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I considered that. And yeah, DT is definitely a federal employee.

I guess it depends on what you consider a 'fed.' Is a sysadmin at NASA a Fed? They are employed by the federal government...

Law enforcement--especially intelligence--is not going to be particularly well received this year. In the years I've attended, it's always a friendly sort of cat and mouse game. "You're the Fed, I'm the hacker, let's get a beer!" What with PRISM and domestic surveillance, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a serious effort by the con to reduce drama and distance itself from the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Is General Alexander still keynoting Black Hat?




I wouldn't be surprised if this was a serious effort by the con to reduce drama and distance itself from the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Despite practically being in bed together, and all that is supposed to change just like that? It seems like some sick joke, from the outside looking in of course…

Then again, it has more or less always been this way and maybe things seem different now that the tide has receded a bit…


Yes Gen. Alexander is still speaking at Black Hat. I'm not sure that DT has the influence inside Black Hat that he once did. I would be interested to see how that talk goes down, but then BH has never been about "hackers" in the way that DEF CON is

There appears to be a distinct effort to separate BH and DC this year, there is less speaker overlap compared with previous years, attendance to BH doesn't get you in to DC like it used to, etc. This is probably UBM (owners of the BH brand) trying to protect their revenue.


The standard for "spot the fed" was "someone with federal arrest powers" -- even an NSA sysadmin wouldn't count.




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