[throwaway1X2]

If it is a con, it is the longest long con you could ever invent.

1) Work hard, become a chief of anti-abuse team at Google.

2) Work harder, publish several papers ranging from self published papers about hacking Heartstone to multi-author papers at conferences like WWW.

3) Create a scam device, describe it in detail.

4) Go present it with you own face and name to the DEFCON.

5) Write a blogpost about the said non-existent device.

Rake in the 2000 USD (which is reeeeally big fat reward for all your effort, risk and credibility) wired to a stranger in China who isn't even identified in the blog... You win a prize.

[throwaway1X2]

PS: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Ayw4GsAAAAAJ

[a1a]

To be fair, if it was a con

1/2) Hijack identity of someone reputable

3) Create scam device

4) Film a video that looks like a DEFCON speech. Some simple video editing should fix the face. Voice likely doesn't matter. Start speech by saying "oh this talk is not listed, we changed topic last second"

5) Hack blog and post bogus article

6) Profit

TLDR still not likely