Presented at
DEF CON 32 (2024),
Aug. 11, 2024, 11 a.m.
(45 minutes).
The Internet was supposed to give us access to the world's information, so that people, everywhere, would be able to know the truth. But that’s not how things worked out. Instead, we have a digital deception engine of global proportions. Nothing that comes through the screen can be trusted, and even the things that are technically true have been selected, massaged, and amplified in support of someone’s messaging strategy.
Deception isn’t just about narratives - we see deception at every layer of the network stack, from spoofed electromagnetic signatures, to false flags in malware, to phony personas used to access networks and spread influence. They hide in our blindspots, exploit our biases, and fill our egos while manipulating our perceptions.
How do we decide what is real? This talk examines time-tested maxims that teach the craft of effective deception, and then inverts those offensive principles to provide defensive strategies. We’ll explore ways to counter biases, triangulate information sources, detect narratives, and how hackers can build tools that can change the game.
At their best, hackers lift their heads up above the masses to see how the world actually works, not how it purports to work, and then take action to make the world a better place. You’ll leave this talk with practical skills to do just that.
Presenters:
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Greg Conti
- Principal at Kopidion
Greg Conti is a hacker, maker, and computer scientist. He is Principal at Kopidion, a cyber security training and professional services firm. Greg is a long-time Black Hat trainer where he co-created the Information Operations course. He will also be teaching a new course on Adversarial Thinking at DEF CON Training this year. Formerly he served on the West Point faculty for 16 years and has published approximately 100 articles and papers covering hacking, online privacy, usable security, cyber conflict, and security visualization. Greg is a graduate of West Point, Johns Hopkins, and Georgia Tech
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Tom Cross / Decius
- Principal at Kopidion
as Tom "Decius" Cross
Tom Cross (aka Decius) is a security researcher known for delivering late night rants at hacker cons. In the early 1990’s, he ran BBSs and listservs for the hacker community in the southeast US. He attended the first Defcon in 1993. He is a Principal at Kopidion, and creator of FeedSeer, a news reader for Mastodon. Past security industry roles include cofounder and CTO of Drawbridge Networks, Research Director at Lancope, and Manager of IBM X-Force Advanced Research. He has spoken at numerous conferences, including Black Hat, DEF CON, Phreaknic, HOPE, and B-Sides. He has a BSCMPE from Georgia Tech.
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