Defcon's hack proofing the hackers

This year the Defcon organizers employed a top-down "dispatch" model similar to the one a taxi cab company might use. The Defcon's organizational topology made a small change allowing the event to go off without a hitch to avoid bizarre hacker pranks ideas this year.

Instead of using a matrix-like communication structure that let everybody have access to everyone else, Each group had their own communications system, and only the dispatch had access to all of them. That way, all they had to do was secure one node in the organizational tree and allow dispatch to pass messages from one channel to the other.

In years past, all 200-plus Defcon staff members ranging from security to telecommunications specialists to storage guys used the same system to communicate across the conference. As a result, Defcon attendees who found their way onto the security network could prank the entire staff.

Defcon's structural tweak is a lesson for anyone looking to streamline mass-communications in a secure way and prevent unwanted incidents.

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