Day 4 Predictions

Amanda: I am very interested to hear Chuck's take on the relationship between the government, large corporations like Microsoft, and the defcon-attending hacker community (like the L0pht group mentioned in the Wired article). Is the government receptive to both groups? I imagine the relationship specifically between the hacker community and the government can become tense because the interests of both groups is not exactly aligned and is sometimes conflicting. Have they been able to successfully work together around a common threat like cybersecurity? While I imagine the government often tries to recruit from the hacker community, and I'm interested to hear where they draw the lines legally as far as subversive behavior within the hacker community (ie do they bend the rules for the sake of potential advances in cybersecurity?).

Of course there are great advances yet to be made in the relationship between white-hat hackers and corporations like Microsoft. Skepticism abounds from both sides for obvious reasons, as well as entrenched interests and preconceptions based on past interactions ("Hackers are simply criminals", or on the other side "Microsoft is The Man").

Hector: Some of Chuck's points from his remarks on Tuesday that stuck with me most were the strengthening of internet identification and alternative networks that use something else than TCP. I hope that he elaborates on the possible applications of the latter.