With all the high-profile web pages hacks and virus attacks that have taken place in 1999, it’s little wonder that the seventh annual DefCon in Las Vegas, Nevada this weekend is the biggest and most-hyped ever. The first DefCon, in 1993, attracted only 100 attendees. This year, organizers braced themselves for 2000. The event, which featured speakers from the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s David Sobel to the Cult of the Dead Cow, went so far as to include a beginners’ session to help newbies get up to speed – and hopefully prevent them from asking stupid questions.
Already by Friday evening, the official site at www.defcon.org had been cracked. Hi guys, the cracker wrote, this is an anonymous member of the ADM Crew [a group claiming to be non- malicious hackers]… looks like revamping this site was really too tempting for me. I just hope I didn’t break anything for your other customers (which I doubt though). The cracker signed off with what he or she claimed is the ADM motto: You’re lucky we’re whitehats – hacker jargon for crackers who do no harm.
