The annual DEF CON hacking conference has asked the federal government to stay away this year, for the first time in its 21-year history, citing the Edward Snowden revelations as a reason that some in the community would feel uncomfortable if the feds were there.
“It would be best for all involved if the Feds took a time-out and did not attend this year’s DEF CON,” DEF CON founder Jeff Moss said in a statement posted Wednesday night on the conference website.
More than 15,000 hackers, researchers, corporate security experts, data protection advocates, artists and others are expected to attend the conference, which will take place this year at the Las Vegas Convention on August 2.
Moss, who is a cybersecurity advisor at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told Reuters it was “a tough decision” but believes the Def Con needs time to recover from the recent revelations of U.S. surveillance programs.
“The community is unable to ‘understand’ things that the Feds have had a decade to understand and come to terms with,” said Moss, who is also known as The Dark Tangent in hacking circles.
Continuing, he said that this move was not made to create tensions, but to defuse a situation.
In previous years, the conference has featured several officials from federal agencies, including the CIA, the National Security Agency, the FBI, the Secret Service, and all branches of the armed forces.
Last year, four-star General Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, was the keynote speaker at the event, which is the world's largest annual hacking conference.
The audience listened to him respectfully, but we can't say that he received much applause. When he was asked whether the US government spies via the internet, the answer was negative. However, the conference participants were not people who were unaware of the internet and what was happening with the secret services, since among the conference participants there were also some former government employees who had allowed their actions to be favored long before the Snowden affair.
