U.S. government hiring more hackers

At a hackers conference in Las Vegas with the spoofed name of Defcon, the Assistant Secretary of Defense Linton Wells made a pitch to attendees; "If you want to work on cutting-edge problems, if you want to be part of the truly great issues of our time ... we invite you to work with us."

Technology commentator Richard Thieme said that there are many Feds attending undercover; "You can't be deceived by the uniforms. I talked at the Pentagon, and one-third of the people in the audience I already knew from Defcon." Attendees who "out" the undercover ops are awarded free "T" shirts.

A "Meet the Feds" panel was attended by a man who demanded, "I would like to know why the federal government, especially some of the law enforcement agencies, are destroying this country."

Pentagon people would not comment on the rumours that they are looking for people to attack "foreign" networks. "I'm learning while I'm here but I'm also getting the names of people." said Don Blumenthal of the Federal Trade Commission.

The Feds arrested a Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov at the annual 2001 Defcon conference. The gathering is attended by computer security experts, hackers and crackers of all types who celebrate the cutting edge of the technology.