I was there. It was really weird. The people doing the inspections didn’t even know what they were looking for. What, a USB drive? It was clear to me that they had a very basic, normal persons understanding of technology.
This was mainly motivated by the MGM hacks so they could show that they were doing something in case they got hacked later for liability.
“Resorts World Las Vegas is dedicated at all times to ensuring a safe, secure, and comfortable environment for all of our valued guests,” the statement begins.
Resorts World said the latest policy was established “in light of recent events in Las Vegas, and the increasing ransomware threats to casinos and hotels on the Strip,”
Hard to see this absurd invasion of privacy as being for anything but that last bit. Hope this results in significantly fewer guests, but it feels like the vote-with-your-wallet part of capitalism stopped working some time ago.
Them: “Cool. I’m just a hotel employee, and I only have understanding of computers at an end-user level. Plus, I see you’re not wearing a hoodie and sunglasses while being hunched over a laptop. Have a nice day and enjoy your stay at the Hilton!”
All hotels reserve the right to inspect your room whenever they need to. The privacy sign just means you don’t want room service, it’s not some magical lock.
They’d still knock, not just burst into your room to catch you in flagrante.
That said seeing the black hat conference in this way is daft.
That's kind of silly honestly. I can see where they are coming from but the people at the conference are the good guys. If I were them I would get some of those security professionals to give suggestions on how to have better security. Also random room checks aren't going to catch anything. Anyone who wants to cause harm isn't going have such bad opsec. You will end up catching people with legitimate and highly dangerous stuff like routers, network switches and vacuum cleaners
Just FYI, you need very little skill to clone the WiFi access gateway of a hotel WiFi, and then blast their SSID from your router, to lure close guests into your honeypot. Once people are on your malicious gateway, the fun starts.
In a hotel with hundreds of hackers on alcohol, it's not unlikely for people to fuck around.
There is also no requirement to be a "good guy" to attend the conference.