Milling with the hackers at Black Hat and Def Con

Las Vegas was invaded by hackers this month. The Black Hat and Def Con conventions were in town. I attended both this year, which gave me an opportunity to compare and contrast them.

Black Hat was first. Held the first week of August in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, this conference hosted thousands of attendees, offering varying levels of activities. At the cheap end of the spectrum, the vendor floor teemed with dozens of security products — the same ones you see at RSA. In fact, it was virtually indistinguishable from the venerated RSA conference I attend every year at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

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