Every year there is a strange meeting of two worlds (maybe two sides of the same world) in Las Vegas; cyber-security conferences Defcon, and Black Hat. Both cater to the same demographic of tech-savvy internet nerds, but one is a tradeshow for corporate and government cyber-security professionals and the other a tradeshow for anti-sec pranksters and hacktivists...same week...same city...same block. To see these two communities juxtaposed to one another is to understand a little about the internet culture; at once open and anonymous (no pun intended) but constantly under the pressure of greater regulation.

     According to Venture Beat's blog, DevBeat, DefCon is a conference that initially started as a simple meet and greet between American hacker Jeff Moss (aka Dark Tangent) and some Canadian hacker acquaintances, it has ballooned in the last 19 years to include almost 10,000 vendors and attendees swilling beer and heckling speakers that provide everything fro comedy to hacking tips and trade secrets. DefCon, named for the Cold War nuclear war rating "defense condition", has seen an uptick in relevance with the global presence of hacktivist groups like Anonymous and LulzSec. Another sign that DefCon is becoming an more relevant entity in the real-world side of cyberspace? Last year, a CNN reporter tried to sneak into DefCon to take some undercover footage of hackers trading secrets. This year, the New York Times, CNN, Reuters, the Financial Times, the Associated Press, and other big news networks were in attendance. The conference even upgraded this year from the more economical Riviera to the larger Rio Hotel.

      Black Hat is the professional side of the internet and as a result is a much more serious and corporate affair. Held at the high-rolling Caesar's Palace, and is attended by major cyber-security icons like McAfee executives, federal cyber-security officials, and counter-terrorism professionals. In fact, Joseph "Cofer" Black, the counter-terrorism expert that anticipated the 9/11 attacks, warned that government and corporate officials should prepare for a cyber-war. Of course, a prankster of the DefCon affiliation pulled the fire alarm during his speech and Black closed to the sound alarm bells.

     Whereas Black Hat's attendees were often button-down serious corporate types, DefCon attendees and speakers tended to obscure their identities with anything from ninja masks to Guy Fawkes masks, the signature of hacktivist group Anonymous. The entrance fee was even cash-only, avoiding any the ability to trace credit cards to attendee's names. This is most likely an occupational hazard of attending, as the place was crawling with undercover federal agents. Of course, hacktivist groups like Anonymous and LulzSec were major topics of conversation and debate, but support of their cyber-vigilantism was largely accepted by the DefCon community. Meanwhile, messages of militant cyber security and impending doom abounded among the community attending the Black Hat convention.

     Occasionally the two cultures met and clashed, as in the unveiling of a years-long cyber espionage campaign by an unknown (presumably Chinese) cyber threat by internet security giant McAfee. The corporation named the campaign Operation Shady RAT, and was met by some erratic cheers from DefCon attendees that had crashed the opposing conference. What's more interesting is how the two cultures occasionally meshed, as in the hacker panel at Black Hat, where known hackers offered strategies and proof of hacks to observing cyber-security types. Often, as in the case of the famous Barnaby Jack, hackers that are successful enough at their trade are hired by security companies like McAfee. Jack successfully hacked an ATM and was hired by McAfee to help design hack-proof machines.

     Whether you're the hacker, the anti-hacker, an enthusiast, or a wannabe; every corner of the cyber-security industry descended on Las Vegas. Of course, if Black's warnings of a coming cyber-war are true, I don't envision these two communities existing so (relatively) peacefully for much longer.