"IT Security Girl of the Year"

I came across this blog post about the dubious IT Security Girl of the Year contest, and thought I should share the story.

The short version: FRHACK, a french security conference, was offering an award for "IT Security Girl of the Year."

It was a rather tastelessly advertised award, it could be said: Check out the advertisement here. It certainly says "pinup girl" a lot more than "competent security professional" (right down to, apparently, having the award handed out by a former beauty queen!)

And then FRHACK threatened legal action against the person who posted that screenshot along with critical commentary, because the image contained copyrighted material. The obvious suspicion is that it was a way to censor any controversy.

But a little research later, turns out FRHACK didn't own the copyright of the image in question. They wound up being the ones asked to take it down, while the blogger was allowed to keep the screenshot to go with the post about how inappropriate it was.

I'm kinda appalled by the award to begin with, but also amused by how this particular story worked out in the end!

(For more details here's the original post.)