For first time ever, feds asked to sit out Defcon hacker conference | Hacker News Reader

For first time ever, feds asked to sit out Defcon hacker conference

arstechnica.com

184 pointsLibertatea30 comments

If they are going to ban the feds from attending the conference, are they going to ban the contractors who are working with the feds also? I imagine that the majority of the "security and hacking" type work is not done directly by the feds but by their contractor (e.g. in Snowden's case he was not working for the NSA but for Booz Allen Hamilton).

If they are just banning the feds then I think this is just a press stunt since it won't change a single thing.

Of course it's a stunt. That's the whole point, to make a symbolic statement. There is no imaginable practical consequence from this besides expressing unhappiness. That doesn't mean the gesture is meaningless.

True. To be honest I would be quite suprised if they didn't do something like this. Kudos to them.

Long HN discussion on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6024094

Roll over and take it, or push back, those are the only two choices.

There's little question there will be consequences to pushing back against the Feds, they're often vindictive bastards when you don't bow to their authority, but who can stand to live with actively helping to ensnare your fellow citizens in a police state?

Do you know any "Feds" yourself? You may be surprised at who is a "fed" or not. Prejudice is definitely not a noble trait.

As was brought up in the other thread, Dark Tangent himself can be considered a Fed, considering that he sits in the Homeland Security Advisory Council, as well as a top officer in ICANN.

Perhaps we'll be seeing Dark Tangent resigning his post as Homeland Security Advisory Council? Or perhaps there is more to "Feds" than you might think.

A "fed" is a member of federal law enforcement. I don't know how you're getting the impression it means all federal employees or contractors. It just doesn't, and never has.

That doesn't make sense either. NSA isn't a law enforcement agency. Although I guess they can pin it all on the FBI (which would make sense in some respects...) but even then... the NSA is really the centerpoint of the controversy as far as I can tell.

After the last 12 years, the intelligence community and law enforcement are not meaningfully distinct.

I hope so. I wonder if Defcon was shaping up to be only feds this year, or if there were indications of coming conflict.

I think active rejection by your peers is a reasonable punishment for unconscionable activities in the community. And the reverse should be true for anyone who quits in disgust.

It won't fix the problem completely, but it will have an effect on recruitment and retention. Even if feds in the intelligence industry move to more reasonable IT fields within government, or take contracts as civilian pen testers.

Do you seriously challenge the ones you know? Or is it just small talk?

The feds who pout about stating the obvious, because they're oblivious to their colleagues, seriously need to shape up. I mean, how could you possibly catch robbers and thieves if you can't even look past your own nose?

Are you seriously saying the feelings of random good people who got caught with a bad crowd are worth a police state? There's people who became Neonazis just because they wanted friends, too. Does that mean I don't get to diss Neonazis in general? Nope. Because structures and systems matter more than the people who happen to work in them. The flypaper is the concern here, not the flies sticking to it: they don't get to "take it hostage", and you much less get to take it hostage on their behalf.

What is there to challenge? Information Assurance Directorate does important stuff too. Yes, they're part of the NSA, but no, they aren't related at all to any of the controversy involved. IAD needs to know the latest attacks and everything for defensive purposes. They're the branch of the NSA responsible for securing networks.

Entire departments, even inside of the NSA, have nothing to do with the current controversy. And it is important for them to stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest cyberattacks that go on in the country.

Your mindset is of bigotry and ignorance. You don't clearly don't know how the Federal Government is setup.

http://www.nsa.gov/ia/ia_at_nsa/index.shtml

What is there to challenge?

You ask that with a straight face? How much time do you have?

Entire departments, even inside of the NSA, have nothing to do with the current controversy.

Yes, and? Most people don't have AIDS, it's still recommended to use condoms when having sex with strangers. Since in this case there is no way to test them, it's better to be safe than sorry. Since that they're unable to be tested is by choice and design, it sucks for them. You can call that bigotry, I'm calling it putting the foot down. Collateral damage, if you will.

And hey, we're not talking about invading a country and killing a hundred thousand people in the pursuit of who-the-fuck-knows, but rather about people not being invited to a conference in the pursuit of we-know-exactly-what. This, my friend, is progress.

So maybe they can sign up to a newsletter or something? Or watch the lectures on youtube? What in God's name would require them to physically be there?

Every single last human being on the other hand, is at the wrong end of this gun. And we really really need that gun to be destroyed. To this end, symbolic actions are taken, as in this case (because I don't for a second believe this seriously would change or damage fuck all, to not get invited to a conference, but it certainly ought to make the conference a more enjoyable one), and people get to feel who they're associated with, and why that it matters. If one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, then that's real tragic, you know?

I mean, as long as we're talking needs, let's talk needs, instead of just dismissing the one side of the equation, and blowing the other out of proportion. They need to go to defcon or they can't do their job, huh. Poor people trying to "secure networks". Not against snoops, of course... or do you mean rather like securing middle east oil, huh?

Some are trying to end the bleeding away of life and money, to end the drying up of liberty -- and anyone who's not on board with that can take their pathetic priorities and play in traffic, as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather try to find someone better for their spouse and kids, than accept the need to "feed the family" as an excuse for any old thing. That stuff has played out once and for all.

And if they ARE concerned about the very same things, than why wouldn't they agree that it's worth a little inconvenience for them personally, to make a statement that kinda matters?

You don't clearly don't know how the Federal Government is setup.

Yup, I clearly don't not know that indeed. But even if I didn't know, there's something to be said for smart guesses, and not falling for those who play for time or act stupid.

> What in God's name would require them to physically be there?

Why does anyone go there physically by your standards? That is a dumb question.

You taking it out of context doesn't mean it's a dumb question in context, and I don't see where my standards enter into it either: What in God's name would require them to physically be there in order to stay "up to date on the latest and greatest in cyberattacks"?

To me that's a question about the physical world more than what people ought to be or do. It's a honest question, too. So if you or anyone can: tell me, I'm all ears. In absence of that, I'll just have to assume I refuted a silly statement with a perfectly valid question.

You are welcome to congratulate yourself on your own delusions of your debate methodology.

But you've already proven to me that you're willing to throw out the baby with the bath water. You are unable to see "Feds" as anything different than an homogenous collective beast, ala the Borg. You think they all think the same, you think they are all equal. You think they're all part of some collective conspiracy out to get you.

At which point, why should I bother debating with you? Arguing against bigots never produces results. At bare minimum, you need to prove to me that your brain can handle the fact that not every person inside of an ill-defined group is identical.

Why do federal infosec security members want to go to Defcon? The same reason as any other defensive infosec professional. To learn how to defend against the latest and greatest attacks. Whether or not they are "feds" doesn't change their mission.

Until you can understand this point, you're welcome to pretend that you've refuted my point. But I'll be blunt in my thoughts about you.

You're incorrect. I'd argue it depends on what you're prejudiced against, as to whether it's noble. I happen to be very prejudiced against police states, and government tyranny in general, and the people that actively help to make it possible. In this case, my use of Feds is meant to represent the federal authority figures that are leading the charge in erasing my civil liberties, and I think that was obvious given the rampant discussions here for weeks on the NSA and its leading proponents.

A proper synonym for prejudice is bias. I like that word even better than prejudice in this case. It can be said that I'm absolutely biased about this subject.

Nope, still not noble. If it's truly prejudice, then just because you're prejudiced against a bad thing doesn't mean the prejudice itself is good.

But what I think is that you're trying to describe a rational, sensible dislike for tyranny and police states as prejudice, which is disingenuous at best.

You understand that most federal employees were as unaware as the general public, right? Just being a federal employee doesn't grant omniscience about all the government's activities. Lumping them all together isn't like saying Google did this, or Microsoft did that. It's more like saying, the tech industry did this (when really it was 2 or 3 companies, and just departments or divisions within them). It's nonsensical. If you're a pacifist are you going to blame the entire aerospace industry for building military aircraft, even the companies that don't have military contracts? Are you going to blame all software companies because a few write DRM software?

We're entering into a baby-with-the-bathwater situation here. Straight up defense is considered, by most, to be good. The interstate system (as a whole, some regions and sections, not so much) enables a great deal of commerce. These fall under the purview of the federal government, should we toss them out as well? Or should we have a more measured and less emotionally induced (panic and fear and hate) response?

Lets start with a basic fact. A good portion of the NSA is dedicated to purely defensive cybersecurity. They have contributed to SELinux, created the DES encryption algorithm, as well as SHA-1 and SHA-2. NSA had a part in AES as well. They were also involved in figuring out what happened with regards to the Google and Nasdaq hacks.

Even if you believe the NSA's actions were wrong with regards to collection of metadata... a good portion of even the NSA's workforce have nothing to do with that current controversy.

Even then... if you manage to convince yourself to be a bigot towards ALL NSA employees, you'd have to be awfully bigoted to then further apply your judgement to the rest of the Federal Government workforce.

and the german government under Hitler built the autobahns and created Volkswagen.

At some point, any participation in a system that allows such broad and systematic abuses needs to be called out.

yes, i know about godwin's law, thanks.

I can't say I harbor any great animosity towards road builders in Germany in the 1930s.

And ditto to us Americans as well. WWII was filled with errors, and yet our ideals have remained strong.

A brief history lesson: Office of Censorship, Atomic Bomb (historic Kyoto was on the list of places to utterly demolished... fortunately the Japanese surrendered before then), Napalm-based firebombings against a civilian population (Japan). Blatant racism in the form of the Japanese Internment camps, etc.

The existence of these programs are in direct contradiction to many principles that America stands for... especially the Office of Censorship. But we don't hold any ill-will towards our Grandfathers during that time. At worst, we recognize the specific faults in the specific laws in the context of the time period, and then write laws to ensure it never happens again.

Same thing will happen here. "Feds" in general were not related to this controversy. Showing ill-will to such a large group of people is straight up bigotry. We have the intelligence today to focus our energies on specific departments, specific people... specific regulations that have gone wrong in this case.

And that is what law is about. Figuring out the root of the problem and eradicating it. Painting entire groups of people (aka, "The Feds") with a single brush is wrong.

I don't know any Feds, but I'm perfectly capable of judging their actions. When there are such bald violations of civil liberty, the only ethical thing to do is speak up.

Snowden did.

Everyone who didn't is culpable in the fascist enterprise (to varying degrees).

There is this German saying, "Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken, als Schrecken ohne Ende." which translated means "Rather an end with terror (in the sense of fright, not terrorism), than terror without end.".

Bullies get even worse ideas when they're not stood up to. The same goes for brownshirts, and anything in between.

No better group to stand up to them! I don't count myself among the defcon types (my computer wouldn't last 5 minutes on their conference Wifi, I'm sure) but they, if anyone, have the right mindset to challenge the feds, and come out with only minor bruising.

This could be important. If the security community continues to publicly hold these agencies at arms length, working for them may acquire a stigma. If the effect were strong enough, the agencies might feel a need to change their stance in order to be able to hire.

DT's post is analogous to you can't fire me, I quit. The sequester is affecting travel & training budgets and gov't employees can't afford to attend.

I most likely going to get down voted for this, but am I the only one who sees the irony in that this is a conference dedicated to breaking into systems and they don't want the people who are arguably better at it than anyone else?

They didn't break in, they asked for the keys and were given them

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