With the recent DefCon hacker conference came some amazing drama, and a cool list. For a while, I've considered myself a wannabe hacker. Only wannabe because I don't think I really have the skills or the brain to ever become one. I can still play Uplink, though...
First, DefCon. boing boing first reported on this story last Friday (yeah, I'm a little behind, if you haven't noticed my complete lack of posting the last couple months...). Apparently Dateline NBC wanted some dirt on some of the hackers at the conference, so they slyly place a mole disguising herself as a conference attendee, but was actually Dateline's producer, Michelle Madigan. Not to be outdone, DefCon had its own connections at NBC and knew about the mole beforehand. boing boing quotes Threat Level as saying:
"Before opening the show for business Friday, the DefCon goons announced to the crowd that there was a media mole among them. DefCon has been broadcasting her picture on the screens in conference rooms before each talk.
Saturday, it was reported on boing boing that the mole had fled the scene and had probably not gotten any good scoops for her story. boing boing quotes Threat Level again:
" According to DefCon staff, Madigan had told someone she wanted to out an undercover federal agent at DefCon. That person in turn warned DefCon about Madigan's plans. Federal law enforcement agents from FBI, DoD, United States Postal Inspection Service and other agencies regularly attend DefCon to gather intelligence on the latest techniques of hackers. DefCon holds an annual contest called Spot the Fed, in which attendees out people in the audience they think are undercover federal agents. The contest is good-natured, but the feds who get caught are generally ones who don't mind getting caught.
DefCon staff say that Madigan was asked four times -- two times on the phone and two times at the conference -- if she wanted to obtain press credentials, but she declined."
Some may disagree, but I'd say that Dateline got completely, excuse the phrase, PWNED. Don't forget the video link:
I will admit that some of the hackers comments on her way back to her car were in bad taste, but for some reason I thoroughly enjoyed when the guy yelled out, "Have you ever been on '60 Minutes?'"
CNET also covered the story very well, though I don't think they realized the redundancy of their statement "...Defcon 15, a conference of underground hackers who also happen to be security experts..."
So, in the same spirit, I present The Top Five Best Criminal Computer Hackers of All Time. Kevin Mitnick is number one. No surprise, really... interesting article, though.