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First-Ever Photo Tour of Defcon's Network Center

Posted by timothy on from the sniffer-dogs-eh dept.

Kugrian writes "With over 9,000 hackers, freaks, feds, and geeks attending Defcon 16, the temporary wireless network setup there is considered the most hostile on the planet. Run by a dedicated group of volunteers known as Goons, the basement Defcon Network Operations Center is secured by means of a chain-link fence and armed guard. The 20-megabit connection, which is twice as fast as Defcon 15, runs over a point-to-point wireless link to another hotel that has point-of-presence in their basement. Wired's Threat Level blog managed to secure the first ever photo tour of the Center showing Goons, hardware and sniffer dogs." Reader TXISDude, who was at Defcon, doubts that attendance was as high as 9,000. Update: 08/13 18:14 GMT by T : Dave Bullock, the Wired photographer who shot these pictures, backs up that figure, though: "I interviewed Joe Grand, the badge designer a few weeks before the con. They ordered 8,600 total badges. They ran out of badges. There were hundreds of people with paper badges."

15 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. I fail to see what's so spectacular about this by jacquesm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    seriously, what is so special about this ?

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    1. Re:I fail to see what's so spectacular about this by jacquesm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I highly doubt that :)

      Anybody that claims he/she is a hacker is most likely not.

      These are the 'l33t' script kiddies and such, they couldn't hack their way out of a paper back if someone didn't provide a fill-in-the-blanks kit that they can download.

      Anybody that really is a hacker is already in your system, just not bragging about it.

      It's like lock picking, if you're really good at it you keep your mouth shut so that if some stuff disappears you're not going to be #1 on everybody's suspect list.

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    2. Re:I fail to see what's so spectacular about this by halsver · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you are telling me there are no real black hats at this convention?

      Given 9000 people who may claim to be hackers, I'm sure there's one in there somewhere...

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    3. Re:I fail to see what's so spectacular about this by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Here is what is special about this:

      You missed what was really special about this: If you want into defcon's network operations center, tell them you're from Wired and you just want to take a few pictures. Butter them up real good about how awesome they are for managing such a hostile environment, etc.

      I expect this exploit to not work a second time.

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    4. Re:I fail to see what's so spectacular about this by nospam007 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not to mention:
      Never get involved in a land war in Asia

  2. ZOMG! by JCSoRocks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They've got... network cables! and, and, switches and stuff! There's even some fiber there! It's almost like they're trying to get a bunch of people on the Interweb... crazy.

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  3. Security thru Obscurity by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If these guys wanted any kind of openness with security, these pictures would be on the DEFCON index page instead of some kinda "security through obscurity" nonsense where only just now are we seeing how they are running the network. If it gets hacked, that should be part of the conference -- how it was compromised, what to do to protect it better, etc.

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    1. Re:Security thru Obscurity by cromar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Everything is crackable; it's a good idea to be obscure most of the time. Relying on obscurity as your only defense is what is a bad idea.

  4. Come on, china is more hostile... by nweaver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Defcon network is bad if you are a sheep, but if you jsut treat it like you are going to visit China (with a return trip through US Customs), its not that bad...

    New system, everything through an SSH tunnel, only your necessary working set, and temporary login credentials to throwaway accounts, and its all good!

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  5. Re:Unimpressed. by Applekid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From TFS:

    With over 9,000 hackers, freaks, feds, and geeks attending Defcon 16, the temporary wireless network setup there is considered the most hostile on the planet.

    It's temporary. It's not going to have to be maintained for years on end, which is the point of textbook wiring jobs. Otherwise it's a waste of effort.

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  6. Re:Unimpressed. by tulmad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's also probably set up for the conference, and taken down when it's over. Why would you bother neatly tying your cables and making everything proper lengths if you're going to just take it apart a week later? I'd be willing to bet most of their setup fits in that transit case under the firewall and switch.

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  7. A challenge for you experts by zappepcs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, their network setup looks.. uhmmm... temporary and built with something less than a multimillion dollar budget. So, how would you build a wireless network for '9000' hackers?

    Pretend you have some assets already plus $10,000 to spend. How would you build the temporary network?

    I've seen a lot of 'how they did it' infrastructure articles, and lots of smirking here, so how would YOU build that network?

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  8. Volunteer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Um...these volunteers set this up for free. Sure they could have spent serious $$$ on providing free wireless to a bunch of miscreants who are too cheap for mobile service and wired it up to look prettier. That's not the point. Unless you are volunteering to bring out your equipment, and setup and run this show, and do it just as securely and reliably, a simple THANK YOU will do. Otherwise, STHU. As wise old Ben said "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."

  9. Re:TFS seems to have a mistake by profplump · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You start indices at 0, to avoid extra math. But you really should start counting at 1, at least you'd like anyone else to know what's going on.

  10. Re:Pretty lame by Lockster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Did you actually read the page that you referenced? I mean all the way through?

    PyCon 2008 used a 40Mb wireless connection @ 40Mbs, not a DS3. Dropping a DS3 in for a temp event is big bucks (try it sometime!)

    Now read their utilization graph. If they had 20Mb, they'd have been perfectly fine (they only spiked above 20Mb a couple of times). So let's say you're paying the $15-20K to drop in a DS3 to a hotel. If you could pay significantly less with no realistic impact to service, wouldn't you?

    How many corporate sponsors did PyCon have?
    Now compare to the corporate sponsors for DefCon.
    Now compare budgets.

    Comparing SuperComputing's Network to DefCon? Seriously?

    Convention networking isn't a dick-swinging contest--it's about getting it done.