[Infowarrior] - USG may deny visas for BH/DC attendees from China

[Richard Forno]

US considers denying visas to Chinese hackers to attend conferences

	• Reuters in Denver
	
US officials are considering using visa restrictions to prevent Chinese hackers from attending popular summer hacker conferences in Las Vegas, as part of a broad effort to curb Chinese cyber espionage, a senior administration official said on Saturday.

The official said the US government could use such visa restrictions and other measures to keep Chinese nationals from attending the Def Con and Black Hat conferences in August, to help maintain pressure on China after the US this week charged five Chinese military officers with hacking into US nuclear, metal and solar companies to steal trade secrets.

China has denied the charges, saying the US grand jury indictment was "made up" and would damage trust between the two nations.

Organisers of the two conferences said they knew nothing about the efforts under consideration by Washington, but that they believed limiting participation from China was a bad idea.

Jeff Moss, founder of both the Def Con and Black Hat conferences, posted his thoughts on Twitter late on Saturday morning: "First I have heard of it, boarding flight to DC now. I don't think it helps build positive community. More later."

Chris Wysopal, a member of the Black Hat board that reviews presentations, said restricting access to that conference would have little impact because all talks are videotaped and sold.

"It seems symbolic to me," said Wysopal, who is chief technology officer of the software security firm Veracode.

Black Hat's website lists several speakers who may be Chinese nationals. An employee of the Chinese security software maker Qihoo 360 is due to present a technical talk on vulnerabilities in font scalers. Two researchers with the Chinese University of Hong Kong are scheduled to talk about a new approach for hacking social networks.

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http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/24/us-visas-chinese-hackers-conferences

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