Jeffrey Epstein spent years building ties to well-known hackers

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for years communicated with experts in the cybersecurity community and expressed interest in attending two of the largest hacker conventions in the world, according to documents released by the Justice Department.

It’s unclear if Epstein ever attended either DEFCON or Black Hat, where thousands of hackers and researchers gather annually in Las Vegas to discuss the latest cyber vulnerabilities and trends. According to his emails with several prominent researchers and business people, his interest in cybersecurity and cryptography appeared to be widespread, ranging from discussions about removing information about himself from online search engines to network security.

Jeff Moss, founder of both the Black Hat and DEFCON conferences, told POLITICO in a statement that it’s unlikely Epstein actually made it to the conferences. “As far as we can tell, he wanted to attend, but never did,” Moss said of Epstein. “It looks like there were a lot of plans and I’m just waiting for some sort of evidence that he followed through on them.”

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