LAS VEGAS — At the world’s largest hacker conference this week, some experienced a rare overtly partisan event: a fundraiser for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Thursday afternoon’s Hackers for Harris event at DEF CON’s convention center bar brought in more than $150,000 in pledged donations — a pittance compared to Harris, organizers said. final shotsbut it raised the largest political donation in the conference’s 31-year history.
The event, run by two former Biden administration cybersecurity officials, asked attendees to stand with the Democratic candidate and noted that he was part of a small organization. group of senators In 2018, he supported election cyber security researchers at the conference. Organizers asked participants to donate between $250 and $10,000. About 150 people participated in the exhibition.
Kemba Walden, who served as the Trump administration’s election cybersecurity commissioner before becoming President Joe Biden’s interim national cyber director, co-hosted the event with Jake Brown, his former deputy and longtime DEF CON organizer.
“When Biden signed national cyber security strategy and we came to DEF CON last year, we invited hackers to the White House,” Walden told NBC News. “I feel like the community would continue to be energized by a Biden-Harris administration dealing with them. The difference this year is that now that Harris is moving forward, they’re more interested in all of politics than they were before.
DEF CON previously held smaller fundraisers for two previous Democratic candidates: Hackers for Hillary A virtual conference for Biden in 2016 and 2020, the only years since 1993 when the conference was entirely virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic. Together, these fundraisers raised nearly $100,000. According to POLITICO.
Hackers’ enthusiasm for Harris contrasts with how a different tech sector, the cryptocurrency industry, has embraced former President Donald Trump. Trump last month retracted his earlier skepticism cryptocurrency and made a surprise speech at the world’s largest bitcoin conference, which took a sudden turn to the right and highlighted a number of prominent Republican politicians and conservative influencers.
While it’s common for many attendees at DEF CON and other hacker conferences to have extensive links to the left, cybersecurity officials often suffers from pain to present the field as unbiased. Chris Krebs, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the Trump administration, the top US defense cyber agency DEF CON mainstay in government.
But some actions taken by Republicans have alienated many in the hacker community. Some of Trump’s allies It grossly misrepresented the findings of DEF CON on election cyber security in his failed attempt to prove he actually won the 2020 election. Last year, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., introduced it failed fix to stop paying the salary of a relatively unknown career CISA election cybersecurity official. Project 2025It offers the cooperation of more than 100 conservation groups founded by the Heritage Foundation CISA as an agency.
Walden, the only black woman to hold a senior cyber leadership role in the White House, said she looks to Harris as an inspiration.
“When I saw that she was vice president — as a black woman and unapologetically — I thought to myself, I can do this,” she said.