I really wish the press would stop feeding the public the idea that the word hacker is bad. Defcon is place where trust has been established over the years between information security researchers, the press, and the feds. People who break the law should be labeled a criminal and not a hacker. Reporters who report this misinformation, like this lady, Michelle Madigan (Associate Producer of NBC Dateline) , finally got exactly what they deserved.

Quote from Wired:

According to DefCon staff, Madigan had told someone she wanted to out an undercover federal agent at DefCon. That person in turn warned DefCon about Madigan’s plans. Federal law enforcement agents from FBI, DoD, United States Postal Inspection Service and other agencies regularly attend DefCon to gather intelligence on the latest techniques of hackers. DefCon holds an annual contest called Spot the Fed, in which attendees out people in the audience they think are undercover federal agents. The contest is good-natured, but the feds who get caught are generally ones who don’t mind getting caught.

Originally posted by ZDNet reporter George Ou