14 DAY TRIAL // This year, federal agents were not welcome at the DEF CON security convention, and at Black Hat, where they were, the US National Security Agency’s chief was booed by the audience.
It’s clear that hackers don’t like the feds too much, but this goes both ways.
An interesting story shared by CBS’s Violet Blue once again demonstrates it. While taking a cab to DEF CON, the driver told the journalist that he had driven some “FBI guys” to the conference.
The FBI agents allegedly told the driver that they were attending the conference to recruit hackers.
“[One FBI agent] said they didn't want to give them jobs. He said he'd rather catch them and teach them a lesson. He said he wanted to blind them,” the cab driver told Violet Blue.
Apparently, the agents also liked the driver’s idea of cutting their fingers off.
A few days ago, we learned that the FBI uses hacker tools against organized crime groups and terrorists. Some of the tools are developed by the agency’s own people, but they sometime turn to outside help.