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Comment by codyb | Hacker News Reader

Will this actually affect the feds ability to attend or will they just attend in plain clothes? Or will they be able to attend as feds and just be looked down upon?

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It basically means that spot the fed will be more eventful this year.

Literally, with like paintball guns or some other form of humiliation.

Wouldn't that be assaulting a federal agent?

If they're off duty and in plain clothes shouldn't it be a civilian assault? Although, since the intent is to paint a federal agent I suppose you'd have a case.

or just assault?

Assault would be threatening them with a paintballing. Battery is when the paintball hits their trachea.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_ass...

just alert everyone that they will be engaging in a paintball event; and they consent to the assault.

I am pretty sure it doesn't work that way. :)

Maybe if everyone signs a consent form at registration.

There is no registration at defcon, it's all anonymous. You hand them cash for a badge and a packet of info/stickers/cd and are on your way.

When you go to a paintball field, is there a complicated registration process, or is it just understood that paintball is played at this particular place? Whatever legal maneuvers the paintball field's management has to do, DefCon could do.

(I suspect the main objections to indoor paintball will come from the venue. Perhaps a less messy, but still humiliating, method can be used?)

This is an absurd proposal, but given that the Rio won't let people running pubs in this years call for parties attach stuff to the walls (Can't find the link offhand, but it was in the submission info), I think it's safe to assume that paint guns inside wouldn't happen.

That said, that's the least important reason, the more important one being that you can't just nail people with any kind of gun at an infosec conference, no matter how unconf it is.

And FYI, about 100 different people will have your credit card information if you use the hotel ATM to get your cash.

There is nothing to mark them as feds, payments are in cash and everyone is in plain clothes. I think this will make very little difference to who attends.

It is also worth mentioning that Black Hat (the two days preceding DEF CON) has reportedly seen a drop in registrations due to lack of funding for federal employees to attend (I have no source for this other than industry rumor). There was a suggestion that some would still attend DEF CON and save on the registration cost for Black Hat, but many were planning to stay away anyway.

I feel that this is more public relations than anything else, the feds will still be there but DEF CON can present the image of being underground hackers fighting "the man". Some of the smartest people that I have met at these sort of events work for governments around the world, either directly or through private companies.

The reason the lines have blurred between the two groups over the past decade is as much to do with money as it is to do with diplomacy or a shared enemy. I think that this statement goes against one of the core values of DEF CON: that everyone is welcome, regardless of background or ability.

It's definitely plausible. Slashed travel and conference budgets have been a major result of the sequester.

A good number of the Feds seem to enjoy self-identifying. Many will still attend, but the chemistry will definitely be different.

My impression was that they enjoy drinking a lot and for many Defcon was the only time of year they got to go "under cover".

>everyone is welcome, regardless of background or ability

This year, in the spirit of inclusivity, they should bring in the lead architect of the Great Firewall of China.

Feds always attend in plain clothes so this effectively does nothing. I also wonder if a Fed only means investigative or law enforcement type Feds or also includes federally employed IT peoples.

I don't think the intention is to create a moat around the conference. Things have been getting quite cozy between these two [1]; I'm sure recent revelations don't play well with this conference's attendee base.

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9229756/NSA_chief_as...

A moat "this year" until it's safe for them, PR-wise, to work at legitimizing the feds again.

Perhaps this is why this bothers me: the Feds don't need any help from Defcon. If anything, it's the other way around.

Maybe it should be renamed FedCon.

iamtherockstar you are hellbanned. Your comment appears as dead. I tell you because you made an informative comment. Looks like it happened about a month ago.

thanks for the info noob! quit bothering people.

I think I accidentally upvoted this comment when my phone's browser glitched. Meant to downvote.

It may affect their ability to recruit.

Honestly, I doubt it. They had a legit enigma machine last year. It was cool. Their booth was busy because of it.

That said, I doubt anyone interested in working for the NSA would be put off by this/the recent leaks, or that anyone who didn't want to work for the NSA was going to change their mind at DEF CON.

People care about what their peers think of them. Even if a recruit don't have a problem with what the NSA does, the job is significantly less "cool" today than it was not that long ago.

Not everyone cares what their peers think of them... particularly if they in turn think their peers are being dicks. And not everyone has the same opinion (or level of outrage) over what the NSA has done.

What kind of fool would do all the work to get a security clearance to get a "cool" job at the NSA that they wouldn't be able to tell anyone at all about?

It's folklore wisdom that many of those people have to tell their friends and family that they work for the "GSA" doing PC networking or something like that.

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