DefCon Hacker Conference to Feds: 'We Need Some Time Apart'

At last year's DefCon, the world's largest hacker conference, NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander showed up in blue jeans and a tucked-in T-shirt to give the keynote speech, asking hackers to join forces with the NSA

"We can protect the networks and have civil liberties and privacy, and you can help us get there,” he said

The hacker conference and the NSA were on such good terms last year that the spy agency even had a recruitment booth — next to that of the digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier FoundationWired's security reporter Kim Zetter went as far as describing the conference as "a lackey for the NSA."