After what happened in Vegas, feds keep low profile at Black Hat

“Spot the Fed” has been a popular game over the years at the DefCon hackers conference in Las Vegas, as well as during the earlier years of its then-sister Black Hat Briefings. The suspicious types populating these events often did not make government officials and employees welcome.
Mark Weatherford, a deputy undersecretary at the Homeland Security Department who spoke at this year’s Black Hat, recalled that during his Navy years he had to get special permission for personnel to let their hair grow out before attending the conferences so they wouldn’t stand out.
Now in its 15th year and owned by UBM TechWeb, Black Hat has become more commercial and no longer has direct ties to DefCon (although they continue to be held back-to-back each year and share many attendees and speakers), and feds are welcome. But they once again are keeping a low profile, this time for a different reason.
GCN (http://s.tt/1jr7Y)

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