No Black Hat Without Drama
It seems the annual Black Hat and Def Con security conferences in Las Vegas just aren't complete without some kind of drama that reporters can sink their teeth into. However, the drama that plays out keep getting closer and closer to home for the journalist crowd.
Last year a TV reporter was expelled from Def Con for not being appropriately accredited and asking questions without identifying herself as press. The collective media jumped on the story of how their peer was cheating the Def Con rules and operating under cover in an attempt to do a story on hackers.
This year it was the reporters themselves who got hacked, by other reporters. According to the buzz around the Black Hat press room the sanctity of the local area network set up specifically for media was breached by a couple of French journalists who sniffed the network and were able to capture the apparent user credentials for reporters from eWeek and CNET.
"I feel personally violated," one of the reporters in question said later on Thursday night. This was after this year's Black Hat drama had unfolded to the extend of a press conference with lawyers from EFF and the ejection of the French journalists from the event two hours before it was to end.
I've attended many Black Hat and Def Con events over the years and have always distrusted the networks at the events. BYOI or BYOC is my philosophy (Bring Your Own Internet -- Bring Your Own Connectivity.)
I do feel for my former colleagues though. I've been hacked in the past and I am sure it will happen again and it isn't much fun when your data either disappears or gets put out in the open. The somewhat incestuous nature of the Black Hat dramas over the past two years is kind of odd though. What happened to the good old days of Michael Lynn and Cisco-gate?
Last year a TV reporter was expelled from Def Con for not being appropriately accredited and asking questions without identifying herself as press. The collective media jumped on the story of how their peer was cheating the Def Con rules and operating under cover in an attempt to do a story on hackers.
This year it was the reporters themselves who got hacked, by other reporters. According to the buzz around the Black Hat press room the sanctity of the local area network set up specifically for media was breached by a couple of French journalists who sniffed the network and were able to capture the apparent user credentials for reporters from eWeek and CNET.
"I feel personally violated," one of the reporters in question said later on Thursday night. This was after this year's Black Hat drama had unfolded to the extend of a press conference with lawyers from EFF and the ejection of the French journalists from the event two hours before it was to end.
I've attended many Black Hat and Def Con events over the years and have always distrusted the networks at the events. BYOI or BYOC is my philosophy (Bring Your Own Internet -- Bring Your Own Connectivity.)
I do feel for my former colleagues though. I've been hacked in the past and I am sure it will happen again and it isn't much fun when your data either disappears or gets put out in the open. The somewhat incestuous nature of the Black Hat dramas over the past two years is kind of odd though. What happened to the good old days of Michael Lynn and Cisco-gate?
posted by Joris Evers @ 7:22 AM
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