Don't Try To Hack A Hacker

Dateline NBC knows all about a game of cat and mouse. They lure in the predator by pretending to be weak prey. But what happens when they venture into unknown territory and are no longer the top cat? Simple…they are eaten alive by the lions! That’s what happened this past weekend in Las Vegas during DefCon 15, the largest gathering of hackers, crackers and security professionals in the world. The tables turned and an undercover Dateline NBC reporter was outed. I don’t feel bad for the reporter though. When you try to outsmart someone who is smarter than you, it’s not a smart move and never ends pretty.

Associate Producer, Michelle Madigan, was going undercover hoping to reveal cybercriminals talking openly about their illegal exploits. Instead, the sting backfired when a conference organizer outed her in a room filled with thousands of her would-be targets. The crowd, usually a friendly group despite some vampirish clothes and complexions, wasn't pleased. As a few chanted "burn the witch," Madigan scurried out of the Riviera Hotel to her car with about 150 hackers-turned-hecklers in pursuit.

DefCon's inhospitable treatment of Madigan wasn't just because she was missing a press badge. She had also missed the point. By focusing on the “bad apples”, Madigan was glossing over DefCon's true spirit - smart people getting together to mess around with technology. That’s what DefCon is really about, even though Middle America thinks it’s about stealing social security numbers, raping your children and breaking into your bank account. The reality is that hackers are the ultimate explorers. They see technology and want to know how it works.

That exploration goes well beyond invading the closed corners of the Internet. DefCon's more than 6,000 attendees hack everything from their cars, to their computers, to their brains. Yes, brains. (I’m not explaining that. You’ll have to read up on it if you’re interested.) Of course DefCon still attracts some true "black hat" hackers bent on learning the newest tools for illegal intrusion, sabotage, espionage and credit card theft. But what attracts cybercriminals also attracts cybercops and there’s always plenty of Feds in attendance.

Many of the hackers that gave DefCon its renegade reputation in earlier days have now grown up. They’ve launched legitimate careers in security with big-name tech companies or have started their own security company (ahem). But even with a lucrative day job, it's still about a passion for technology. It's thinking about what technology can do, rather than what it was originally intended to do. It's about saying “Wouldn't it be cool if ...?” And then actually doing it. That is the original sense of hacking and what Madigan should have been at DefCon to report on.