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I have somewhat sympathy for Black Hat, especially with the "pay for talks" model that they seem to get funding from, it's easy for these things to get a platfo
by misnome 7y ago
I have somewhat sympathy for Black Hat, especially with the "pay for talks" model that they seem to get funding from, it's easy for these things to get a platform.
I went to a maker space in the UK that occasionally held talks - one day they had a talk by some "Alkaline water" machine manufacturer (not the manufacturer, but one of the pyramid scheme dupes). Like many of these, it was a random mix of diverse actual (irrelevant) science, pseudoscience bullshit, conspiracy theory (as to why this wasn't e.g. used in medicine), appeal to authority and outright fraud, gish-galloped together into one giant mess. The diversity of the actual science means that there is _nobody_ who can be an expert in all areas and so refuting can be waved away.
Many of the otherwise practically intelligent people (although a wide mix came to this space) apparently couldn't tell or didn't care. Several people actually bought machines from them.
I suppose all of this is (in these contexts) is preying on the tendency for competent scientists to automatically question their own assumptions, but even when they do most of the time it just feeds their "controversy" argument using people who would never have bought it anyway.
Con-artists continue to thrive for a reason; even with the canniest/most suspicious people there's an arbitrage on how long they can survive in one place before moving onto the next target.
- liability 7y ago> diversity of the actual science means that there is _nobody_ who can be an expert in all areas and so refuting can be waved away. No, you just overthought it. Consider Diogenes' refutation of Zeno's motion paradoxes. Did he invent calculus? No, he stood up and walked around. If somebody tries to sell you a magical medicine water alkalizer machine, just throw alkaseltzer tablets at their face until they fuck off. That's all the refutation that's needed. A technical 'rigorous' refutation wouldn't be understood by the rubes such con men target anyway.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y agoI don’t have any sympathy, but this isn’t really that big of a deal. Black hat is expensive as fuck and they could have done without the money. I think they do less than DEFCON while also charging more but that’s just my hot take. I don’t think they’ll suffer any practical reputation damage (like people choosing NOT to go to Black hat). It’ll just be a meme and something they laugh about.
- tptacek 7y agoThey're different events. For a lot of offensive security subjects, the bar to get a talk accepted at Black Hat is significantly higher than at Defcon. Black Hat has a clear professional focus; Defcon tacks more towards culture and enthusiasts. If you don't want to pay for Black Hat, you don't have to; one of the things Black Hat's registration price covers is professional recording, and the talks are published on Youtube in a few months.
- baby 7y agoDon’t forget that blackhat pays its speakers.