I’ll cross-post on the DC Forums for further discussion. [EDIT: posted here]

I saw a story posted over on CNET.

I’m always a bit disappointed when media propagate the “don’t use the network at the events” item. It’s scare-mongering for headlines (IMHO). DefCon is a security event. Expect shenanigans, but don’t scare people away.

Good practices can keep you secure, just as they will on the Internet. Turn on your firewall, patch your system and apps, don’t keep confidential information on your laptop. This is no different than what I tell my corporate users in my day-job.

There’s nothing that happens on the DefCon Network that doesn’t happen on the Internet.

As the head of the DefCon Networking Team, I was approached by several first-timers at DefCon this year who said they were “warned” about how hard-core and bad/hostile/etc the network was - and after experiencing it themselves, found it just wasn’t true.

Any difference-of-opinion I have regarding “don’t use the wifi at DefCon” is due to the efforts me and my team of people make in order to setup the network at DefCon. We put in months of planning and a lot of time and effort to make it happen, and it’s a big let-down when outlets like CNET make sweeping statements like “don’t use it.”

To that end, I welcome any journalists or media to contact us to discuss the DefCon network in more detail.

tags: