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DEFCON's Latest Challenge: Hacking Altruism
jfruh writes: A casual observer at the latest DEFCON conference in Las Vegas might not have noticed much change from last year — still tons of leather, piercing, and body art, still groups of men gathered in darkened ballrooms furiously typing commands. But this year there's a new focus: hacking not just for the lulz, but focusing specifically on highlighting computer security problems that have the potential to do real-world physical harm to human beings.
Damn straight, wizards have a THAC0 off the charts, even at high levels. And by that time your elf better has some elven mail on or, well, he's ...
erh...
I mean, good one!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Hacking Altruism" makes it sound like you're trying to exploit people's sense of altruism for some other goal.
"Altruistic Hacking" captures the idea that you're hacking for the benefit of other people.
And no I don't mean out of badges or the venue is full.
If you want to do something Altruistic start by giving the grey hats and assorted 0-day hoarding outfits you work for the one finger salute.
Instead of continuing to make money working symptoms of security problems actually do something meaningful to address underlying cause especially if it means certain implosion of your industry.
From reception of Keith Alexander it became crystal clear my friends have grown up and too many have become hypnotized pay checks.