SlashGear Japan
A lot, especially since being outed as the press’ mole in the hacker-only conference DefCon. Her measly goal was to sneak in as a programmer and catch hackers admitting to illegal activity.
What happened is quite a hilarious story, but first its key to note that trying to trick a group of people with more connections than the alphabet boys (CIA, DEA, NSA, you get the hint) is a bad idea. From there it just kind of goes downhill, basically someone tipped off the people inside the conference and they decided to play a little game.
They brought a bunch of people from the conference in to play a little game of “Spot the Fed” only upon arrival, while Ms. Maddigan was there, they changed the game to “Spot the Undercover Reporter” which caused the reporter bolt out of the room. If I were her I would just disconnect myself from the world and move into the side of a hill because doing anything connected to the digital world right now would probably be a very bad idea.
NBC’s DefCon Mole Outed, Stalked by Hackers and Press [via Gizmodo]
23 Responses to “How much does it suck to be Michelle Madigan?”
jacob August 4, 2007
Michelle should be ashamed of herself. She really crosses the line in term of journalistic integrity. People like her should not be given a job at all and NBC should really look into this. I’m not saying she should be fired, but she should be held responsible for all this idiotic stunt.
Michelle, read the rules! DefCon like any other conventions, have its own rule and show some respect if you want to be respected. Being press does not means you are above the law and rules.
+6burnttoy August 5, 2007
G…G..G.G.G.G.G.G.GIRL!
-6Alien August 5, 2007
NBC = [Nothing But Cranks], hahahaha. It wasn’t that long ago they tried to make news with their inept dateline cranks at a NASCAR race. Dressed up in clownish Arab clothing they were expecting to be beat up by the bubba beer drinking crowds, but where given VIP treatment and free beer good old southern hospitality. These clueless hacks live in a disconnceted realm of their own making and haven’t an ink blotters chance in hell of ever knowing the difference. NBC has lost its direction instead of reporting NEWS they have tried to make NEWS hahahaha the fools are at the bottom of the slim pit and thats NEWS, fodder for the rest of the media. Keep up the bafoonery NBC we need to see the slimepit of reporting brought out into the open more often. You have become the rag of journalism and your rag is so filthy you can’t wipe yourself clean.
+6James Allan Brady August 5, 2007
it just makes me giddy to realize, and fully comprehend how big of a mistake Ms. Madigan and NBC just made.
what they did would be the digital equivalent of trying to sit in on a CIA conference.
i hope they pay a similar price too
i don’t readily have a position on whether Black Hat hacking is a good or a bad thing, but i am definitely OK with whatever they choose to do to both Michelle and NBC
NeutralJustAnotherHacker August 5, 2007
Because of this b**** I didn’t get my funky LED badge!!! Damn NBC, go to hell and send me tha badge!!!
+1Old School August 6, 2007
Thats what she gets , to many posers at defcon nowadays anyhow.
HOPE
Neutralhttp://www.hope.net
Vegas Local August 6, 2007
I attended the conference and work in IS Security.
It is not a world of criminal hackers seeking to steal and detroy your information. Quite the contrary, these conferences share information from some of the greatest minds (called hackers) who work in finding vulnerabilities to systems and software that companies refuse to admit to. Some of the vulnerabilities highlighted at Defcon this year were fixed right before the conference and only because the company was told their vulnerability would be discussed. Otherwise it would still be a problem.
If it were not for Defcon and “hackers” many companies would never fix the problems that leave our information vulnerable. Defcon is a place where federal agents, security professionals, hackers and open press gather and share information in order to try and force more security from companies trying to brush their problems under the table. Call it the Switzerland of such a world. Too bad politicians cant learn from this.
It is sad that Dateline NBC thought only to try and make the conference into a seedy gathering of criminals. their producer would have been welcome in any gathering had she just come in openly like everyone else.
+9jada August 6, 2007
Dumb, dumb, dumb. First of all, what Michelle did was wrong all the way around but more so than that, she messed with folks who can basically ruin her life with 3.5 keystrokes. I can’t imagine this sort of arrogance justifying her decision to pass on the pass. Stupid girl. Stupid network.
On another note, OF COURSE there are federal agents there. How else would they have any idea what’s going on? Finally, the media is getting a little taste of their own medicine and it serves them right.
+2Dan Dasson August 6, 2007
I heard her next project was to secretly record catholics in confessionals and people at AA meetings. What a creep.
+1Jack August 7, 2007
What a low life… I hope she never works as a journalist again.
+2Breaking the rules to try to get others to admit they broke the rules/laws?
What a perverted idea of journalism… shame…. shame on you Michelle Madigan.
Sunny August 7, 2007
Hugs DefCon! You rule!
+1Peter August 8, 2007
Who cares. She’s only making Defcon interesting.
Defcon is a bunch of elitists who have much more arrogance, much less ethical, and much less respect for general humanity.
Defcon proves it’s almost a cult. Out on a witch hunt, looking at only each other for support. I’m surprised they didn’t chase her with pitchforks and torches back to the evil tower of managed media.
-3Big D August 11, 2007
I don’t know, I’m not going to blame Madigan 100% here. She looks like she is fairly young with a somewhat crappy job that probably doesn’t pay all that well. I’ll go out on a limb and say that it wasn’t her idea to infiltrate Defcon, it was probably her douchbag boss that came up with the idea. She’s probably thinking ‘gee, I make $40,000 a year in this lousy job and if I want to keep it I had better do what they tell me’. If I’m going to point the finger at anyone it’s going to be the brass at Dateline. Madigan was probably just a pawn in this whole thing.
Still, that doesn’t get her off the hook. If my boss told me to do something as shitty as that I would would tell him to kiss my ass, but there was a point in my life when I was younger (and much more stupid) that I would have done something stupid to get ahead in my professional career.
So while I agree it’s a good idea to kick someone like this out of the conference, and I believe mocking her is justified, the people who we should really be directing our hate toward are the network execs. This whole thing is systemic of a larger problem. The other lesson to be learned to to never try to trick a trixter. What an idiot.
-1Stormwater August 12, 2007
I hate that NBC is lumping in hackers w/ pederasts.
NeutralMark August 12, 2007
Jacob, you seem to think she’s a rogue reporter that would never have been permitted to do such a thing if only NBC had known what she was up to.
I may be a little more cynical in my take on the situation. She IS NBC. She embodies the corporation and it’s policies. She’s an associate producer not a misguided cub reporter !
She will probably be publicly reprimanded, but privately celebrated because she’s a reporter and they know better than us and their shit don’t stink.
Mark
NeutralRye August 13, 2007
I was stunned to learn that Michelle actually told someone she was secretly video taping. When the defcon person told her it wasn’t allowed, she was like “oh, its ok” So naturally, the staffer then told the organizers, who busted her.
Um, Michelle, next time you are doing an undercover story…don’t tell anyone. That’s what “undercover” means in your title “undercover reporter”. Even if you didn’t tell anyone, they make cameras so small that its easy to record someone and they not even know. Your camera was not clandestine enough. I can’t believe you still have a job.
NeutralRick Cain August 18, 2008
Defcon people need to lighten up. Undercover reporting is a valuable tool in a journalists arsenal and they’ve exposed thieves, pedophiles, massive theft of public money, and even solved major crimes using undercover reporters.
What does defcon have to hide? Probably not much, but hey if she was a good undercover reporter she wouldn’t have been caught.
1st mistake was that she’s too pretty to be a programmer. That much is obvious. A pretty woman at a nerd convention has a hard time blending in.
NeutralAny October 14, 2008
Oh, come on. That *was* DEFCON being “light”. There’s nothing there to hide, so why does she have to? She was offered a press badge four times, and still was too idiotic to take it. Nobody there has any trouble with the press- there’s tons of reporters there every year-, but they do have a problem with being lied to. The Internet/computer/hacking community is an open bunch. Besides, she was just going to blow it all out of proportion and make yet another NBC scare story about the evilness of the evil evil hackers at DEFCON that are evilly trying to take over the world or something.
And yeah, she didn’t look anything like a programmer. It’s not impossible to be pretty and a programmer, but the clothes were totally not computer programmer. They were “I’m someone trying to blend in here and failing miserably.”
Neutral