Forbes Offers a Sympathetic Portrayal of Hackers

selain03 sends us to Forbes for a surprisingly tolerant article on the recent Defcon. The reporter spoke to several of the event organizers and faithfully conveyed their characterization of the community as motivated by curiosity about technology. The article quotes a Department of Defense cybercrime guy: "Run-of-the-mill individual hackers are just noise as we try to focus on the real problem. We have to investigate every threat, but we're often dealing with ankle biters." A refreshing perspective to read in the mainstream media.

The truth behind this article...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the Defcon guys thought it would be hilarious to hack a major media outlet and place a sympathetic story about themselves on it. Mission accomplished!

Not Daniel Lyrons

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

A Forbes article that isn't hyper-sensationalist and pro-status-quo?
What, was Daniel Lyons too busy impersonating Steve Jobs to do the piece?

Re:"Middle America, Meet The Hackers!"

[syousef]

Because that doesn't sound like a sitcom or anything...

You're forgetting pwn-ography never makes it to mainstream tele.

Why forbes.com?

[Dr. Cody]

But, of all the places, why Forbes? Couldn't they have picked some respectable outlet?

Maybe Forbes was the only site they had any luck with, since, having alienated techies so thoroughly, they couldn't hire a competent webadmin.

Re:"ankle biters"?

[iamdrscience]

I understand your point, but c'mon, can you honestly tell me that if there were a fire convention, you wouldn't go? It sounds pretty awesome to me.

Re:Why forbes.com?

[Propagandhi]

Nah, Forbes is just so single minded it's super easy to guess their passwords (it's money, by the by... always money).