[HN Gopher] Defcon stiffs badge HW vendor, drags FW author offst...
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Defcon stiffs badge HW vendor, drags FW author offstage during talk
Author : dmitrygr
Score : 458 points
Date : 2024-08-10 03:59 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| Animats wrote:
| Badge is a GameBoy emulator.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.dexerto.com/tech/hacking-convention-uses-
| fully-w...
| dmitrygr wrote:
| It also runs PalmOS. I published images for that.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I heard they didn't pay you in full. This is so sad. Why did
| they do that?
| gryfft wrote:
| > Why did they do that?
|
| I'm confused by the rationale of questioning the OP about
| someone else's motivations.
| qmarchi wrote:
| Yes and no, they may have been informed in a non-public
| setting on _why_ DEFCON has refused to pay.
|
| DEFCON themselves is likely to not state a reason
| publicly, so getting a "here's what I was told by DEFCON"
| is likely the closest thing that we're going to get for
| an answer.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Even if they don't pay, removing credit for work done is
| NOT ok. Work was done. Badge exists. Entropic made it
| gryfft wrote:
| I read it as tinged with the implication that the wronged
| party must have done something to deserve it. In
| retrospect, perhaps I was being too sensitive.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I believe the hardware designer was stiffed (according to
| some threads on Twitter)? There doesn't seem to be a
| summary of what happened anywhere, but from the reactions
| I've seen, it looks like DEFCON didn't pay a vendor for
| badge hardware, and the firmware has an easter egg showing
| that vendor.
|
| Not sure why the dragging off the stage happened.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I worked for free. They didn't pay hardware vendor (guys
| who made the physical badge) and removed their name from
| plastics and invitation to talk
| numpad0 wrote:
| Put aside the fact that that's awesome, that doesn't sound like
| the safest thing on Earth to contract out.
| gavinhoward wrote:
| I followed the link, and while there is a video of someone
| getting dragged off stage, I can't really verify the other
| claims.
|
| But even so, dragging a presenter off stage is sus. And doesn't
| seem smart because even if the other claims are not true, I'm
| tempted to never attend Defcon if that's what they do.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I can verify. I was the one dragged off. I wrote the firmware
| for the badge. All of it.
| nipponese wrote:
| Can you please explain the timeline of events here?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Edit: someone summarized it better: https://www.reddit.com/
| r/Defcon/comments/1eoe4u7/so_the_guy_...
|
| Approx:
|
| Entropic is engaged to make hw. I am asked (unofficially)
| to do sw.
|
| Entropic works for free but does charge for parts and
| subcontracted stuff . Eventually defcon stops paying.
| Entropic is uninvited from badge talk. Their logo is ground
| out of plastic case. Their logo hidden in publicity photos
| of pcb.
|
| Tempers are high. I implement the Easter egg. This is
| months ago cause thats how long one needs to pre-flash
| chips.
|
| Time passed. Defcon still working on their game last
| moment. They had volunteers reflash badges cause they
| didn't make the real pre flashing deadline. I forgot about
| the screen entirely more or less.
|
| Day of con. I spend all day helping debug badge issues.
| Push updates. Help people. Even pushed an update from plane
| on way to con to fix some things.
|
| Badge talk time. Half an hour before defcon tells me no
| talk for me cause someone found the Easter egg screen and
| they are pissed. I show up anyways since it was promised.
|
| I get dragged off stage.
|
| I hold talk outside answering questions.
|
| Next steps: I have no contact with defcon. They never
| bothered to. Normally: who cares? I get to talk, people get
| to play with badges. Nobody cares.
|
| But... I got kicked out, and... they have no license to my
| firmware they are distributing. Likely DMCA notice.
| dtx1 wrote:
| One part of me wants you to DMCA the living daylight out
| of them. The other part is currently seeding torrents and
| thinks copyright is kinda dumb. Anyway, shitty thing to
| do by the defcon people.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I have been giving out licenses to the firmware to
| anybody who asks in the unofficial badge hacking discord.
| :) also my signature on the badge acts as a
| nontransferable license to the firmware in source and
| binary. i signed maybe a thousand today at my unofficial
| talk outside after i was dragged out.
| waihtis wrote:
| Wild, but not surprising. Heard a lot of bad stuff from
| the village heads some years ago already about DC
| organization.
| tamimio wrote:
| Ah, defcon drama! Old ones used to be much better anyway.
| loopdoend wrote:
| The ninja badges even had games you could play where you
| fight other users if I recall correctly. (Mid 2000's?)
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Man. I've never been to defcon, but it's been more than a
| passing curiosity ever since the first real
| announcement[0] crossed my BBS in '93.
|
| And recently I've had a string of bad, unalterable, and
| irrevocably-permanent events occur in my life. And yet,
| I'm very pleased to say that your write-up on your
| experiences with the RP2350[1] presented a small but
| meaningfully-positive thing for me to look forward to.
|
| Please be well -- and don't take any guff from these
| swine[2].
|
| [0] https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%201/DEF%20CON%201%
| 20annou...
|
| [1] https://dmitry.gr/?r=06.%20Thoughts&proj=11.%20RP2350
|
| [2] https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fear-and-loathing-
| in-las-ve...
| iwontberude wrote:
| Defcon is a waste of time. Nerds pay walled from their
| friends.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Is blackhat more serious and better?
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Blackhat is even more of a pay-to-play corporate event.A
| few years ago, someone paid to do a talk on time
| traveling crypto and the CEO of trail of bits(iirc) stood
| up and called him out on the spot over the nonsense tech.
|
| Defcon has a lot more grassroots stuff, but it's grown to
| a size that it cannot avoid the corporate BS anymore.
| It's probably one of the biggest and most disruptive
| conferences in Vegas, venues don't like having 1000s of
| hackers hanging around slot machines.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Maybe they should just move away from Vegas. I don't know
| why people choose that spot. Why not some place with
| better view?
| nicolas_17 wrote:
| A friend said "getting out of vegas would mean losing
| half the point of going to bh/defcon (which is getting
| your company to pay for you to go to vegas)"
| aftbit wrote:
| It's relatively cheap to get there from most places, and
| they have the space and facilities for conferences of
| this size.
| malermeister wrote:
| Chaos Communication Congress is the one worth going to.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Time to make your own Defcon.
|
| With blackjack. And...
| rubans wrote:
| With black hat*
| adastra22 wrote:
| Which black hat, and webhooks!
| EarlKing wrote:
| ....I mean, you're already in Vegas, so...
| utopcell wrote:
| did they end up paying Entropic in the months that passed
| ?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| No. But beyond money, the credit hurts more. Having your
| company name scratches out of plastic molds is ... oof.
| utopcell wrote:
| this is some pretty ugly stuff.
|
| If you are in contact with any of the Entropic folks,
| maybe point them to this or the r/ thread so that they
| can provide more context.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Why'd they be pissed about people donating money to the
| people they didn't want to pay :/
|
| I just don't see how they lose anything there (or rather,
| don't see how they lose anything there that they lose a
| hundred times more of by their actual actions, namely
| reputation).
| YeahThisIsMe wrote:
| Every niche convention either stops existing or
| transitions into a business that slowly gets rid of all
| the fun stuff that created it in the first place.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| The CCC congress is still going strong, but it wouldn't
| work without the many volunteers and non-profit CCC
| behind it.
| Yeul wrote:
| Hackers themselves became corpos- or worse work for the
| intelligence agencies.
| q3k wrote:
| Cop mentality.
| windexh8er wrote:
| Thank you for the clarification, Defcon has some
| explaining to do given they make good money on the con.
| Things have definitely changed.
| abtinf wrote:
| If that's true, crucify them for piracy. Why would DMCA
| apply here?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| They are Illegally distributing copies of my firmware on
| their badges
| Symbiote wrote:
| If they don't have a licence to distribute your software,
| it's plain copyright infringement. The same as selling
| photocopies of a book.
|
| The DMCA criminalises breaking DRM, or providing tools to
| do so, such as distributing a tool to remove the DRM from
| an e-book.
| arghwhat wrote:
| The Digital Millennium Copyright Act also does have
| provisions related to copyright infringement, not just
| circumvention devices.
| abtinf wrote:
| DMCA is probably irrelevant.
|
| This is textbook copyright infringement. $150k statutory
| damages plus, at the court's discretion, legal costs and
| fees. And that is just the result of civil action. You
| could probably find a prosecutor who would love pursue
| criminal action against the conference to appear strong
| on cybersecurity.
|
| There is a reason why even large corporations, which
| often play chicken with lesser laws, are extremely
| careful about copyright infringement. The law has real
| teeth if the infringer has significant wealth.
|
| https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504
| romwell wrote:
| OK, everything aside, thank you for your absolutely
| _amazing_ work and the inspiring writing you do about it!
|
| Reading about rePalm has changed my definition of what
| _monumental effort_ looks like.
|
| (You should absolutely add that you managed to get PalmOS
| running on the badges in question!)
| eddyfromtheblok wrote:
| Sounds like a fiasco. Have to wonder why parts and
| subcontractors aren't getting paid
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Commercial copyright infringement has a _per instance_
| statutory minimum.
|
| Demand the minimum for every badge distributed -- as even
| if you later provided licenses to holders, DC had no
| license when distributing the copies as merchandise at
| their for-pay event.
| abtinf wrote:
| Do this, but absolutely get an attorney. Careful wording
| is required to avoid the crime of blackmail/extortion.
| notinmykernel wrote:
| You left out the part where the "Goons" physically
| touched you, and forcibly removed you from a location
| against your will. The "Goons" have no authority to carry
| out such an act. And there's video footage.
| Congratulations on winning the lawsuit!
| lukan wrote:
| "and forcibly removed you from a location against your
| will"
|
| Not saying they were morally or ethically right, or smart
| to do this at all - but legally there usually is a right
| to remove a unwanted person from your stage with the help
| of your own security.
| more_corn wrote:
| Yeah, pretty sure if you're asked to leave an event and
| you refuse, they can have you escorted out even if you
| dig in your heels.
| notinmykernel wrote:
| ... but can you tell me who is legally allowed to
| physically touch you in that escorting process?
| lukan wrote:
| Under german law, it would be anyone officially acting as
| security on that property. (It does not have to be a
| professional security, it can be anyone from staff
| filling in that role).
|
| The police does not want to be called, for every bouncer
| action.
|
| It can get into a grey area, if violence will happen, the
| security may not simply beat someone out - but grabbing
| and forcefully moving or carrying out is legal. But if
| there is serious resistance and the security unable to
| handle it in a nonescalating way, then they would need to
| call the police. But usually, the bouncers would just get
| brutal, then. Attacking security gives them some freedom
| to act.
|
| If other people are endangered by someone, very different
| scenario, anyone can (and must if possible) stop
| violence.
|
| Source: short stunt as a professional security
| IshKebab wrote:
| They do have the authority to do that. They ask you to
| leave. If you say no then you're trespassing and can be
| physically removed.
|
| How do you think bouncers work?
| aftbit wrote:
| Can I buy a badge or similar hardware after the con?
| Y_Y wrote:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1eoe4u7/so_the_guy
| _...
| soraminazuki wrote:
| Oof, Defcon organizers even _SWATted him_?
| brunoqc wrote:
| Come on. Calling the cops is nothing like Sweating.
| soraminazuki wrote:
| It's SWATting when you try to pit the cops against
| innocent people.
| brunoqc wrote:
| I don't think so.
|
| When people get SWATed, usually a fake call is made, were
| the police are told that a murder was already committed
| by the caller and that we will kill everyone on sight.
| Thus the police expect real danger, brings the big guns
| and their trigger happy attitude, kick the door in and
| are more likely to kill the victim.
|
| It's not SWATing if the police come to handle a
| disturbance. The SWAT team need to be deployed for a
| SWATing.
|
| Anyone could have called the cops too. A gathering of 100
| people can make people nervous. But I wouldn't be
| surprised if Defcon called them too.
| junon wrote:
| No, it's not. Let's not dillute the term. SWATing someone
| is calling in a fake situation on a person that earns
| them a visit, specifically, from SWAT. Hostage situation,
| bomb threat, etc. are the usual means of doing so.
|
| Calling the police is not SWATing someone.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| How isn't it? SWATting is nothing more then calling the
| police and sending them out to somewhere you known
| nothing is going on as an attack dog. This seems
| extremely similar to what has happened here.
| olliej wrote:
| It sounds like they called the police, that is not
| swatting. Swatting is a specific tactic where you abuse
| the minimal training and disposition to violence of US
| police forces to attempt to murder people by reporting
| that they're armed and/or threatening violence.
|
| Claiming the calling the police on someone is swatting,
| even though US police routinely execute people unprovoked
| attacks, is not swatting. The difference is the intent -
| the intent of swatting is terrorism and murder.
| gavinhoward wrote:
| Yeah, after some more digging, it does appear to be you.
|
| I do wish I had more context from the video, but at this
| point, it's getting hard to imagine any good reason for
| Defcon to do what they did. Assuming that you weren't
| threatening someone in the audience or something like that.
| Doubtful, from the way you've been talking.
|
| Anyway, it looks like good stuff. Wish I had some Game Boy
| games to try it.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I threatened nobody.
| gavinhoward wrote:
| Yeah, I hope it was clear that I don't think you did
| that.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Why is it up to you to determine who is telling the truth?
| Why do you need to dig or investigate?
|
| Anyways, just seemed odd.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| I would counter that by asking why would any of us _not_
| want to dig or investigate claims and assertions made in
| 2024? It's hugely important to approach life with a
| critical mindset these days, and something we should all
| be doing.
| irjustin wrote:
| You always trust what someone on the internet tells you?
| rpdillon wrote:
| I don't think that's how he meant it, but rather that we
| all need to read/watch and evaluate credibility on our
| own, because this is the internet.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear this happened to you.
|
| One cannot lay even a finger on another person, ever, let
| alone jostle someone just because they don't like what they
| are saying.
|
| It doesn't matter if they are "security". It's assault and
| battery just the same as if I shove grandma out the way to
| get to the bus!
| justjonathan wrote:
| I was at this talk, someone (you I guess) left at the
| beginning of this talk. To the audience it was not clear what
| happened,
| bingo-bongo wrote:
| I think it's so amazingly awesome that you just went outside
| and held an unofficial talk!
|
| Read your blog/article about the badge project yesterday and
| it was such a good read, even for a not-much-of-a-hardware-
| guy like me.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Nice work keeping the easter egg spirit alive. How would one
| trigger the easter egg?
| romwell wrote:
| This is Dmitry Grinberg[1] _some_ of whose absolutely amazing
| projects (like, running Palm OS on other devices) have recently
| gotten some traction here on HN.
|
| (In particular, he managed to get Palm OS running _on the
| badges in question_ ).
|
| If there's one person whose credibility I wouldn't doubt on
| those matters, it's him.
|
| [1] https://dmitry.gr
| raldi wrote:
| Do you have a writeup or something? Twitter videos don't really
| load anymore this year.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| This needs way way way way more context.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Yep. Not sure why this is downvoted, but as an outsider to
| DefCon, I'm not sure what's going on here just looking at the
| tweet.
| rwl4 wrote:
| Here's a direct link to him being dragged off the stage:
|
| https://x.com/dmitrygr/status/1822124650547257637
|
| It's definitely somewhat aggressive. Way to burn bridges.
| jmprspret wrote:
| Is there a non-twitter link? Blocks me because I have DNS
| adblock+using mobile browser.
| swores wrote:
| While it doesn't show you any thread context, for media
| tweets like the video one linked if you paste the URL into a
| site like https://savetwitter.net/en it will spit out the
| video file to watch as well as telling you the text of that
| tweet (although, testing it with that tweet on my phone just
| now I had to select the title and paste it elsewhere to see
| as the page truncated the visible amount to fit phone width).
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| https://nitter.poast.org/dmitrygr/status/1822124650547257637
| UberFly wrote:
| Looked the opposite of aggressive to me. Smiles all around.
| rcxdude wrote:
| He's being carried off. He's only smiling because of how
| ridiculous it makes the organisers look
| peterpost2 wrote:
| He is rudely forced down a stair. That could have gone very
| wrong.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I feel like this is a good spot to mention that Dmitry's a
| friggin beast when it comes to engineering. As that Tweetster put
| it: "Dmitry is an insanely skilled dude. Easily on par with
| Carmack or Karpathy IMO. They almost had to delay the original
| Kindle Fire tablet because of a rare bug that all the king's
| horses and all the king's men couldn't fix in 6 months, but
| Dmitry nailed it in a few days"
|
| Summary of the events unfolding by Sargonas on Reddit:
|
| Maybe this will help with a listed summary of the known facts
| from first hands accounts. I am leaving gaps where there has just
| been speculation or second hand unverifiable information, and
| welcome anyone with first-hand knowledge of those aspects to
| comment below me to fill in the gaps. I'm merely presenting the
| facts as we have them from first-hand accounts (mostly from
| reddit and discord), without personal opinion or bias (hopefully,
| human nature is a tricky thing.)
|
| Entropic Engineering designed and built the circuitry of the
| badges, physically. They were either only partially, or not at
| all, paid by DEFCON for this work, contrary to whatever formal
| agreement they had in place. (Other amazingly talented
| individuals create the silk screen design, the shells, and the
| game, but are totally removed from this drama so I'm leaving them
| out of it.) Subsequently, all references to them have been
| removed in various materials, and even one of their logos was
| removed from the silk screen. (apparently small one may be left
| under the battery? but I can't check because I affixed mine to
| the board to stop it's shifting.)
|
| dmitrygr wrote the firmware for the badges as well
|
| Somewhere along the way, Entropic was cut out of the process and
| left to the side by DEFCON in a way that left Entropic feeling
| burned and under/un paid for their non-trivial work (according to
| some comments below it is 6 figure sum, but this is second hand
| info).
|
| Dmitry felt this was unfair, and put an easter egg into the badge
| code. This easter egg simply comments that Entropic engineered
| the badges, and had their credits removed everywhere, with an
| address for donations if you wish to support them. This was
| entirely Dmitrys doing as a gesture of thanks to the Entropic
| team.
|
| This easter egg more or less flew under the radar until EoD
| friday.
|
| Friday evening, after spending most of his day traveling to
| DEFCON and writing a 1.5 update in his spare time on his flight
| to fix some issues, Dmitry was up on stage with the other badge
| creators about to present the usual badge talk, when word of the
| Easter egg went around (likely due to him including some slides
| on his portion of the presentation about it.)
|
| DEFCON staff had Goons escort Dmitry off stage shortly before the
| talk started, delaying the talk some.
|
| during the talk, a comment was made about "unauthorized code"
| being on the badges.
|
| Dmitry setup himself on the sidewalk outside the hall, and
| basically held his own mini talk about the work he did and
| Entropics contributions.
|
| At some point, LVMPD showed up. It is unclear to me personally
| who issued the call but second hand info says it was DEFCON
| staff. They noted Dmitry was simply talking to people (albiet
| nearly 100 of them) on a public sidewalk, outside a building
| owned by the county, and nothing was really amiss, and left
| shortly after.
|
| Dmitry, in his (likely valid) opinion feels this whole situation
| has not been handled well, and since his code was written free of
| charge, without any signed agreements with DEFCON or consequently
| any rights assignments, has announced that he intends to assert
| his legal ownership of the code (which is his right under us
| copyright law). As a result, he will gladly issue a non-
| transferable right to the code to any attendee who asks him for
| one, but is no longer going to "turn a blind eye" to the fact
| DEFCON does not have a legal license to his code, and instead
| look into taking actions that are within his power to take to
| clarify their lack of ownership of the code on the badges. (I
| believe in discord he may have gone so far as to say DMCA, but I
| need to double-check.)
|
| bearing this in mind this does add a curious wrinkle to the
| statement about "unauthorized code" from DEFCON given... The
| obvious.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Thanks for the summary. Why was Entropic not paid or cut out?
| sneak wrote:
| The same Defcon that allowed NSA director Keith Alexander to
| keynote.
|
| I even live in Vegas now and I don't go anymore.
| sschueller wrote:
| The event being named after a US military meeter to indicate
| how far away the US is from nuclear war should already be an
| indication.
|
| There are some good people there but also a lot of people who
| do not care what happens with what they build and look away
| when it would be time to speak up.
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| IANAL, but I'm skeptical that Dmitry's interpretation that Defcon
| has no license is correct. It sounds like Dmitry sent them
| firmware images with the mutual expectation that those will be
| used on badges, and they invited him to the Badge talk which
| could be considered consideration. That should constitute a
| contract, either verbal, or through concludent acts. This should
| give Defcon the right to use Dmitry's on the badges, but not
| modify it. So legally the whole thing would probably be
| considered a contract dispute, not use of unlicensed software.
|
| Defcon will probably argue that including the easter egg was some
| kind breach of duty of Dmitry's part, and gave them the right to
| remove him from the talk, and modify the firmware to remove the
| easter egg. My expectation is that courts would decide that
| Defcon has the right to use the firmware, but will require them
| to pay some kind of compensation for not living up to their side
| of the bargain.
| kaliqt wrote:
| You can rescind license to use the software if you haven't been
| paid consideration, you do not and should not have to wait for
| a court to say so.
| SR2Z wrote:
| This is a silly take. Unless there was a contact written
| down, DefCon gets to remove this guy for any reason or even
| no reason.
|
| The incentive to not do it is because it makes them look like
| power-tripping maniacs, which is what happened.
|
| I've never been to the conference but now I think I'll never
| want to go.
| olliej wrote:
| Um, removing a person who's giving a talk is a completely
| different action from the distribution of (potentially)
| unlicensed software.
|
| DEFCON may well have many reasons and legal recourses to
| stop a talk from occurring. But if they do not meet the
| terms of the contract for the IP, then the
| author/developer/manufacturer is entirely free to pursue
| action against them.
|
| Now it's possible the developers had not watched Mike
| Monteiro's "fuck you pay me" talk
| (https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1),
| but assuming that the claims in this tweet are remotely
| accurate you can bet that - assuming they can get someone
| to do it at all - next years defcon badge will be produce
| by someone with a contract that has the only sane language:
| "no transfer of any IP or right to distribute occurs until
| receipt of full payment"
| breakwaterlabs wrote:
| And this guy gets to rescind his license for nonpayment.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| If including an Easter egg voids the contract, then they should
| also start a class action against Microsoft for frivolously
| including a flight simulator in excel.
| robxorb wrote:
| IMO the thing that may matter most here is the PR effect on
| Defcon. It's the badge - every attendee takes this thing home
| and engages with it. It's a talking point, memento and
| representation of the spirit of the conference.
|
| That's an unmitigated PR disaster for Defcon. It doesn't matter
| to this who was right or wrong or what laws were broken, even
| if somehow all legally ended up in Defcon's favour, the damage
| to the brand is huge, enduring and set aside from those issues.
|
| To address this, whoever at Defcon ultimately actioned this
| series of events should be held to account, for this PR aspect,
| and the matter immediately and publicly handed to someone with
| an appropriate understanding of Defcon's culture & reputation.
| clwg wrote:
| It seems to have been Dark Tangent[0] (aka Jeff Moss), the
| creator and organizer of Blackhat and Defcon.
|
| https://x.com/dmitrygr/status/1822126826606739678
| znpy wrote:
| I just read the timeline of events at
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1eoe4u7/so_the_guy_...
|
| Frankly... i'm not surprised. The whole industry is filled with
| this kind of fascistoid attitude now. Every organization takes
| any chance they can to silence opinions they don't like (and this
| happens both left and right).
|
| I see from the link above that the POLICE was called on dmitrygr
| for... speaking to people in a public space?
|
| Really?
|
| Defcon has gone from outcast meeting to full mainstream and
| interest-preserving. Kinda lost all of its hacker attitude, and
| this is proof.
| orf wrote:
| Seeing as you're in the thread Dmitry, what was the Kindle bug
| referenced here? Sounds interesting.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207740
| yyyfb wrote:
| Streisand effect strikes again
|
| Option A: let the dude have his talk. Nobody hears about it
| beyond the walls of defcon. Move along.
|
| Option B: uninvite and call security. Guy becomes instant
| personality on reddit and hn. I didn't know that defcon had
| become a shitty, small minded operation that abuses volunteer
| time and can't take an Easter egg, well now I do!
|
| Well played...
| threatofrain wrote:
| I think this was going to blow up no matter what. Every single
| badge...
| yyyfb wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it would've stayed a defcon thing
| katzinsky wrote:
| I stopped paying attention a few years ago because their
| leadership was visibly heading in this direction.
|
| It's always kind of frustrating to see programmers and other
| software people participating/defending that kind of thing
| considering logic is our whole game to begin with.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| I've watched defcon and ccc a lot over the years... was this the
| first time a presenter has been physically dragged off stage?
| the_biot wrote:
| Stallman arguably was, one time at FOSDEM. Not over some
| disagreement, he just wouldn't stop talking and make room for
| the next speaker :-)
| gus_massa wrote:
| Is there more context? Who wrote the original software? Were they
| paid or it was voluntary work? How they detected the additional
| screen?
| gexcolo wrote:
| Am I missing something about how this story went missing from the
| front page? There is at least one story with less points posted
| 12 hours earlier that is still visisble there.
|
| https://archive.is/dtRg2 https://archive.is/8HK5y
| https://archive.is/yk5uU
|
| Is there any transparency that could tell us why this change was
| made?
| beaugunderson wrote:
| entropic put out their own statement as well:
| https://www.entropicengineering.com/defcon-32-statement
| dang wrote:
| Subsequent related thread:
|
| _DEF CON 's response to the badge controversy_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41211519 - Aug 2024 (41
| comments)
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