Get Paid To Crack? 226
John Klein writes "Corporate Technologies USA, Inc. is offering hackers $250US and up as part of the Hacker Wargame Research Project. Participants are given sufficient time to hack three primary goals on real Windows 2000 servers on an internet connected wargame network. The servers are updated with fairly current Windows patches, so this is not necessarily an easy task. The difficulty is part of the point. The Project is studying how hackers think, called cognitive research, in an effort to better understand how future IDSs might identify the target of an attack during it's early stages. The Project guarantees complete anonymity for those that want to participate without pay, or complete privacy protection to those that choose to get paid."
Re:Like Most Other Hacking Competitions (Score:1, Informative)
They have a firewall in which they will allow only one IP address at a time to make the attempt. Thus, you sign up for a set time period and they watch you as you hack away...
Not a lot of confidence... (Score:4, Informative)
From their FAQ: [hackerwargame.org]
You should be able to complete the goals easily without the need to break any laws...[in] about 5 hours
Sounds like this is more of a "target-rich environment" where they expect the dedicated hacker to succeed, and they want to study means/methods, rather than a "our box is unbreakable" type challenge. I think they'll be writing a lot of $250 checks--which explains also why the sum is low.
Good God, that's insulting. (Score:2, Informative)
Corporate Technologies USA, Inc. is offering hackers $250US and up as part
In the real world, a "consultant" would be charging $250 AN HOUR, at a bare minimum.
Wake up and smell the coffee, dudes. They're using you as slave labor.
Re:Secret Methods ?? (Score:2, Informative)
No real hacker worth is salt, would enter a "hacking competition" for 250$. I know a few who wouldnt enter for 10000$. For them, their livelihood depends on how their skills are able to penetrate into a corporation (yes, they hack for a living).
And about this new windows box: All I'll say is there's a nasty exploit that can get me a SYSTEM priv shell remotely. And it's worked on every box that I've tried it upon.
Re:It's easy (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah yeah, don't click on a slashdot link etc, but still...
Too late to join (Score:3, Informative)
Q23: I'm too busy to do this right now, but I'd like to do it later. How long is this study going on?
A: We anticipate the study to be wrapping up at the end of 2003, but we will probably be done recruiting by mid-year at the latest, so don't wait too long. Sorry, no reservations accepted.
I'll go digging at archive.org now to find out how long they've been up.