4 ms·
Black Hat is entirely corporate white hat security professionals. It has never really attracted or appealed to black hats.
by lawnchair_larry 8y ago
Black Hat is entirely corporate white hat security professionals. It has never really attracted or appealed to black hats.
- tptacek 8y agoBlack Hat is literally Defcon for people with expense accounts. The best Defcon talks are usually accepted Black Hat talks. Defcon has become this enormous nerd Burning Man event, filling Caesars armpit-to-elbow with attendees trying to fight their way to various different "villages". But as it's become that, it has become less and less "black hat", and more and more just security's Comic Con. But in the days before the two conferences diverged, it certainly was not the case that BH was more "white hat" than Defcon; BH was a way to pay offensive security people out of the expense accounts of defensive security people. And these days I have sort of a hard time believing any "real" black hat takes Defcon seriously.
- pvg 8y agoThis is a great conference promo brochure in the making. BlackHat - the Burning Man and Comic Con of information security for serious professionals. Needs to be fleshed out with a bit of Renfaire, SXSW and Anthrocon, perhaps.
- tptacek 8y agoHey, that's Defcon! I have generally positive things to say about Black Hat (not least because it's where I go drink with people every year).
- lawnchair_larry 8y agoIt's been so long since there were prolific black hats, that you seem to have confused the definition of black hat and white hat with "offensive security" and "defensive security" ;) Everyone working in offensive security is still a white hat. That's a legitimate profession. Black hats hack things without permission. That used to be big at Defcon, but I don't think it was ever really a Black Hat thing.
- tptacek 8y agoNo, I was clear on the distinction you're talking about when I wrote that comment. We're talking about the same black hats.