CMP Acquires Black Hat

An anonymous reader writes "Tradeshow and publishing behemoth CMP Media just acquired Black Hat for $10m.. It's ironic timing, because CMP also runs the Computer Security Institute tradeshow which wraps up in Washington DC today. There couldn't be a larger difference between a boring, institutional show like CSI and a small, independent event like Black Hat Briefings. Hopefully the corporate approach of CSI won't crush the life out of Black Hat."

Comments

Protection of larger corporate umbrella

[Tontoman]

Perhaps being part of a larger corporate community will come in handy next time Black Hat tries to expose another vulnerability. A few months back, Cisco got ticked off at the exposure they got courtesy of Black Hat. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that they released the fix. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/03/161 3226&tid=172&tid=218

Death to CMP Media - on principle

[Elrac]

The first time I heard of CMP was when I got a letter telling me my subscription to BYTE was being phased out, along with BYTE magazine itself. As compensation, CMP generously offered me a choice of one of the worthless other magazines they were carrying. I don't know how long ago this was, but you can probably tell from my tone that I'm still angry about this.

I can no longer call CMP's entire assortment of rags worthless, because there are at least one or two I enjoy reading once in a while, and which I respect. But all in all, I see CMP as one of the first behemoths of dumbed-down conglomerated corporate press. I believe CMP has done useful, unbiased, technically qualified coverage of computer-news a disservice.

I find some small consolation in two publications: ct and SlashDot.