Bomb threat causes mass evacuation at DEF CON hacking convention | Hacker News Reader

Bomb threat causes mass evacuation at DEF CON hacking convention

theregister.com

147 pointsrntn46 comments

Having been there personally, there’s a lot of unknown. But here’s the core of what happened as I saw it and as I gained information from friends with internal con communications access. A package was identified as suspicious, likely by defcon staff and Caesar’s security was called to investigate. Caesar’s security decided it may have represented a threat and asked Defcon staff to evacuate the building. Goons began calmly notifying and clearing rooms pushing people to the west exits toward Linq and Harrahs. People grabbed their stuff and calmly walked out. Most people appeared to recognize that it was likely a false alarm. Nobody panicked. Several thousand people exited promptly and without incident. Bags were not searched on exit. This was not a ploy to search personal property without a warrant because almost everything got taken with the attendees who brought it. It is possible the bag/box/package had gunpowder/tannerite/rdx/etc residue on it from shooting activities either part of the Defcon shoot or other shooting activities unrelated to Defcon. It is unlikely that Defcon will release any additional detail past this: https://x.com/defcon/status/1690740778124115969?s=46&t=WtjuZ... A lot of people are teasing their friends about leaving their bags unattended and causing it. These are jokes and should not be taken seriously. I was startled at the professionalism shown by Caesar’s, Defcon staff, and attendees. Vetcon was cancelled midstream and the main stage party was cancelled as well. DJ gear was left behind for the evening. Much of the con moved to the Linq bar. Don’t make stupid assumptions about any of this.

They waited for the guy to finish his karaoke song to ask everyone to clear that room. It was a weird combination of "this is serious", "don't ask", and "don't want to bother you"

maybe they were enjoying the song?

I assume sarcasm. Audience definitely enjoying song.

There is some scuttle butt from some of the goon's I've been overhearing, It was a package with a planted scent/treat package that they use to train the bomb dogs. You can imagine what happened from there. I suspect it was a attendee playing a bad practical joke on DEF CON

There’s a lot of scuttlebutt aka rumor about the situation. There’s little value in idle speculation on this topic. There’s been no suggestion of this on the con internal staff channels that I can identify. Which makes me think it’s a BS suggestion.

Could we maybe clear up the title (even though the original article gets it wrong too)?

A threat about a bomb was never made by anyone. It was a suspicious package.

Here is the official statement: https://twitter.com/defcon/status/1690740778124115969

Allegedly owned by someone that attended the DEFCON Shoot event where gun powder was transferred to the package, tipping a dog doing a random search in the Forums.

Who alleged that?

Got a source? I was there and never heard that rumor.

That would be wild. Bomb dogs usually are not trained to hit on ammunition since every officer on a scene is carrying some. Gunpowder is also a low explosive (meaning it burns at subsonic speed) which sucks for making things go boom.

> Gunpowder is also a low explosive

Yes, but a lot of modern formulations are based around RDX chemistry or nitroguanidine, etc. So, a big portion of the "smell" is high explosive even if the overall formulation burns subsonic.

Did they identify the owner of the package?

Call me cynical, but I can easily imagine the scenario where the authorities themselves drop off a suspicious package as pretext to do a search, so they do not need to bother with that pesky problem of obtaining a warrant. Numerous agencies have been documented using this sort of dishonest and dubious tactics, so I do not think that possibility could be dismissed at the start.

At this point, I would trust some random unattended package more than I would trust the government to act with integrity. And that just makes me hang my head in deep sadness and shame for this country.

> Last night we were asked to evacuate the building due to a report of a suspicious package. Local police and fire departments conducted a thorough investigation and ultimately determined that the package was safe. They also conducted additional sweeps of the building as a precaution before allowing our team to return and prepare for today’s con.

I did wonder why they would "conduct additional sweeps" if it was determined that the package was safe. What are the usual precautions that police and fire take for conference venues in which no dangerous packages have been found?

While unlikely, it's not outlandish to think there could be a decoy package

Could have just been someone going around with a bomb sniffing dog while they were assessing the package. I'm guessing they weren't searching everyone's hotel rooms afterwards...

As I mentioned above, the additional sweeps should really be considered in the context of the previous Vegas shooting. The venue and police have every reason to be cautious.

Well that's what I was wondering about. Do police and fire there conduct sweeps of buildings preparing for large conferences as a routine matter? If so then fine, it just didn't exactly sound like it from that statement.

shoot we forgot to do the security sweep, better send the suspicious package!

CYA and keeping up security theater

If package had explosive residue but was not a bomb, then:

1) package is safe, AND

2) either: a) package had residue for harmless reasons, OR b) package was used to transport bomb.

conducting additional sweeps rules out case b.

> Numerous agencies have been documented using this sort of dishonest and dubious tactics, so I do not think that possibility could be dismissed at the start.

The wording of this is similar to conspiracy theorists that spout off lots of theories with little to no evidence or logic.

1. Is there any evidence that the "local police and fire department" were searching anything that would normally require a warrant, besides the suspicious package? Surely Caesers would give a good amount of access without the charade if the police said they suspected something, and be able to do the search in a quieter way (which would mean it's less likely to tip off anyone who they'd be looking for).

2. Is there evidence of agencies (in this case, local Las Vegas FD and PD) planting fake bombs in the past to avoid getting a warrant?

You should need a lot more evidence to think that it was planted by police. So many more scenarios are more likely.

Same goes for a bomb though... it's Vegas, far more likely the owner of the bag was drunk, stoned and or otherwise distracted and forgot it than it being a bomb.

After the shooting at the country music event in Vegas, there is absolutely no doubt that every venue there takes every suspicion very seriously. The fact that they did multiple sweeps etc is not remotely suspicious. It just indicates that they are worried about missing a bomb and then it later going off.

I suspect this event have loomed larger in Vegas security staff minds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey%27s_Resort_Hotel_bombin...

That’s fair, but I mostly bring up the more recent shooting because of the court cases regarding the venues missing clues and attempts to hold them liable

not aware of them identifying the owner but the "authorities" on site were caesar's security and they did the sweeps w dogs. i don't see caesar's clearing out their own venue during a convention because they "wanted to do a search". it was also during party hours when there are far fewer people and bags.

It would be trivial for the agent planting the package to then report it to the venue in order to precipitate the authorities being called.

I'm not claiming that this is what happened, but it's too easy to imagine this scenario being part of some three letter agency's playbook.

why are you assuming cops / government?

it's def con, you don't bring a cell without doing all of the most recent security updates cuz someone there may get into it. plenty of pranker, hacker, cracker types there, and not crazy to think they could get up to mischief with a bomb scare too.

> the most recent security updates

Someone isn't worried about the issues being newly revealed at DEFCON or zero-days

The 2009 fake atm [1] was at least creative.

This just seems pointless.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2009/08/03/defcon-participants-fooled...

Was there for this. K9 teams swept the forum and they closed the parties down early (around 11pm).

Rumor was someone had a panic attack and in their state reported a package as “suspicious” forcing the venue to take proper precautions.

We pretty much all laughed about it because literally everything at defcon is suspicious.

It's probably pretty typical for "The Register" but the caption, "Gravy SEALs maybe, but they made a swatting call impossible" on the picture seems inappropriate for a journalism post.

Looking at the photo, it seems an appropriate use of that meme, and The Register's schtick has long been disregarding journalistic appropriateness (as a matter of fact, they are way tamer these days than they used to be)

>The Register's schtick has long been disregarding journalistic appropriateness

AFAIK, they're writing in the style of UK "red-top" tabloids. It's a decent gimmick.

I wonder if they ever considered adding glamour model photos on whatever counts as page 3.

Apparently the con-goers were calling them gravy seals.

it seems appropriate for heavily armed and armored mall-cops (i.e., normal private citizens with no police powers) cosplaying in gravy-colored military gear

I always assumed that "US Gravy Seals" was a shot at the BMI of the people engaged in the activity rather than at the color of their uniforms.

"US Gravy Seals, Meal Team Six" (not in this article, but elsewhere on the 'net) suggests the same.

it's more a function of them thinking that they are special forces while being anything but, almost a stolen valor thing

if they just wore a normal uniform like any other normal private store employee, you'd never hear the term applied to them, regardless of weight

the fact that they chose gravy color for their cosplay is just icing on the cake :)

Under the caption, the paragraph mentions they were being nicknamed that by attendees. It's not The Register being funny. (Well, they didn't start it anyway.)

I guess, their defcon was elevated.

Summer Camp is over and what has been done? Have aspirations shriveled in the Sun?

Ref (1983, NSFW). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsdhq1czay0

real hackers were having fun ?

That's a Denial of Service.

Sounds like it was distributed as well

Good lesson to be learned here about the impact of working around the edges vs. addressing your adversaries head on

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