With Black Hat USA, which takes place July 30 to August 2 in Las Vegas, the organisers are offering two streaming services – free and paid-for – called Uplink.
As the name implies, Uplink will allow remote viewing of the Black Hat sessions. The free service will allow e-visitors to view two keynotes from the event, along with the 'Best of Black Hat' presentations from previous events, and attend sponsored online events plus download white papers.
The paid-for feature – Uplink Delegates – will provide access to a much wider range of keynote sessions, as well as most Black Hat sessions, on a streamed basis, at a cost of $595.00.
Defcon 19, which runs between August 4 and 7 in Las Vegas, meanwhile, will this year have a Defcon Kids subset taking place on August 6/7.
According to the event organisers, Defcon Kids is aimed at children – and teenagers – who are aged 8 to 16, and seeks to teach them white hat hacking skills.
Reporting on the plans, the Tech Examiner says that the under-16s will be taught a number of defensive computer techniques, such as how to keep from being hacked, phished or otherwise manipulated online.
"It's not a bad idea. Children are more vulnerable to phishing, which uses social engineering to convince people to give up their secure information willingly. While most youngsters won't have bank accounts or credit cards to be hacked, they can still have their Facebook and other accounts intruded upon", notes the newswire.
The newswire adds that Chris Hadnagy – whose book `Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking' was published late last year – has created a 'Social Engineering Capture the Flag' game for the under-16s event.
The game will include picking locks, reading body language and facial expressions, and deciphering clues. "Kids are great at it. This gives them a chance to grow into what we are now, the ones who keep companies secure", the newswire quotes Hadnagy as saying.