by Robert Vamosi
August 7, 2008 1:13 PM PDT

LAS VEGAS--How confident are you when using your laptop at a conference? For years, a group called Wall of Sheep has been showing attendees of Defcon when their network connections are insecure. The Wall of Sheep board has been a fixture at Defcon, Black Hat's sister conference set to begin tomorrow at the Riviera Hotel and Casino.

The board displays the names (with some identifying information obscured) of those connecting to the Internet in insecure ways. The idea is both meant to shame and educate users on best practices. "If the 'Best of the Best' in security can be hacked, think of the average users," said Riverside, a member of Aries Security, a group that maintains the Wall of Sheep.

For most of the year, the individual members (of which there are about seven) are scattered across the country, working in security at various companies. But for two weeks they come together in Las Vegas to plan and mount their equipment, though not without glitches. On Thursday, Riverside was addressing some hardware failures in a conference room at Caesars Palace.

"We have redundancy," he said. In the back of the room were various boxes and other electronic equipment and wires. In the past they've used their own equipment, although this year they're starting to get donations. "We're vendor agnostic," said Riverside, adding that they are using Windows, Mac, and various flavors of Linux.