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Reporters' Roundtable: Security report on Black Hat, Defcon

In this episode we talk with our three reporters who attended Black Hat and Defcon about their experiences and takeaways from the annual hackathon in the desert.

Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
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Rafe Needleman

We sent three reporters to the dual security conferences, Black Hat and Defcon, last week in Las Vegas. Each has a different coverage area and perspective: Elinor Mills is CNET's security reporter. Declan McCullagh covers government and policy, and Seth Rosenblatt is an editor and reviewer for CNET Download.com. Today we talk with these three security wonks about their experiences and their takeaways from the annual hackathon in the desert.

Watch this: Ep. 43: Security Report--Takeaways from Black Hat and Defcon: Live!

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Show notes and talking points

What's the difference between Defcon and Black Hat? Who goes, and why?

What were the big topics this year?

Discuss the high-profile demonstrations: The ATM hack and the fake-cell-tower hack.

The Wikileaks story: How much of a presence?

Discuss white-hat, black-hat, grey-hat differences.

The hacker mentality: Has it changed over time?

Are the current security issues new and different, or rehashes of old problems?

How do you work at a security conference without getting hacked yourself?

What do we need to worry about today?

What's next year looking like?


Wrap-up
Next time: Network neutrality, probably. Watch my Twitter account (@Rafe) for updates.

E-mail comments to roundtable@cnet.com, and get all the show notes as well as replays and downloads of the podcast on the blog.