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Hackers: NBC Shock Piece Backfires

by gmony714 | August 7, 2007 at 07:21 am

1114 views | 24 Recommendations | 6 comments

As i reported over the weekend NBC is full of unqualified young producers just like the one outed by Defcon Members. It shows everyday on the MSNBC Live format. They pick the daily themes and book experts who agree with the theme and rotate it all day. They seem lazy and unimformed.

According to Senior DEFCON official “Priest” who works for the Government in his day job, Madigan declined press credentials on four separate occasions (twice on phone and twice at DEFCON). Madigan proceeded to register as a regular DEFCON attendee and even told a DEFCON staffer that she was going to the bathroom to get her hidden camera ready. When a DEFCON goon (staffer) explained to Madigan that secret video taping wasn’t allowed, Madigan not knowing she was speaking to a goon replied that she didn’t think it wasn’t a problem. The staffer then followed Madigan around and watched her as she panned her hidden camera around the entire “Capture the flag” room to get unauthorized video of the members.

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Morbus Iff

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:08 on August 7th, 2007

Nice!

Actual News Geezer

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:28 on August 7th, 2007

gmony714,this is a fantastic story - do you know if there is any video of the incident?

I am flagging this as Good Stuff, but I do dispute your contention that NBC is filled with " unqualified young producers". From the account at blogs.zdnet.com I couldn't find anything about the exploit of reporter Michelle Madigan that would lead you to that conclusion. It sounded like a legitimate story to me that deserved checking out. If real black hat hackers had infiltrated DEFCON, that's something to explore. Bringing in a hidden camera may not exactly be the right tool to "out" the bad guys - but the young woman certainly had some spunk. And she did show some real nouse to get out before she was tarred and feathered.

Still, a very interesting story.

Morbus Iff

at 08:46 on August 7th, 2007

ANG - aye, the source story has a video of it, shot by an attendee.

gmony714

at 08:52 on August 7th, 2007

there is a video in my first story. The networks have stacked the studios with inexpierienced producers and it shows in the template of the broadcasts. if you watch MSNBC you will see the same theme with so called experts on rotation all day. i monitor it. thanks for the flag

Actual News Geezer

at 11:59 on August 7th, 2007

have you attempted to crowd-source this story? I don't know if you have a flickr accout, but there are TONs of photos from Defcon. If you're interested in how this works I'd be happy to show you how.

Susan Jones

at 18:22 on August 7th, 2007

I still don't see the big deal here. So what? A kid hid a camera and shot film. Investigative reporting?, maybe not the best way to go about it, who am I to judge be it those who were attending the conference in question here or this girl. My nose is smelling a different motive why not spill it?