Moronic Hacking Contest Ends In Free-For-All

atomgiant writes "ZDNet is running an interesting article about the KDWorks hacking contest that has gone bad, or good, depending on your perspective. Entertaining read in any event." I think that Bruce Schneier has said it best on the value of contests such as this one. That the registration server was compromised I think is a telling comment on the value of whole site security.

Comments

I'll start my own

[Saturn49]

Maybe I'll start my own hacking contest. I give the winner a billion dollars. I'll setup 2 computers, one connected to the 'net, completely open and unpatched. It'll physically sit on top of the "secure" box, which won't be connected, or even turned on. When the "winner" tries to claim his prize, I'll simply state that he hacked the "decoy", and the real server was untouched. Sounds about as fair as this one.

Re:I'll start my own

[F1re]

That's fine until someone breaks into where you store the computers, boots up the unconnected one and ownes it...

Re:I'll start my own

[x136]

Not when they find out that the "secure" box is actually an empty ATX case. :)

Re:I'll start my own

[Sloppy]

For a billion dollars, I'll buy you a motherboard and install it.

no, he does mean hackers!

[shemnon]

Well, the contest was for hackers and not crackers. Crackers got the registration machine, but since the "contest" machine had an open invitation to break in, there was nothing illegal about it.

Remember, the class requirements for the Cracker class has the ethical alignment of Chaotic as a requirement. Hackers can have any Ethical Alignments. The White Hat Cracker class has a Chaotic Good alignment requirement. Since they asked people to hack the box it would be very within the Lawful alignments, Lawful Evil in partiular since the money is a self motivational goal. A Lawful Good Hacker would submit a resume so that he can properly lock down the registration computer.

Did I mention the GNU Hacker Prestige class? Must have a Lawful alignment, otherwise the whole bit about licencing wouldn't have any meaning to them. BSD Hackers are closer to True Neutral, since they don't care what is done as long as they get credit.

Re:Jeebus...

[Wildcat J]

If you recall, this occurred on the Simpsons. The Springfield police department sent out notices to criminals claiming they had won a boat. They picked up Homer for an unpaid parking ticket, which he promptly paid, then he demanded his boat. Everything in life can be related back to a Simpsons episode!

-J

Re:Korea and the Internet

[JordoCrouse]

At the risk of sounding like an insensitive racist jerk, what, exactly, has the US contributed positively to the net?

Uhhh... other than inventing the damn thing?

You can't always get what you want, but....

[L. VeGas]

This reminds me of my old boss that was taking karate lessons. He went up to a geek I worked with and asked him to "try to kick me as hard as you can". He hadn't even finished the sentence when Ken slammed him in the jewels so hard that my boss threw up. All he kept saying was "But I wasn't ready!"

Irony...

[jhaberman]

"As entrants were required to enter personal details together with some form of identification--such as a passport or social security number--in the event that they won the competition, some are worried that their privacy has been compromised."

Doesn't anyone else just find that line HILLAIROUS!? I mean, c'mon... if anyone should be familiar with the vuneralbilities of a web server, and personal information found on said web server, it should be a bunch of "hackers". This is so stupid, I can't even believe it. It has to be a hoax...

Jason