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Microsoft's Blue Hat Conference

Posted by samzenpus on Wed May 07, 2008 06:00 PM
from the protect-the-collective dept.
Security Microsoft
SecureThroughObscure writes "ZDNet Zero-Day security blogger Nate McFeters got an exclusive look at the Microsoft Blue Hat conference. This is an invite-only conference that few media get to attend, but apparently McFeters was brought in with co-worker Rob Carter to talk about some vulnerabilities they had discovered with a few product security teams in attendence, and was also asked to do a guest blog posting about the conference at the Microsoft Blue Hat blog. McFeters also included several pictures of the conference and after conference events."
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Submission: Exclusive: Blogger Covers Microsoft Blue Hat v7 by SecureThroughObscure (1282782)
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Microsoft's Blue Hat Conference 50 Comments More /

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  • Microsoft + blue... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ChenLiWay (260829) on Wednesday May 07 2008, @06:03PM (#23331238)
    hmm... nope, can't think of a joke.

  • But... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Samah (729132) on Wednesday May 07 2008, @06:07PM (#23331280)
    Is this specifically a dig at Red Hat?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'd say so, given the recent "Source Fource" and "Open Office XML" names... I wonder up to what extent the dreaded copyright law can be applied here. It'd be interesting to find out, but if OpenOffice is really a registered trademark, then OpenOffice.org might be in trouble if they decide to judge against Microsoft on that hypothetical case.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It's a take off of the Black Hat security conference, which is a vendor neutral. The terms Black hat and White hat are commonly used to describe the intent of security researchers who are either malicious (Black hat) or ethical (White hat).

      • Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Alex Belits (437) * on Wednesday May 07 2008, @06:49PM (#23331656) Homepage
        No, this is purely to create confusion. They always mess with unrelated terms to gain perception of familiarity in users -- meaningless slogan "Digital Nervous System" mimicked DNS acronym, ".NET" imitates a top-level domain, etc.

        • Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Chokolad (35911) on Wednesday May 07 2008, @07:22PM (#23331884)
          What users are you talking about? This is conference internal to Microsoft, with speakers invited (mostly) from Black Hat conference. It is limited to full-time employees ("blue badges") hence - BlueHat.
        • Black.Hat, White.Hat, Red.Hat, Blue.Hat, Open Office, Office.Open, Mind.Share .. or do I mean Brain.Share .... I'm confused .... :) Someone recently asked me to show him the 'Microsoft Internet', he meant 'Interent Explorer' ... aaahhhh !!!
    • Think Source Force, Office Open XML
      • Hm, suddenly I think of Best Buy's geek squad and shudder. I bet that's where these blue hat guys are being hired from, knowing Microsoft.
    • No, it's a riff on (a) Black Hat, the industry's leading vulnerability research conference, (b) Black Hat, the term of art for people who break software, and (c) Blue Badges, the slang internal term for MSFT full-timers.

  • Wow (Score:4, Funny)

    by jflo (1151079) on Wednesday May 07 2008, @06:12PM (#23331322)
    This is worst than the third time Janeway took the borg head on by becomming a drone... probable but highly unlikely. One would think that a company that boasts itself in the media as much as Microsoft does for being an open book enterprise, that one of their Vulcans would give them a more logical approach. Think about it...

  • At least they don't clash (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 07 2008, @06:55PM (#23331698)
    The Blue Hats match the blue screens you see.

    • You lie! Windows NEVER blue screens by default any more...

      ...

      ...wait for it...

      ...

      ...because XP and newer now automatically restart [rbemrose.com] by default where they used to blue screen.

      • However, you can bring back those thrilling days of yesteryear with this screen saver [microsoft.com].

        • I already have that one. :)

          Besides, all I have to do to is uncheck that box in my last screenshot, then with the latest ATI Catalyst drivers, play a WMV file in Media Player Classic and attempt to fast forward. Instant Blue Screen on my PC!

  • More Hats? (Score:4, Funny)

    by PC and Sony Fanboy (1248258) on Wednesday May 07 2008, @07:13PM (#23331814) Journal
    Look, I was happy with black hat / white hat. Grey hat was pushing it... what is next, the zebra pimp hat conference?

  • i know what it is (Score:4, Funny)

    by FudRucker (866063) on Wednesday May 07 2008, @07:40PM (#23332064)
    accessories for the bsod...

  • Wrong title (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nonillion (266505) on Wednesday May 07 2008, @07:54PM (#23332184)
    Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death Hat Conference

    There, fixed it for you...
    • Ahahahhahaa Man, you guys are extra hilarious tonight.
    • Troll!? What? It's funny.

      Out of all the stretches for a joke I've seen in this thread this comment was the best so far. There's a well-known association between Microsoft and the dreaded BSOD, especially in Slashdot context. Seems like a fair pun to me.

      I think you're confusing 'uncomplimentary' with 'Troll'.
  • Hold a conference for only its security people? I mean, it sure looks like employees outnumber the actual guests there, and I suspect the guests are Microsoft contractors or employees of Microsoft Gold Partners that were forced to go by their boss. People actually WANT to attend Black Hat.
    • > I mean, it sure looks like employees outnumber the actual guests there, and I suspect the guests are Microsoft contractors or employees of Microsoft Gold Partners that were forced to go by their boss.

      There are no "actual guests" here. It is strictly MS full-time employee only. Nobody forces anyone to attend.
  • I loved the photo of the mac laptop sitting on the Microsoft podium.

  • Why he was invited (Score:3, Informative)

    by Molesworth (61883) on Thursday May 08 2008, @12:32AM (#23334112)
    The summary says "McFeters was brought in with co-worker Rob Carter to talk about some vulnerabilities they had discovered with a few product security teams in attendence" - that makes it sounds like Nate and Rob found vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. If you actually read the guest blog entry, it says:
    "Microsoft had Rob Carter [...] and I come in to discuss some recent vulnerabilities that we've discovered with a few third-party vendors with whom Microsoft has tight relationships"

    Probably this is referring to Adobe - Nate and Rob have previously reported [blogspot.com] vulns to them and had them patched.

  • I felt... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cow Jones (615566) on Thursday May 08 2008, @01:23AM (#23334370)
    I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if a conference of blue-hats suddenly cried out:

    "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."

  • Blue hats (Score:3, Funny)

    by thetoadwarrior (1268702) on Thursday May 08 2008, @04:19AM (#23335082) Homepage
    For some reason I was hoping this was about some Smurf fetish gathering.
  • Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers.
  • My first impression of the headline was: "Why the hell would Microsoft do a Fedora conference?"
  • 15 people in a carpeted room doesn't really constitute a conference.

    Looks cheap and cheezy ;-) with the obligitory projector, and booze.

    What can that small number of people actually accomplish for
    and OS that has hundreds of millions of installations around
    the world.

    Appears to be just an excuse for a hand selected crew to get
    drunk, and then post blurry photos of their quieter moments.

    Was there any "chair throwing" going on?
  • Why is it that every time I look through pictures for a Microsoft event, I can find a picture of someone toting a Mac?
  • "Alex .. discussed the need for more transparency from vendors on the standards that the browsers depend upon"

    Well, doh .. we all know the reason for that and keeping the conference closed is hardly the way to go about being transparency.

    "Billy and Nitesh .. discovered that phishing was just one means of supply to fill the demand for identities in the identity theft ecosystem""

    Make an email transport system that don't suffer from phishing and identity theft attacks."

    "Manuel Caballero discussed
  • unbelievable crap from the assholes in redmond
  • I get the impression based upon all the stories posted by SecureThroughObscure that it is either Nate or someone pimping Nate strongly...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dhavleak (912889)

      An invite-only confrence where they test how well their product does?

      No testing happens at Blue Hat. The idea is from MS to have the best from Black Hat speak to it's own people - an idea interchange. It's MS-internal because MS wants its employees to get exposure to this information, and so that MS employees can discuss specifics (with the invitees) that are relevant to them.

      You'll get skewered data that we all know their going to use to bash Linux and support Windows

      This site does not rely on data (skewed or otherwise) to put MS on the proverbial skewer. For an very recent example, look at the thread earlier today [slashdot.org] (where one journalist theorizes that MS may a

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