Workers were dealing with the aftermath of an unexpected thunderstorm that shut down the airport Thursday and left the city sunk in a thick layer of mud.

More than 600 of Def Con's 6,000 expected attendees were already in town for the Black Hat security conference.

The timing was unfortunate, however. Next door to the predominately male-attended Black Hat conference was a teenage dance competition, where, after spending the day listening to talks on security issues, attendees could watch adolescent dancers shaking their groove thang.

"Someone's gonna get arrested," sighed Chris, from Toronto, in the bar of the nearby Hard Rock Cafe later.

But by mid-morning, hackers shook off their Thursday night hangovers to descend on the convention hall. Hacker groups and enthusiasts did a brisk trade in T-shirts, hacker equipment, and zines.

As a TV crew cruised the hall, an organizer asked everyone to be mature and not deface the camera.

"Be good, and next time Mom will let you wear the big pants," he said to the youthful, baggy-panted crowd.

Convention-goers were testing their competitive side in the sixth annual Spot the Fed contest (several agents were outed by early afternoon), and by donning inflatable sumo wrestling suits for a little all-in-fun mock violence.

"Always wanted to beat up some punk on the mailing list? You really hate the person who always argues with you?" Def Con organizers asked. "How about media vs. the underground? Or feds vs. hackers? We've rented giant inflatable sumo suits for you to do battle."

T-shirts like "I miss crime" and "I hate stupid people" caught approving glances from the crowd, while a photographer wandered around the room snapping shots of any available woman for the "Babes of Def Con" photo album.

Outside the smoky, crowded hall, a group of younger attendees was gleefully stringing cable from hotel room to hotel room, beefing up the paltry connection offered by the Alexis Park convention center and resort.

The "day in the sun" feeling was soured a bit as a group of security enthusiasts posted "wanted" signs accusing John P. Vranesevich, founder of AntiOnline, of criminal activities. They accuse the computer security pundit of paying crackers to hit sites in exchange the scoop.

Vranesevich and his supporter, Happy Hacker Carolyn Meinel, vocally deny that he has done anything wrong, and point the finger back at the accusers, who have posted material about Vranesevich on their Web site.

The controversy escalated last week, when a popular site for security information, PacketStorm, was removed from its host server at Harvard after university officials were told that the site had negative and allegedly libelous information about Vranesevich on it.

But according to Brian Fite of HSK, the tension only adds another dimension of excitement to the goings-on.