back to article Google offers $3.14159 MILLION in prizes for hacking Chrome OS

Google has announced the target for its third Pwnium hacking contest, to be held at this year's CanSecWest security conference, with $3.14159m in prize money for the researchers who can successfully crack its Chrome OS operating system. And yes, that figure is derived from the first six digits of π. The contest, to be held on …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I had to read that 2.71828 times

    because I didn't understand it initially.

    1. brooxta

      Re: I had to read that 2.71828 times

      Why isn't it $3.141593 million? Is this some kind of MapReduce optimisation gone horribly wrong? Maybe there's a $3 administration fee? There's no cents to it.

      1. Ron1
        Joke

        Re: I had to read that 2.71828 times

        Good find! Should be:

        <pedantic mode>

        $3,141,592.65 then (or USD 3.141.592,65 for those on the continent)

        </pedantic mode>

  2. Camilla Smythe

    Perhaps 'slightly' OT but Chrome Browser

    I assume it uses Chrome?

    Therefore all you need to 'crack it' is to write a bit of stuff that turns off the 'install by default' when it tries to come in as a payload on the back of some other cruftware without the user having to uncheck the checkbox.

    Otherwise..

    I don't know, some sort of script or bat file that tells the hosts file not to download the wart if it tries and redirects the download to a local .txt file containing 'You have not downloaded Chrome'. Rather than ending up with 108MB of spunk smeared on your hard drive and a Chrome Icon on the desktop that some idiot is going to go and click then go 'Muh-Huh' when it asks if you want it to be the default browser and loads up multiple copies of the Yahoo!/Ask/ETC/ETC toolbars.

    Yes.. Yes.. I know 'you' do not suffer from such problems but your Mum/Granddad/GeneralPubic does.

    http://en.tengrinews.kz/finance/Google-2012-revenue-hits-50-billion-profits-up--16236/

    $Pi Million when they made $50 billion last year. What's the problem? Can't they attract the staff these days?

    1. ratfox
      Trollface

      Re: Perhaps 'slightly' OT but Chrome Browser

      It's good advertising, pure and simple.

      Implicitly, they are saying that Microsoft would never dare do that kind of contest with their software...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Perhaps 'slightly' OT but Chrome Browser

        People know Windows, it does get hacked along with OSX every year in a competition.

        Incidentally it is always the browser that they tend to exploit to get access. Given ChromeOS is big on the browser I can imagine it will get hacked easily once people get familiar with it (most people think it is a big waste of time and so don't even look at it).

    2. Chris Beach

      Re: Perhaps 'slightly' OT but Chrome Browser

      Methinks your rant is massively misdirected.

      I can't blame Google or Adobe when some software tries to make money with back door installs of unrelated software.

    3. edkirk
      FAIL

      Re: Perhaps 'slightly' OT but Chrome Browser

      I don't think that a bat file will cause many problems on a *nix based OS.

    4. DaLo
      Facepalm

      Re: Perhaps 'slightly' OT but Chrome Browser

      Wow - it's so easy.

      Heck, the only reason you're not entering is, I assume, that the $110, 000 just isn't enough to warrant the effort of getting out of bed?

      However, you can get the prize several times so you could make multi-variants of the 'crack' and romp home. Let us know how it goes...

  3. drunk.smile
    Megaphone

    Can they not just fix the memory leaks in the Chorme browser itself first?

    Sorry, forgot they did an OS called Chrome when I clicked on the article & by then I was already in rant mode.

  4. frank ly
    Coat

    $3.14159 million

    You could buy a lot of pies with that amount of money.

    (The one with 3.14159 old pie wrappers in the pocket)

  5. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    Pi?

    Or just that old favourite 355/113?

    Inquiring minds want to know!

    1. Katie Saucey
      Happy

      Re: Pi?

      Bah! The truly lazy engineer uses 22/7, (also it's Pi approximation day.)

    2. Adam 1

      Re: Pi?

      Pi = 3**

      **for sufficiently large values of 3.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still 6.02214 x 10E23 Windows Vulnerabilities

    Would cost MS a fortune if they ran a competition.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Still 6.02214 x 10E23 Windows Vulnerabilities

      Not to mention Linux and any open source libraries as well, if a vulnerability is out in the open and not patched you can exploit it.

      The original PSP was hacked using some libpng exploit.

      If more people used Linux on the desktop there would be loads more exploits, but given so few people do use it then it's obvious it isn't worth spending time and money trying to create malware due to lack of return on investment.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Still 6.02214 x 10E23 Windows Vulnerabilities

      Eadon, is that you?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yawn..

    Obligatory XKCD reference.

    Not being hacked by a specific set of people with a specific set of skills is no evidence of security per sé, but it sure is very good marketing..

  8. JeffyPooh
    Pint

    Rip off

    What happened to the missing $2.65?

    1. Adam 1

      Re: Rip off

      They need that for their tax bill

  9. monkeyfish

    Fixed it for you

    "We believe these larger rewards reflect the additional challenge involved with tackling the security defenses of Chrome OS, compared to traditional operating systems PR we'll receive from this,"

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    I'll fix the quote...

    PR gibberish:

    ".... was the most secure on the market, saying the mix of hardware and software modules on the machines makes a lot of current attack techniques invalid."

    English:

    ".... was the most secure on the market, saying having fuck all software on the machines makes a lot of current attack techniques invalid...."

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