It's no coincidence that DEFCON is now full of hangers-on, groupies and half the talks have nothing to do with hacking. This becomes radically obvious when you look at the material from the first DEFCON talks. It didn't suddenly die, there has been a slow deterioration over time, it's not just me, lots of other people have noticed the same thing, lots of good people just don't go anymore because of it, it's a goddamn waste of time.I mean just look at the Chaos Computer Club, which is DEFCON's counterpart in Europe. Sterling quality work all the time from the Germans, it is a startling contrast. American conferences used to be like this, BUT VERY CLEARLY the Federal government has decided some secret bullshit program of constant surveillance and infiltration on an epic scale because they have nothing better to do. The CCC people know, know in their bones that the government can be lethal to a community thanks to their fairly fucked up history, but some Americans have yet to receive the memo. The Federal Government will use you and abuse you for their own diabolical ends and that is all. CCC has always been more politically astute.I say there's a direct connection between the acceptance of LE at the conference and the corresponding rise in irrelevant bullshit and whiteknight faggotry. Who the fuck wants to reveal their new ideas when it'll just bump you up the list of people to bully, culminating in LE agents busting into your house and then making you work for free or very little money due to bullshit charges that would probably never stand up in a jury trial. It's a fucking press-gang mentality that the DEFCON organizers and fellow travelers have essentially acquiesced to, pretending there's such a vast gulf between one hacker and another with their fucking "Hat Theories", or tribalism where a Chinese hacker is subversivebutwrong because American hackers are subversivebutright. I mean Jesus Christ.The Feds are not "frienemies". They are the enemy full stop. The worse thing another hacker will do to you is nothing in comparison to the way the Feds whittle away our community, with Aaron Swartz and Weev being the most recent perverse examples. There is nothing remotely cool about hanging out with agents who work for the State. I'd prefer to hang out with the local Bingo club, they're cooler than that. I fucking loathed Sabu long before it was revealed he was working for the FBI and I wouldn't even turn him in. Whingeing car part stealing left wing welfare enabled little cunt. Still superior to the morons who take our tax dollars, throw us into cages and act with a overweening grandiose sense of superiority. It feels like watching a nature documentary on those penguins sitting on an ice ledge, nudging each other so one of the penguins falls into the water and gets done in by the leopard seals while the rest of them fuck off. Actually come to think of it the penguins are even more ethical than these fucks because they don't go to fucking Leopard Seal Station and write down all the addresses of the other penguins that fell into the water five years back. Hackers need more backbone. Not all of course, but there is definitely a large % who are willing to rationalize any kind of behavior and have no code.At the next DEFCON, you meet a Fed, you say: FUCK YOU./rantover