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. <\/p>\n\n
The conference justified adding Pablos Holman, Vincenzo Iozzo, and Joichi Ito to its public list of banned individuals<\/a>, 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<\/a> based on emails that the three exchanged with Epstein.<\/p>\n\n 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.”<\/p>\n\n “It was a rush to judgment not based on any investigation or wrongdoing by Mr. Iozzo,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n A Def Con spokesperson declined to comment. <\/p>\n\n Holman and Ito did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. <\/p>\n\n 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<\/a>, amid new and emerging revelations linking the prominent hacker, among others, to Epstein.<\/p>\n