---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:37:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: If you build it, they will con, from the Netly News ************ http://pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1168,00.html The Netly News (http://netlynews.com) July 15, 1997 If You Build It, They Will Con by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) Perhaps the thinking behind DefCon went something like this: Lure hundreds of hackers to Las Vegas in the middle of the summer, ply them with cheap beer, talk about packet sniffing, and observe. Last year the result was self-organizing chaos, capped by an event where the hired strippers were upstaged by a band of exhibitionist conferencegoers. "The pimp was like, 'Oh my God,'" says Dark Tangent, DefCon's organizer. Last weekend's fifth annual DefCon may have been a little less raucous, but it was no less important as a place where hackers from around the world gather to socialize, gamble -- and glance around furtively trying to spot the government agents who infiltrate the convention. (Bonus: If you guess correctly, you can take a prized "I Spotted the Fed" T-shirt home with you.) [...]