Def Con banned a social engineering star – now he’s suing | Hacker News Reader

Def Con banned a social engineering star – now he’s suing

theverge.com

13 pointsaestetix7 comments

Went to defcon for many, many years. Used to be on a first name basis with many of those who put the con on. To get banned from defcon is interesting but even 12-15 years ago they were having LGBQT+ conference events.

I don’t know what caused the band but my guess is it has something to do with sexual or other harassment of some type.

It used to be damn near impossible to get kicked out.

The only two times I saw them really care about anything was when they kicked out the female reporter.

The first year after it moved to the Riviera they got on staged and asked people to “kindly quit hacking the fire alarm system because as many of you are smoking here someone will die in a fire.”

The conference area was no smoking but plenty of people were smoking and drinking there as early as 7 or 8 in the morning.

Good times.

  > “Let’s be clear about what this lawsuit is about,” Miller tweeted. “It’s not about DEFCON or DarkTangent. This is about [Chris Hadnagy] trying to force the names and full details of his accusers into the public sphere so he can go after them, attack them, and try to discredit them.”

I cannot imagine how I could possibly disagree with any statement more than I disagree with this. The right to face one's accuser and cross-examine them is the bedrock on which all modern justice is built. Without that, anyone could be accused of anything and be punished with not a chance to point out any potential issues. I have no idea who these "Miller" and "Hadnagy" are, I have no idea who accused whom of what and what the truth of it all is, but I do know that we did not add the 6th amendment to the constitution just for the fun of it.

Cross-examination is not harassment. And if any harassment does transpire, we do have laws against that and courts to settle that in.

> The right to face one's accuser and cross-examine

Sorry, you don't have the "right" to attend a conference -- and as long as it's not based on things that are prohibited (sex, race etc) -- a conference can exclude you for any reason, or no reason at all.

Honestly, I only heard about this a while back because Hadnagy made a fuss about it. DefCon, on the other hand, hasn't said too much.

If the root of this was a criminal action, then you'd be right about facing accusers and cross examination. But this isn't that. You don't have constitutional rights to attend a conference.

> If the root of this was a criminal action, then you'd be right about facing accusers and cross examination.

Defamation is criminal in some places, and you have a right to cross examine accusers wrt civil infractions anyway. Maybe that bar doesn't get met in this case, but TFA was pretty clear that the alleged issues aren't just not attending a conference.

> right to cross examine accusers

Except no, you don't. Criminal cases involve losing your liberty or worse, so defendants have rights, including examining witnesses and evidence, and a high standard of proof. In civil cases, the penalty is usually monetary. There is discovery and depositions, but there are more limits on who might have to be deposed or testify. Also, importantly: Who are the accusers here? Hint: In the court case, it's the Plaintiff. My opinion here is the plaintiff is trying to frame it otherwise, but as I said earlier, as long as the conference didn't ban someone for illegal reasons, they can.

> pretty clear that the alleged issues aren't just not attending a conference.

IANAL, but I've read some lawyer reviews of the case, and it doesn't seem to be strong and might not go very far. Did he get all of his customers from just this conference? (If so, that seems to be a poor biz decision) But I don't think it helps the case that the Plaintiff has been trying to draw attention to the case, including accepting a "surprise" speaking engagement on cancel culture. If you are suing for lost business, I'm pretty sure you have to actively try to mitigate, and leaning in is the opposite of that.

I'd say that this is about the same as being de-platformed. You could argue that also hurts your reputation, but that's usually hard to do since you don't have a platform to state as much upon.

You can get banned from the current DEFCON for not wearing a face mask, both contrary to CDC guidance and hilariously ironic since it’s in Las Vegas in close contact with hundreds of thousands of unmasked people.

Between the virtue signaling COVID nonsense, the change to allow people to buy tickets with a credit card, and whatever this current drama is I’ve completely lost interest. I hope they find their way again, but I suspect it’ll turn into another corporate cash grab like Blackhat.

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