A hacker by the name of Steven Rambam has been arrested by the FBI before he could take part in a panel discussion at the HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference in NYC last week. He was due to take part in a session entitled "Privacy is Dead... Get Over It" when he was arrested.
He is alleged to have impersonated a federal officer while trying to locate a government informant as part of a 2003 money-laundering indictment of a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney, and is also charged with one count of influencing a law enforcement officer or jury member. He is due to appear in court on Monday.
According to the Washington Post's "Security Fix" blog, "Rambam's fellow panelists said four men clad in dark blue FBI jackets quietly entered the auditorium, asked Rambam if he had any weapons on him, and then escorted him out the door along with laptop and other equipment that contained the PowerPoint slides that were to make up the bulk of his scheduled two-hour presentation."
Its quite a shame that Rambam's talk was missed - he was due to explain in detail how he spent just four-and-one-half hours to discover more than 500 pages worth of personal data on HOPE attendee Rick Dakan.