The famous DEFCON security conference got spicy these days with the infiltration of an NBC Dateline team, who was trying to catch on tape the “I did it” confessions of some of the attendees.

However, the hunter turned into the hunted when the security staff announced a contest called “spot the undercover reporter”, telling the audience that an undercover reporter was taking video to catch someone confessing to a hacking crime.

Immediately after that reporter Michelle Madigan (Associate Producer of NBC Dateline) left the room in a hurry, but followed by a retinue of more than 150 legal reporters and DEFCON attendees, who were all trying to get a glimpse or simply photograph the “perpetrator”.

Madigan was not only trying to obtain hidden-camera confessions, but also take a video of a federal agent who was scheduled for a speech.

“It just really isn’t cool to do that,” Priest, senior DEFCON staffer, said, adding that criminals or terrorists could recognize the agent if they were to travel overseas.

According to Priest, the DEFCON security team started tracking Michelle Madigan when she boarded her plane for Las Vegas from the east coast.  Other DEFCON officials said the convention offered Madigan official press credentials, but she insisted on secretly filming attendees, something that is against convention rules.

During the conference, for which Madigan had bought a regular attendee or Human badge, she was tailored by both male and female security personnel.

“We saw her go into the bathroom and wire herself up with a camera,” Priest, who works for the Government in his day job, said, adding that other security personnel or “Goons” saw her panning a hidden purse camera around the convention.  Apparently, Madigan even told the DEFCON staffer that she was going to the bathroom to get her hidden camera ready, and when she was told that it is against regulations she said she didn’t think it wasn’t a problem.

“It was painfully obvious,” another senior DEFCON staffer said.

When a DEFCON staffer chatted with Madigan posing as regular attendee, Madigan said that people in Kansas (reference to middle America) would be very interested in what was “really” going on in DEFCON.

Despite the fact that even after she was unmasked the DEFCON hosts offered to give her a legal press badge, Madigan turned down the offer and chose to run away to her car.

 “Unfortunately, she ran away before we could do that,” Priest lamented.