[FickleRaptor]

I was walking through resortsworld when a security guard started walking next to us. After about 50 feet, he demanded our ID, informed us we were on private property, and threatened to have us arrested for trespassing, all in the same sentence. The issue was that my colleague was one of the amateur radio VE for the ham radio village and happened to have his handheld with him. The guard was aggressive, entitled, and arrogant.

Yesterday, I poked another friend to see where they were at the conference. They were not at the conference. They were stuck at resorts world three hours after the conference had started. Their conference badges had been confiscated by security. The security team had tried to force them to throw them in the garbage, and for a while it appeared that security had thrown them away after they had confiscated them. It’s literally just a fancy gameboy!

This isn’t a safety issue, it’s deliberate, malicious abuse by a vendor who knowingly sold a discounted room block to defcon conference attendees and then, through persistent and abusive behavior, tried to force those customers to leave once they checked in. The issue was mentioned early in closing ceremonies as something that will be addressed with the vendor once all conference attendees have been checked out of the hotels. This wasn’t random room check for caches of weapons. It was not a safety search. It was luggage contents searches for the lulz, seemingly intended as harassment. Either they didn’t want us there in the first place, or they wanted the revenue for the rooms forfeited. This was not behavior in good faith and the specific acts that I witnessed personally and others whom I trust communicated to me that they had experienced directly, could only be intended as harassment or profoundly extreme incompetence.

For 20 years, I’ve stayed almost exclusively at Hilton properties when I travel, with the exception of Vegas for HSC. I’m almost certain to switch to another company after this, unless they issue a really, really, excellent apology.

Quit your BS excuses about how this was a legitimate safety issue. This was almost entirely limited to one hotel. Somehow another 10+ major hotels, including Caesars who non-renewed the conference contract, managed to not do any of this.

Edited for spleling.

[cameronsr]

For instances where security gets that egregious, you may want to consider not just complaining to the hotel. Especially where people have an incident well documented, it may be worth filing a complaint with the state licensing agency. In Nevada, private security personnel and agencies fall under jurisdiction of the Nevada Private Investigator's Licensing Board (PILB). As a heads up, their website is a bit of a kludge to navigate through.

[josephg]

> Their conference badges had been confiscated by security. The security team had tried to force them to throw them in the garbage, and for a while it appeared that security had thrown them away after they had confiscated them.

I'd consider calling the police in a situation like this. "Officer, these men stole my conference pass, which I paid ($$) for, and they won't give it back."

[cfcf14]

Police in large American cities are not likely to be of much assistance in this situation. Assuming they attend at all, I would expect them to not understand the nature of the issue and probably proceed to make it much worse.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

Then the cops will take some of your stuff, too

[Log_out_]

Annoying a bunch of black hats, there have to be easier ways to go out of buisness.

[mapmeld]

From other reports, it sounds like hotel security was trained about hackers carrying the Flipper Zero. Maybe they thought the badges were something like that?

[bugtodiffer]

If the Flipper is what you worry about at DEF CON, you really did not understand it.

[waihtis]

its hotel security though. they will not know what a flipper is apart from being a "hacking tool", and maybe they heard some other terms associated like "radio", "wifi", and whatever. They're just doing what they've been instructed to do to retain their job

[bugtodiffer]

yeah, their boss is the one I am mad at

[MichaelZuo]

The hotel general manger who probably spent less than 10 minutes thinking about how to differentiate ‘hacking tools’ from random electronics?

And that’s assuming they thought about it all, instead of just forwarding a vaguely remembered email.

[davidmurphy]

Time to email exec team

https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/hilton/

[synack]

They won’t change their behavior unless it affects the bottom line. Time to lobby your corp travel departments to blacklist Hilton properties.

[kmeisthax]

My understanding was that every hotel chain brand was basically a franchising operation. You'd probably want to look up the property owner and whoever was operating that specific hotel. They might own hotels of other brands which you'd want to boycott as well.

[mdhb]

The irony here is that they have undoubtedly undermined their overall security posture in a meaningful way here.

Imagine singling out a group of people who previously had no ill will towards you for targeted harassment and that this exact same group of people also had the capability to fuck with you in unpredictable ways without getting caught.

This is literally the most fundamental 101 intel / LEO thinking of: means, motive and opportunity.

If I were them I’d be doing my best to make up for this starting with some serious apologies and firing whoever came up with this idiotic idea.

[BonoboIO]

Unbelievable what the hotel is doing here, why would anyone stay there next time or in a hotel that is part of their company.