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Security Researcher Attacked While At Conference 666

New submitter fineous fingers writes "U.S. computer security researcher Georgia Weidman has revealed on her blog that a fellow speaker at the Confidence security conference in Krakow, Poland attempted to rape her. The attack occurred in her hotel room in the early morning hours of 28 May. Luckily, Georgia was able to fend her attacker off by clocking him in the head with a coffee mug. I was personally at this conference, but was staying at a different hotel and found out about it after the fact. It was Georgia herself that told me after she gave her fantastic talk on Leveraging Mobile Devices on Pentests. That she was able to give a flawless presentation later that day and had the courage to talk about the attack on her blog shows how awesome she really is."
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Security Researcher Attacked While At Conference

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  • by iluvcapra ( 782887 ) on Saturday June 22, 2013 @01:58PM (#44079783)

    Luckily, Georgia was able to fend her attacker off by clocking him in the head with a coffee mug.

    Let none denigrate the usefulness of humble convention swag again.

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Saturday June 22, 2013 @02:16PM (#44079911) Journal

    Luckily, Georgia was able to fend her attacker off by clocking him in the head with a coffee mug.

    See? Java skill will always come in handy for the code warriors in every unexpected situation.

  • His take. My take. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jimshatt ( 1002452 ) on Saturday June 22, 2013 @05:18PM (#44081049)
    His take is on his blog: http://blog.gont.com.ar/2013/06/lies-nuts-and-quest-for-attention.html [gont.com.ar]. Offering no insights on what happened (he's entitled to that stance).

    My take: He did go to her room. There was some sort of skirmish and both got wounded. The rest is unclear. BUT, if I were invited to someones room, and things started to get out of hand, with fighting and violence and whatnot in the air, I'd GET THE F OUT! Even if there's no attempted rape involved, you don't fight with a woman in her hotel room, even if it's just to avoid accusations. Okay, so that doesn't prove anything, I know, but you know, it is a little weird.
  • by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Saturday June 22, 2013 @06:36PM (#44081495)

    If you're going to accuse somebody of a criminal act, it's always a good idea to get their side of the story. http://blog.gont.com.ar/ [gont.com.ar]

    When she was contacted by the Consulate, I'm sure they informed her of this: [state.gov]

    If you decide to pursue your case through the Polish judicial system, the initial step is
    filing a police report. It is best to do this at the police station (komisariat policji) closest
    to where the incident occurred, although a police report can be filed at any police station.

    and

    In Poland, police stations are required to take your report regardless of your nationality or
    resident status. Police stations are also required to provide translators, although this can
    take some time to arrange; the U.S. Embassy does not provide translators. If, for any
    reason, you have difficulties filing your police report with a Polish official, please let us
    know immediately.

    Her blog states:

    The US Consulate was great though. It was a night and day difference between dealing with them and the Polish police. I’d recommend getting in touch with them to anyone who has an incident in a foreign country. While ultimately they aren’t able to force charges against him, having someone on my side was nice.

    So, was a police report filed? This seems pretty straight forward and that the Polish Police have to take a report. According to the blog they were "blah blah" So, according to the blog, no. If she had any discussion with a member of the US Consulate they would have had this discussion. If she felt so violated then why didn't she file a report? It's her right and the consulate would stand behind her. why? Also her comments "Blah blah" regarding the police and not being interested are contrary of the US government's position and own documents. Sorry, this looks like a he said/she said unless there's anything else that wants to put out there.

    Speaking of putting this out there, without anybody else coming forward with something, a picture a copy of a police report a criminal court proceeding, maybe Fernando her getting hauled away in cuffs perhaps? No? Why not? There's camera phones, there's other people involved who are still not being named, maybe they don't exist? I'd love to see the video, where is the video that everybody supposedly has seen? Wait, only her word?

    I'm sorry she got hurt, bruised... It sounds like she gave as good as she received though (bad choice of words?)

    Again, don't put this guy on trial without evidence and statements from witnesses. Also, who here thought DSK was guilty of assault on that maid in NYC from just the press reports? Was he ever on trail for it? No. He was acquitted.

    I'm going to now go get some popcorn and watch the twitterscape on this one. IMO, she's an intelligent person, well respected in her field and in terms of handling this episode, as traumatic as it sounds, she really didn't handle the situation well and now she's using the web to try her case. I haven't looked anywhere else but does anybody have something more than a twitter posting about this from somebody else that was there? How about some pictures.. I'm putting on my Don Henley music now. [youtube.com]

    • Her account is detailed, and there are images that show the respective injuries. What, you think she attacked him and he simply defended himself by punching her in the face? His account is what I would expect coming from an asshole who does things like this and expects to get away with it. Items missing from her room just happened to "magically appear" in his room after he denied taking them? Yeah.

      The Polish police do have a report, but they aren't doing anything about it. And given that they are both foreigners from different countries, it is unlikely they ever will do anything about it. Pretty typical actually if you have ever dealt with foreign authorities, even in first world countries.

      Her story is far more credible than his. His story sounds more like a sociopath. The circumstantial evidence appears to be in her favor.

      At the very least, hopefully other female tech experts attending conferences with this guy will be on their guard.

       

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