOS and Android devices that independent researchers have confirmed as a new class of vulnerability. ...
...
CyFi's mother, who must remain anonymous to protect her daughter's identity, told CNET that at the end of CyFi's presentation at DefCon Kids they would offer a $100 reward to the young hacker who found the most games with this exploit over the following 24 hours....
...

Links to more stories about this topic:
*

URL8 "DEF CON Hacker Event in Las Vegas: Informing and Terrifying" , Gig Veres , August 07, 2011 10:50 AM EDT

The DEF CON hacker event in Las Vegas is said to be the most dangerous place in the world to use a computer. The four-day event at the Rio is a cash only convention where people can go to learn computer hacking, lock picking, and security breaching.
[the rest of this article is a few more paragraphs with general comments about different aspects, including contests or events]

URL9 "Def Con 19: Battery hacker says Apple security lapse helped him" , Jeffrey Fox , Aug 7, 2011 2:30 PM

The security expert who made waves last week when he announced that he had hacked into a Macintosh laptop battery explained on Saturday how an oversight by Apple played a key role in his achievement.
...

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL1 "Defcon: The security penetration testing quagmire" , Tim Greene, August 08, 2011 09:09 AM ET

LAS VEGAS -- The relationship between CISOs and security penetration testers is anything but clear-cut and raises ethical issues for both parties, a Defcon crowd heard from a former CISO.

Whether penetration testers should come in looking for the place where they can spectacularly break into the network or instead assess it clinically and point out potential vulnerabilities is the big decision CISOs have to make, says a CISO-turned penetration tester identified only as Shrdlu.
...

URL2 "Hackers take aim at prison locks and other real-world targets" , John D. Sutter, CNN, August 9, 2011 6:36 a.m. EDT
(Mostly about BlackHat)

No one knows for sure who wrote that worm [Stuxnet], and its powers were never put to use. But the code is out there, and security researchers and hackers are jumping at the chance to study that code and figure out what else it -- or something like it -- could do.

The examples surfacing at Black Hat and DEF CON, a companion hacker conference attended by 15,000 people, sound like they're pulled from a Hollywood thriller.

URL3 "Black Hat 2011: Looking Back", Neil J. Rubenking, August 8, 2011 08:03pm EST

The most hard-core hacking sessions generally occur at Defcon, but Black Hat did have its own share of sessions demonstrating hacks. ...
...
As the briefings wound down, many attendees made ready to head for Defcon with their kids. That's right; this year's conference introduced a Defcon Kids track. One ten-year-old Girl Scout wowed her audience with an exploit to speed up the action in farming games. Tweets from hacktivists LulzSec and th3j35t3r suggested both were present ad Defcon, though this wasn't confirmed. I spotted Barack Obama in the hall (at least that's what his Black Hat badge said). Those attending Defcon value their privacy so much that Defcon badges (image here ) don't include names.

URL4 "Vegas To Host Next U.S. Cyber Challenge 'NetWars'" , Aug 16, 2011 , 02:25 PM

The SANS NetWars contest -- part of the U.S. Cyber Challenge program -- will be held as part of the SANS Network Security 2011 conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The contest is for both new and seasoned hackers.

Capture-the-flag (CTF) type hacking contests are nothing new in cybersecurity. What makes NetWars different than say, DefCon's CTF, is that it's aimed at all levels of hacking skills and all competitors have to begin at level one of the contest, says Ed Skoudis, director of NetWars for SANS. The more advanced players can then quickly advance to higher levels -- up to level four, then five, where the participant gets access to a system at the root level, he says. "Level five is for people who really know their stuff. There's castle-on-castle combat," Skoudis says.

"DefCon is a big-team CTF focused on binary analysis and exploit development. That's cool and a fantastic skill," Skoudis says. "That's not what NetWars is focused on. Ours includes this, too, but it's multilevel and multidisciplinary."
...

URL5 "You Make a Difference" , Aaron Jue , August 17th, 2011

The Electronic Frontier Foundation would like to thank all of the attendees at this year's Black Hat USA, Security BSidesLV, and DEF CON conferences in Las Vegas. We are humbled by the infosec community's outpouring of generosity to sustain EFF's work defending coders rights and upholding our freedoms online.

With the help of our donors and creative community efforts, we were able to raise over $85,000 for protection of online rights!
...

URL6 "Free tool for testing net neutrality" , 1 September 2011, 17:15

IT security specialist Dan Kaminsky has announced N00ter, a tool for identifying artificial brakes on data traffic implemented by ISPs. Kaminsky first described N00ter at the Black Hat and DefCon security conferences in Las Vegas. He intends to make it available to download free of charge within the next few weeks. ...
...

About presentations:
* Defcon: VoIP makes a good platform for controlling botnets Tim Greene , August 9, 2011 06:32 PM ET
* Mobiles become emergency data network (Author? ? ?) , 9 August 2011 Last updated at 06:46 ET
* Hackers Demo Attack on Home Automation Systems eSecurityPlanet Staff , August 08, 2011
* Powerline-based home networks susceptible to hackers, say researchers at Defcon Sean Buckley , August 10, 2011 — 7:44am ET
* Mobile Software Helps Build Emergency Data Network Margaret Rock , Wed Aug 10, 2011 1:47 pm
* Old hacking tricks work too easily in attacks on HTML5, security expert says Dean Takahashi , August 11, 2011
* Remote Workers: An Easy Target for APTs joltsik , Thu, 08/11/11 - 11:22am.
* Life-Saving Mobile App Unveiled (Author ? ? ?) , Aug 11, 2011
* 5 Black Hat Attack Vulnerabilities & Defensive Strategies Kristine Schachinger , August 11, 2011
* Free web service cracks internet kiosks (Author ? ? ?) , 11 August 2011, 10:39
* 10 Scariest Hacks Tim Greene . Aug 12, 2011
* Hacked Out Of Jail [DefCon Hackers Find Security Flaw In Prisons' Computer Systems That Could Lead To Inmates' Escape] Mariella Moon, 12 August, 2011 at 3:16 am
* DEFCON 2011: SSL and the future of authenticity Chester Wisniewski , August 16, 2011

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL: High-Tech Bridge is a Speaker and Gold Sponsor at Hashdays 2011 by DEFCON Switzerland

a leading Swiss information security and ethical hacking company, invites security specialists, researchers and IT managers to join the hashdays 2011 conference, dedicated to cyber security and risks, organized by DEFCON Switzerland.

Defcon Switzerland?

Is that the name of a Defcon group in Switzerland?

[HighWiz]

Re: DEF CON in the news

URL: High-Tech Bridge is a Speaker and Gold Sponsor at Hashdays 2011 by DEFCON Switzerland



Defcon Switzerland?

Is that the name of a Defcon group in Switzerland?

Here's what Google said:

https://www.defcon-switzerland.org/cms/