Intellectual Property Law

Hacking, Lock-Picking, Booze and Bacon: DefCon 17 In Review

By Dave Bullock

LAS VEGAS — Braving triple-digit heat, mean hangovers and an incredibly hostile network, roughly 10,000 hackers, security experts, feds, spies and various other “computer enthusiasts” took over the Riviera last weekend for the world’s largest hacking convention, DefCon.

This year there was no shortage of interesting developments, including a hacked ATM, hacked badges, hacked parking meters, hacked locks, hacked feds, hacked video cameras and more.

Wired.com and Threat Level covered the fun in depth. Read on for an illustrated  look back at some of the highlights.

Above: The winner of the DefCon badge-hacking contest used an array of LEDs soldered into a baseball cap to thwart facial recognition systems. His plan, theoretically, was to use the cap to sneak into the room of Joe ?Kingpin? Grand ? the designer of DefCon?s badges ? and steal the black über badges stored there.

Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

Full post as published by Threat Level on August 06, 2009 (boomark / email).