Hacking conference Def Con bans three people linked to Epstein

Def Con, one of the largest and longest-running hacking conferences in the world, announced on Wednesday that three people linked to Jeffrey Epstein are no longer allowed to attend.  

The conference justified adding Pablos Holman, Vincenzo Iozzo, and Joichi Ito to its public list of banned individuals, citing the three as appearing in the Department of Justice’s latest release of files related to its investigation of the late investor and convicted sex offender. Def Con also cited an article in Politico based on emails that the three exchanged with Epstein.

Joan Vollero, a spokesperson for Iozzo, told TechCrunch in a statement that Def Con’s actions are “entirely performative, given that Mr. Iozzo has barely attended the conference in the past twenty years.”

“It was a rush to judgment not based on any investigation or wrongdoing by Mr. Iozzo,” the spokesperson said.

Representatives for Def Con, Holman, and Ito did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. 

The move to ban the three comes days after TechCrunch reported that cybersecurity conferences Black Hat and Code Blue removed Iozzo from their official review board pages, amid new and emerging revelations linking the prominent hacker, among others, to Epstein.

Iozzo is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry who is currently the founder and chief executive of identity startup SlashID. He previously served as a director at CrowdStrike after the security giant acquired his cybersecurity startup IperLane in 2017. As TechCrunch previously reported, Iozzo interacted with Epstein between 2014 and 2018, including after the Miami Herald reported new allegations that Epstein had abused dozens of women and children.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting sex from girls and registered as a sex offender in New York and Florida. In 2019, the Department of Justice accused Epstein of trafficking, exploiting, and abusing dozens of underage girls. Epstein died in jail.

Iozzo previously told TechCrunch that his interactions with Epstein were “limited to business opportunities that never materialized, as well as discussion of the markets and emerging technologies,” and that he “never observed nor participated in any illegal activity or behavior.”

Prior to his startups, Iozzo was a research affiliate at MIT Media Lab, which was overseen by Ito at the time. The two appear in several Epstein emails together. 

Joichi Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab until 2019, when he resigned after it was reported that he was aware that Epstein was a convicted sex offender and that he and the university had extensive personal and financial relationships with Epstein. 

Holman, meanwhile, is the general partner at venture capital firm Deep Future and describes himself on his website as “a hacker, inventor & technology futurist.” 

Holman was in contact with Epstein since 2010, planned to stay at one of his apartments in New York City in 2013, and tried to help Epstein hide negative online news stories about himself. 

According to an email, Epstein made plans to attend Def Con along with Holman in 2013, but it’s unclear if they attended. Def Con founder Jeff Moss said that as far as he knows, “Epstein never attended.”