Computer Geek Dream Job?

"Meet The Hackers Who Sell Spies The Tools To Crack Your PC (And Get Paid Six-Figure Fees)" full story at Forbes:

Bekrar won’t detail Vupen’s exact pricing, but analysts at Frost & Sullivan, which named Vupen the 2011 Entrepreneurial Company of the Year in vulnerability research, say that Vupen’s clients pay around $100,000 annually for a subscription plan, which gives them the privilege of shopping for Vupen’s techniques.

Note that $100k just lets you see the catolog, doesn't actually pay for any product, from what the story suggests the products can easily cost more than $100k.

What surprised me, is that this is legit, or so the story says, I don't understand how that can be, since they are hacking one company's products for other companies & governments.

A very interesting article.

Nerd News: Chrome Hacked

From Ars, Chrome hacked twice in the same day with Zero Day attacks.

Chrome was hacked at Pwn2Own hacker contest, and a Google event as well.

See Ars link for full details.

Nerd News: GPS Tracking & Mobile Phone Hacking in the UK

GPS tracking chips, Phone Hacking, all in all an interesting interview ^_^

PSA: Backing up free email from Google, Yahoo, etc.

A list of links with advice for this http://forums.cnet.com/7726-6638_102-3256597.html

Please feel free to post other links or suggestions in comments.

PSA: Email Security, Hacking, & Recovery

A very well written story by journalist James Fallows, who is not a Computer Geek http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/hacked/8673/1/

He details how his wife's gmail account was hacked, and what they went through to recover years of deleted emails from that account.

Though not a Computer Nerd, James Fallows did have some advantages over most of the rest of us, he personally knew several people at Google, including "Eric Schmidt, the company’s longtime CEO and now executive chairman."

Fallows tells his story very well, I think Computer Nerds/IT people can get a better understanding of non computer peoples thinking about IT security from this article.  Average people will have their eyes opened, and Fallows covers some of the basic things you can do to improve your security.

So if your a total Noob for Computer security you can pick up some key pointers, and more importantly start thinking about the issue.

I have been victim of identity theft twice now that I know of, once because computers from company that handled processing of student loan payments were stolen & once Credit Card number was hacked no idea how (can happen at grocery stores or gas pump now days).

So I identified strongly with this story, I have also been working hard on improving my knowledge and skills for computer and ID security.

Stay Safe,

Cliff

Edited to add:  resources for backing up Gmail or Yahoo email http://cliffsesportcorner.blogspot.com/2012/01/psa-backing-up-free-email-from-google.html

Nerd News: Facebook Hacker Cup 2012

Little behind on news, but this should be of interest to a lot of Nerds.

Source and full story: http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/announcing-facebooks-2012-hacker-cup/10150468260528920

What: An annual algorithmic programming contest open to engineers from around the world.


Where: Three online rounds with the finals at Facebook's headquarters in California.


When: Registration opens January 4, 2012 with the three online rounds occurring throughout January 2012. World finals to follow.


Finals: We'll pay to fly and accommodate the top 25 hackers from the third online round out to our campus.


Prizes: Of course! $5,000 USD and title as world champion to the top hacker, $2,000 for second place, $1,000 for third, and $100 for fourth through 25th. Awesome t-shirts for the top 100 hackers coming out of the second online round.