{"id":42211,"date":"2021-08-05T14:05:12","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T14:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packetstormsecurity.com\/news\/view\/32532\/TechScape-Why-Hacker-Summer-Camp-And-Pandemics-Dont-Mix.html"},"modified":"2021-08-05T14:05:12","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T14:05:12","slug":"techscape-why-hacker-summer-camp-and-pandemics-dont-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/techscape-why-hacker-summer-camp-and-pandemics-dont-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"TechScape: Why Hacker Summer Camp And Pandemics Don’t Mix"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a normal year, I would be getting on a plane today and travelling to Las Vegas for the loose conglomeration of events informally known as \u201cHacker Summer Camp\u201d. Centred around DEF CON<\/a> and its stuffy younger sibling Black Hat, the event sees Las Vegas taken over by hackers, information security specialists, spooks and criminals, all there to discuss the best ways to defend computers against hostile adversaries \u2013 and to break into those same computers as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

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This year is not, of course, a normal year. For one thing, I now have a four-month-old daughter at home, helpfully making the choice for me as to whether or not I travel to conferences in distant nations. For another, there\u2019s waves arms<\/em> all this still going on.<\/p>\n

DEF CON (alright, Defcon, the official styling is giving me a headache) had planned for the occasion. Despite being one of the oldest, and the largest, hacker conventions in the world, it had always been a resolutely in-person affair until the coronavirus pandemic saw events cancelled globally and forced it online. This year, in prescient forward planning, the organisers announced the event would take place in a \u201chybrid\u201d fashion, streaming live online as well as in-person in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

The initial justification was less about Covid per se, and more about the difficulty for international travellers: travel to the US is banned from a host of countries, including most of Europe and China. But as the date of the event drew closer, and it became increasingly clear that the pandemic would not be over by August, a growing number of American attendees also reconsidered their decision to travel to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Defcon and hygiene don\u2019t normally go together. The conference is the only place I\u2019ve ever heard volunteers refer to the \u201c3-2-1 rule\u201d \u2013 that is, three hours of sleep a night, two meals a day, and please, for everyone\u2019s sake, one shower. But the conference is trying its best, adding a \u201creal mask\u201d mandate (no bandanas or face shields) and requiring proof of vaccination. But for many, the belated awareness that America, too, was at risk from the Delta variant that had seen cases skyrocket in India and the UK was the final straw. Defcon is happening at the worst possible time, some worry: cases are creeping back up in Nevada, as they are across the US, even as restrictions remain lax. The state reintroduced a mask mandate for indoor events on Friday. But fears about Delta\u2019s significantly increased R number seem to be enough to convince people to stay at home for another year. Online tickets have been sold out for weeks, but in-person tickets remained available until the last minute.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just another story of events struggling against coronavirus, though. Defcon has its own unique set of problems to contend with. Like other hacker conferences, the event is notoriously unwilling to create any sort of register of attendees. In previous years, that\u2019s meant eschewing any form of pre-sale entirely, and exclusively selling tickets on the door, for cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we take credit cards,\u201d the official FAQ reads<\/a>. \u201cAre you JOKING? No, we only accept cash \u2013 no checks, no money orders, no travellers checks. We don\u2019t want to be a target of any State or Federal fishing expeditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year is different: to gauge attendee numbers, the organisers sold badges online. \u201cCash at the door will still be honoured for as long as spaces last,\u201d organisers said<\/a>, \u201cbut there is a chance we\u2019ll have to turn away cash customers if we reach capacity for our venues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news had some worried, and not unreasonably so. American law enforcement clearly has its eyes on Defcon as an event that draws people of interest from around the world. In 2017, Marcus Hutchins, the British researcher who single-handedly stopped the outbreak of WannaCry that shut down a chunk of the NHS, was arrested over unrelated historical allegations in Las Vegas airport<\/a>, preparing to leave the country after the conference. (Hutchins later plead guilty to two charges and was sentenced to time served and a year of supervised release).<\/p>\n

Adding frisson to the choice is an unusual announcement for the counter-cultural convention\u2019s keynote speaker: Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden\u2019s secretary of homeland security. The reaction was \u2026 poor. \u201cWhat were y\u2019all thinking? I\u2019m so disappointed in you,\u201d influential hacker Ian Coldwater told the convention<\/a>. \u201cAs a main stage speaker this year I can\u2019t say I\u2019m terribly excited to be sharing a stage with this man.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what about the hacking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Controversies or not, Covid or not, Defcon is still the focal point of the hacker calendar, and there\u2019s a lot of news that\u2019ll be breaking over the next week to keep an eye on. Some has already broken, in fact, pre-briefed out to excite attendees:<\/p>\n