Dead Addict
Dead Addict, a mainstay of DefCon, is one of the few hackers who has been with the conference from year one when he helped founder Jeff Moss organize the first gathering and secure the participation of Arizona Assistant Attorney General Gail Thackeray to speak to the hackers following her work on the notorious Operation Sun Devil case.
Dead Addict says that many of the hackers that gave DefCon its renegade reputation in earlier days have now grown up and, like himself, launched legitimate careers in security with big-name tech companies. But a lucrative day job leaves DefCon’s hackers to focus on what Dead Addict says is the original sense of hacking. He has worked for several companies - to include (but not limited to) Microsoft, Globeset, Visa, Ubizen, and Research in Motion. His real name was discovered by SX researchers via patents that he filed, in combination with him giving out that his first name was "Eli".
