Speaker disinvites at CyberCon spark controversy

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3444596/speaker-disinvites-at-cybercon-spark-controversy.html

By J.M. Porup
Senior Writer
CSO
October 7, 2019

Controversy has erupted at CyberCon, Australia's largest cybersecurity 
conference, as two well-known cybersecurity experts have been disinvited from 
speaking with only a week's notice. The event organizer has said in an email to 
one of the speakers that they did so at the request of a partner.

That raises questions about whether the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), 
that country's counterpart to the NSA, pressured the conference to silence 
critical voices. The ASD and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), part 
of the ASD, are partners of the show organizer, the Australian Information 
Security Association (AISA). CyberCon opened October 7, in Melbourne, 
Australia.


NSA whistleblower Drake one of the speakers

One of the speakers is Thomas Drake, the NSA whistleblower whose ultimate 
firing contributed to Edward Snowden's decision to leak classified information 
about mass surveillance programs to journalists. He was set to speak on the 
national security state, encryption, and other topics. The other speaker, Dr. 
Suelette Dreyfus, a professor at the University of Melbourne, was due to 
deliver a talk on secure and anonymous digital drop boxes as an anti-corruption 
tool.

"I was invited as a speaker 11 months ago, and reconfirmed over the intervening 
time," Dr. Dreyfus tells CSO. " About a week before the event I was told I was 
disinvited as a speaker."

[...]



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