As far back as I can remember, DEFCON has had the 'spot the fed' contest. Essentially, if you could spot the person at the con who was from the Secret Service or FBI, you win. I raise this relationship between law enforcements and the hacker community because attitudes are changing, at least that is what the FBI says about their attitude.

The Keynote for Blackhat was given by an FBI dude named Dan Larkin. I was disappointed that the Secret Service did not deliver this content because they really understood this partnering concept many years ago. When you are small, you learn quickly that you can't do it all yourself and develop non-zero-sum relationships as a survival skill. :-)

In my opinion, the main message the FBI had for the Black Hat audience was "we need a stronger partnership". 'Spot the Fed' becomes 'Partner with a Fed*'. In the past it was all about getting intelligence out of the hackers but the benefit seemed very one-sided. He said that the FBI would like to make it more of a two way street. They want to give back to the hacker community but did not go in to detail on what form this would take other than mentioning Infragard (FBI). The big message was : Team up and be better partners against cybercrime in the 21st centry.

He rightfully points out that as much as technology advances, it is all about the people. It is about the people executing the criminal networks via technological advancement. I sure hope this did not surprise anyone in the room.

When making reference to what was once referred to as CyberCrime, the FBI is just calling it organized crime. When they do their work internationally, everyone understands the term organized crime. He points out that organized crime is using technology to be quicker and widen their scope. He spoke about the notion of "packaging" and that cybercrime is just another packaging of organized crime. I fully agree and from a gaming perspective, crime is just a community that is playing another game that has a negative impact on your game. (or a violation of your game that works to increase their payoff) The gaming analysis is worth an entire posting itself so I'll stop here. :-)

As you would expect, he did a very good job in making the point that intelligence is key. The advantage goes to the one who has better intelligence, better observation, and better orientation.

In summary, his main position was that we cannot forget human reasoning. It is what I have been saying for a while now: all of this is a game being played between two or more opponents. We need to stop being so focused on the game technology and focus on the mind of the opponent. Is winning a card game really about the chips, cards, and table? Like it or not, you've been dealt in to the game and it is your turn. :-)

I don't know about you but when I think of a powerful keynote address, I think about a message and a speaker that really starts my engine and inspire me for months after the show. With all due respect, this was not one of those.

The attendance was so overwelming this year at Blackhat that the entire auditorium was standing-room-only. I had to go to another room to be confortable and watch it over a video feed. The only problem was that the slides he was speaking to did not get covered on the remote monitors. Oh well, what do I know. Does great attendance mean success? I would say so.

I absolutely cherish the hallway conversations and the people. BlackHat for myself and many means a chance to get to see friends you only see once a year and hang out. When I think of the partnerships, partnerships between people, I think about a great deal of mutual respect and understanding. IMHO, there is still a lot of work to be done between law enforcement and that culture that is Blackhat/DEFCON.