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First-Ever Photo Tour of Defcon's Network Center
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."
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.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
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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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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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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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.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
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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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.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.