Photo credit: Janet Donovan
Looking for something unusual to do this summer? You may want try DEF CON.
It may sound like a comic strip convention, but DEF CON is definitely anything but: It’s serious business and not to be confused with Comic Con, the annual convention in San Diego that celebrates the contribution of comics to art and culture. They both are, however, on the calendars of many Washingtonians.
DEF CON is one of the world’s largest annual hacker conventions, held in Las Vegas, Nevada since 1993 that will once again play host to cyber security professionals, researchers, journalists, government employees and – well – hackers. As new revelations surfaced over the weekend concerning more inappropriate NSA spying, we’re thinking it might serve lawmakers well to put DEF CON on their calendars. It’s always good to deal from knowledge. You might well run into NYTimes best-selling author David Ignatius there who recounted his 2012 DEF CON experience while researching his latest novel – The Director.
David Ignatius
At a recent Q and A hosted by The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons, Ignatius related his adventures.
“David,” suggested Clemons, “some of those vivid passages in your book are about the next generation of intel officers who are tattooed and pierced and wearing Goth……..it seems they really made an impression on you.”
“Well, one of the first things I did when I was researching this book in 2012,” responded Ignatius, “was to go to the big hacker convention. Yes, hackers have conventions and in Las Vegas of all places. It’s called DEF CON and this was DEF CON 20. I met some fairly strange people, super smart. They had something scrolling [by you] when you walked in. They call it the Wall of Sheep which is scrolling in real time all of the usernames and passwords that have been cracked in that moment by their software showing how they get into people’s computers – like pow – and you realize how vulnerable you are.”
David Ignatius, Valerie Plame and Steve Clemons
“Did you see your name?” joked Clemons.
“I had been told before I went, don’t bring any computers. Don’t bring your cell phones. Don’t bring anything. As soon as you come in, a false Wi-Fi network is going to come up and try to capture you. These have been recruiting grounds for intelligence agencies for a long time. If you were to go out to Fort Meade, go out to NSA tomorrow or six months ago or a year ago as I did researching the book, you’d see something pretty interesting. Fort Meade is a military base. You’ll see a lot of military officers in uniform, but you’d also see a lot of people with super long hair and black t-shirts like you see at DEF CON and that’s because they’ve been recruited.”
“DEF CON is going on this summer if you want,” he suggested.
Interested? Unplug your tech stuff and head on over. Reservations here.
