Undercover NBC Reporter Bolts from DEFCON2007

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From George Ou's blog on ZDNet:

Undercover reporter Michelle Madigan (Associate Producer of NBC Dateline) got a little more than she bargained for when she tried to sneak in to DEFCON 2007 with hidden cameras to get someone to confess to a felony. When DEFCON staff announced the ?spot the undercover reporter? game and told the audience that an undercover reporter was taking video to catch someone confessing to a hacking crime, Madigan bolted from the conference premises followed by a pack of ~150 DEFCON attendees and reporters trying to photograph and video tape her. DEFCON officials never got the chance to bring Madigan on stage to offer her a press badge so that she could cover the rest of the event above board.

DEFCON organizers caught wind of this from undisclosed sources and casually contacted Madigan to see if she wanted official press credentials and a press badge to cover DEFCON. Reporters in the pressroom were then fully briefed on the situation before the ?spot the undercover reporter game? so that they could cover the event.

According to Senior DEFCON official ?Priest? who works for the Government in his day job, Madigan declined press credentials on four separate occasions (twice on phone and twice at DEFCON). Madigan proceeded to register as a regular DEFCON attendee and even told a DEFCON staffer that she was going to the bathroom to get her hidden camera ready. When a DEFCON goon (staffer) explained to Madigan that secret video taping wasn?t allowed, Madigan not knowing she was speaking to a goon replied that she didn?t think it wasn?t a problem. The staffer then followed Madigan around and watched her as she panned her hidden camera around the entire ?Capture the flag? room to get unauthorized video of the members.

Madigan was apparently trying to do a shock piece for NBC Dateline to show middle America how criminal underground hackers had descended on DEFCON Las Vegas to learn tricks of the trade and how Federal Agents were tracking them down. When a DEFCON staffer spoke to Madigan posing as regular attendee, Madigan commented that people in Kansas (reference to middle America) would be very interested in what was ?really? going on in DEFCON. DEFCON official ?Priest? also had reason to believe that that Madigan was planning to out uncover federal agents attending DEFCON and expressed some serious concern about the safety and privacy of those agents. Because of this, staffers used this to lure Madigan to the room where they planned to out her instead in front of DEFCON attendees in the ?spot the undercover reporter? game but Madigan bolted from the scene before her photo was put up on the projector.

The sad part of this story is that Madigan was given every opportunity to get a press pass and get access to any of the speakers and attendees above board. Even after the secret video taping she was offered a chance cover the rest of the conference with an official press badge. This is my second year covering DEFCON and I?ve never had any problems getting photos or video from willing attendees and speakers but that?s not what Madigan was going after. She wanted to paint a picture that would shock ?people in Kansas? about DEFCON and that?s not what DEFCON is about. The Feds, Press, and hacker community have built up a level of mutual trust at DEFCON so that we have a place to talk openly and honestly. After taking an unofficial poll in the press room here, not one person appreciated Madigan?s antics.

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=653

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martskre

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Is DEFCON itself actually illegal, or is it just inticing to those who practice in illegal underground hacking?

If I'm not mistaken, this years DEFCON is attended by around 5000 people this year which makes it the worlds largest hacker convention. It is definitely more than just a group of people gathering showing off their latest monkey business.

For those who are interested DEFCON is packed with presentations about everything regarding computer, hacking and security related subjects, but there are also lots of events and great competitions such as Capture the Flag which is a hacking competition where teams of hackers attempt to attack another teams server to steal various data while obviously having to defend their own server against attacks from other teams. There's Hacker Jeopardy, Guitar Hero and lockpicking competitions and also other fun ones such as the Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest (self explanatory I guess), and the CoffeeWars which is all about showing off your best coffee beans and get your brew rated the highest. I've done a pretty poor job of summarizing, but there is much going on.

Oh, but to answer your question: No it's definitely not illegal.

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Sagittarius Veteran

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I wonder how Dateline will have to restructure the show it was producing in light of this, or if they'll even show the episode at all. I'd hope that they wouldn't try to pass this off as the evil hackers attacking the innocent reporter, since there is ample video evidence to the contrary.

Grand Master

Minifig

Posted
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Is DEFCON itself actually illegal, or is it just inticing to those who practice in illegal underground hacking?

DEFCON itself is completely legal, as long as they don't do anything stupid amongst themselves that can be considered illegal.

Kevin Mitnick reportably gave an awesome speech about how much trouble you can get into when you hack things one year.

God I wish I'd been there.

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Quillz

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DEFCON itself is completely legal, as long as they don't do anything stupid amongst themselves that can be considered illegal.

Kevin Mitnick reportably gave an awesome speech about how much trouble you can get into when you hack things one year.

God I wish I'd been there.

Ah, thanks, that explains it. So it's basically an annual meeting of people in the computer industry who talk about newly discovered vulnerabilities in software and hardware and all that? Do security companies attend these things to improve their own products?

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Shibby

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From what I understand, DEF CON is basicly like an engineering event on security, but it's a real mixture of people from the pros to your casual person. Then chuck in lots of games to make it more fun and a learning experience for everyone.

Seems like some reporter was just trying to make the most out of nothing, sure there is going to be people that have/do illegal activities but sounds like she wants to take it out of context.

Grand Master

Minifig

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Ah, thanks, that explains it. So it's basically an annual meeting of people in the computer industry who talk about newly discovered vulnerabilities in software and hardware and all that? Do security companies attend these things to improve their own products?

Correct on both counts.

  • 3 weeks later...
Grand Master

jerzdawg

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I wonder how Dateline will have to restructure the show it was producing in light of this, or if they'll even show the episode at all. I'd hope that they wouldn't try to pass this off as the evil hackers attacking the innocent reporter, since there is ample video evidence to the contrary.

unless they can get michael moore to edit the video... he can turn it into just that "evil hackers attacking the innocent reporter"

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