r/hacking•
Foobar7777

Does anyone else score (most) Defcon talks really low?

Firstly a disclaimer : I have found good informative presentations at Defcon, but for the most part I view a lot of the presenters as little league script kiddies who know a bit about programming and a fair amount about technology.

They appear to know enough about tech to bamboozle the audience and judging by the general response, I get the feeling most of the audience appear to be script kiddies too.

Because I don't want to leave here with you thinking I'm making wild allegations, here is a presentation to prove my point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEmO7wQKCMw

The presenter goes about convincing the audience how it is possible to hijack a facebook session of people who are not even in your friends list. Now I don't want to say this is not possible, but in my reality it sure is one hell of a feat, however he makes it seem like it is approachable when in reality you bearly stand a hope in hell of pulling this hack off.

Notice how while he's breaking down the bits required to reassemble the cookie string, he suddenly starts talking about how you can get the time that X logs in, and use that. There are 2 main problems with this. 1. X isn't your friend and because of this won't appear in your chat. 2. You won't ever get the exact time (down to the last millisecond) that X did log in, but that is what is required for the cookie string! So those 2 facts are quickly overlooked, and the audience must be thinking "Wow this guy really knows his shit", because he's talking about some language called PHP which looks really technical (I mean honestly).

Now I can point out a few good Defcon presentations with honest presenters, but when I come across hyped up BS, I have to ask if Defon even has a screening process? And are they marketing at hopeful script kiddies to exploit them for cash?

&TLDR: I think Defcon is a bit of a mockery.

Final EDIT: This is the type of Defcon presentation I enjoyed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgaZDNgxfQQ&feature=related, didn't learn much, but it was at least truthful.

Posted Dec 29, 2011, 8:01 AM UTC · edited

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