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Realistically, DEF CON should move to the Caribbean. Marcus Hutchins is a British citizen. Extradition before the event was feasible and would have been a far
by chasil 9y ago
Realistically, DEF CON should move to the Caribbean.
Marcus Hutchins is a British citizen. Extradition before the event was feasible and would have been a far more honorable path than the snatch and grab that transpired.
British security experts might insist on Grand Cayman for any further conferences in the Americas.
- us0r 9y ago[0] is an interesting article about this. It doesn't matter where it is, if they want you they will get you. They have done this private plane on the runway thing a few times now. > Seleznev, the identity thief who is the son of the Duma deputy, chose to vacation at a five-star resort in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of the Maldives in 2014 precisely because it has no extradition treaty with the United States. U.S. officials got word and persuaded Maldives authorities to intercept Seleznev at the airport, where in a fast-paced operation he was bundled on a private plane to Guam Personally - I think in this Hutchins case they just wanted a new hire. http://hamodia.com/2017/04/02/u-s-sweeping-russian-hackers-broad-global-dragnet/ http://hamodia.com/2017/04/02/u-s-sweeping-russian-hackers-b...
- OzzyB 9y agoMaybe Sir Richard Branson could host it on Neckar and stream it live on Virgin.com -- I'm only slightly kidding.
- balabaster 9y agoThis seems, amusingly, like something I could imagine him actually getting involved with.
- SeoxyS 9y agoNowhere near enough space on Necker (my friend just went there) for a massive conference like this. Would be cool, though.
- mjw1007 9y agoExtradition needn't have come into it. The US authorities could have sent their evidence to the UK police to deal with (assuming the UK police didn't have it to start with). If we want justice to be seen to be done, we shouldn't encourage "forum-shopping" by law-enforcement, letting them bring prosecutions in a country where the defendent will be artificially disadvantaged.
- mjw1007 9y agoHaving said that, if the unidentified co-conspirator is from the US and they're going to be tried together, it wouldn't be so unreasonable.
- syshum 9y agoI am sure the "unidentified co-conspirator" is unidentified because they have a deal to talk and will likely not be charged or has a plea agreement so no trial
- strictnein 9y agoThis isn't "forum-shopping". Not every crime is going to get someone extradited, which is a huge hassle, but if the person accused is going to be entering the country of course you grab him.
- ueuxbeysvsyagav 9y agoYeah everyone is just emotional and not using their brains. This is clearly the easiest route to take for the fbi. I appreciate our government being resourceful. However, if it turns out that the allegations are false and that this is harassment I will grab my pitchfork as well.
- strictnein 9y agoAgreed. I will be really upset if this is all just a colossal f-up on the part of the feds.
- CydeWeys 9y agoI was just at this past DEF CON. The good majority of attendees were from the United States. It doesn't make sense to move it to the Caribbean. That would cause attendance to drop by a lot, and some other organization would just start another conference in the US, and most people would go to that one.
- chasil 9y agoIf our justice system behaves dishonorably, then the world's information security industry should certainly abandon the U.S. We can have our solo conferences, but we can't ask foreigners to risk incarceration for our convenience. The Bahamas might also be a reasonable choice, as they only declared independence from Britain in 1973.
- tdb7893 9y agoI might be misunderstanding your point but I don't understand what they did that was so dishonorable? I thought that this guy produced malware
- puetzk 9y agoWe don't know whether he did or not. But if they have evidence to support arresting him, the US has an extradition treaty with Britain; they should have shared it and asked British authorities to make the arrest. And there very well may be evidence, especially if the timing is related to something new obtained from the Alpha Bay takedown and it happening when he happened to visit the US for DEFCON was a coincidence. But running a snatch and grab at a security research conference looks really bad, and is bound to have a much wider chilling effect on people's willingness to attend US conferences.
- tzs 9y ago> But if they have evidence to support arresting him, the US has an extradition treaty with Britain; they should have shared it and asked British authorities to make the arrest. Is this just for alleged computer crimes, or would you apply that to all alleged crimes? For example, suppose I run a fraudulent mail order business targeting people in, say, France, and this is a crime in France. Would you argue that if I visit France, and the French authorities want to arrest me and bring me to trial, they should let me go home and use extradition to try to force me back, rather than arrest me while I am in France?
- rhinoceraptor 9y agoThere is apparently going to be a DEF CON event in Beijing. But I'm not sure that will be any better in terms of not going to prison.
- Monotoko 9y agoGot any details on that?
- rhinoceraptor 9y agoNo, Dark Tangent just mentioned it at the closing at DEF CON 25, I can't find any more details than that.
- strictnein 9y agoSo many extradition experts visiting Hacker News these days.
- tptacek 9y agoYou think the FBI is going to interdict a computer criminal before they spend a week in Las Vegas associating with computer security professionals, any of whom could be criminal co-conspirators?† That would be exceptionally nice of them, but also extremely poor investigative practice. I will say, though, as one of the many people in my field that is bone-tired of schlepping out to the worst place in the United States every damn year for these events, any other location in the world would be fine for me, and I endorse the actual suggestion you're making. † (Yes, obviously, I know virtually nobody who attends Defcon is a criminal).
- pw 9y agoSo I take it you're not a fan of Vegas?
- tptacek 9y agoI have friends who live there and don't want to talk shit about the real city of Las Vegas where people actually live, but the part of Las Vegas that Black Hat and Defcon drag us to every year is probably the worst place in the country.
- dsacco 9y agoPiggybacking on this to +1 the sentiment as another "security person": I literally do not go to Black Hat or Defcon because I don't like Vegas. It's a minor networking hit for me, but a total win otherwise (and I can make up by networking elsewhere - I cannot get time spent in Vegas back).
- hueving 9y agoIs it because of the gambling, drinking, or what? I don't gamble but I usually have a decent time visiting good restaurants and maybe seeing a show when I go to DEFCON.
- paulddraper 9y agoThe drinking, the gambling, the strip clubs, the whole debauchery-to-the-max environment of Sin City. Plus it's in the middle of a desert, so options are pretty limited.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ryanlol 9y agoIt's somewhat challenging to get to the Caribbean without risking IRROPS in USA. >Extradition before the event was feasible It wasn't feasible for political reasons. By attempting to extradite yet another sympathetic character from the UK the US would have risked undermining the extradition treaty for no gain. Anyway, I don't understand how extraditing him from the UK would've been any more honorable.
- johnnyfaehell 9y agoI'm pretty sure every year someone arrested because they attended DEF CON. Considering the US are one of the main countries seeking out and arresting cyber criminals why on earth is the main security conference in the world in what could be considered a hostile country. A case of smart people doing stupid things.
- fastball 9y agoBecause DEF CON is for whitehats / reformed blackhats so it shouldn't be an issue?