Anti-Piracy Company Issues $40k Hacker Challenge

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From http://www.rlslog.net/anti-piracy-company-issues-40000-hacker-challenge

Hackers, crackers, and other top coders can make some quick bucks in the near future. An anti-piracy software company is challenging the hacker community for the second time to crack its product.WIBU-Systems USA, Inc. will give $40,000 to the first person who can hack into and remove their anti-piracy software from a protected application. Techies will have six weeks to try, starting Jan. 31. Registration for the challenge kicks off at MacWorld Expo next week in San Francisco.

��We��re saying to the hackers of the world, ��You��ve been boasting that you can remove anti-privacy systems. Here��s a chance to earn bragging rights and take home 40,000 bucks if you��re as good as you think you are,�� says John Poulson, VP of business development at WIBU-Systems, a German-based company with U.S. headquarters in Seattle.

Poulson says he��s feeling pretty confidant their software can stand up to the pressure. The company has issued the challenge before with a previous product �� that time offering $4,000. He says no one broke the software so no one took home the money.

��This is 10 times more secure, so we��re offering 10 times the prize money. And to be honest, if somebody can [break the security software], it would be worth it to know how they did it and maybe give them a job,�� he adds laughing. ��If they have a few more points on their IQ, we��d like to have them on board.��

To get this kind wide ranging testing done, Poulson says it would be well worth spending the $40,000. ��If you��ve produced software that will tell an oil company where to drill a well, you wouldn��t want the rascals in Albania using that for free when you can sell it for $100,000,�� he says, adding that they need their software to be able to protect those kinds of applications.

Registered challengers will receive an application protected with the latest WIBU-Systems anti-piracy software, along with a full software developer kit. ��They can see how the software security system is put together,�� says Poulson. ��We think our system is so secure that even knowing that they won��t be able to bust through it.��

The challenge will start at 6 p.m. on Jan 31 and will run till 5:59 p.m. on March 14.