Cyberspooks Recruit the Enemy

Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as well as the Defense Department, are seeking to convince the perceived bad boys of the computer world (hackers) to join their ranks and fight for good.

Representatives from the National Security Agency, Defense and the FBI attended Defcon in Las Vegas, a three-day information security conference that ended Sunday, according to an article by Australia's The Age. (The conference may be an unlikely place for the feds to recruit given that the gathering raises money to support the Electronic Freedom Foundation to promote products and policies to tighten Internet privacy and keep out federal snoops. And you can find conference attendees with names like the conference's founder, Jeff "Dark Tangent" Moss.)

Tony Sager, a vulnerability analysis chief for NSA who delivered a talk at DefCon, said the agency hoped that by sharing information with the public it would convince hackers and other "computer wizards" to join them in combating cyber crimes.

How was Sager received? "I'm not sure I can convince them to trust me," he told The Age.