Victorinox offers hackers £100,000 challenge
Ballad of hack the knife
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Swiss Army Knife maker Victorinox is asking the best of Britain's hackers to try and beat the biometric security built into its latest USB Flash drive-fitted penknife.
If you manage it, you stand to win £100,000.
The company will be holding trials at its New Bond Street, London shop this coming Thursday and Friday, 25 and 26 March. To have a bash, you need to download and return an application form by Wednesday.
Victorinox's Swiss Army Knife Secure
You can get the form here, where you'll also find the contest's Ts&Cs.
If you're selected as a participant, you get two hours in which to try and hack the knife. Whether you manage it or not, you get to keep the penknife itself - and take home some other goodies, Victorinox said.
The company's pitch for the penknife itself is the product's ability not only to protect the data stored upon it but to make use of the internet connection of any PC it's connected to.
If the device is plugged unto an unknown computer, it emails its owner. If no reply is received, it automatically zaps the Flash chips. ®
COMMENTS
What the fuck?
Why?? I mean, seriously, WHY.
Its a knife, a tool to remove stones from horses hooves, to trim my nails, tighten the screws on my glasses, why in the name of all thats holy do i want a usb drive on it??? A torch, now thats a useful addition, a compass, pen, tooth pick, saw, tweezers (see the pattern?) a usb drive???? eh???? Swiss are fucked......
Or a sting?
Applicants will probably be invited to a 'presentation' at which the host will announce that all the doors are locked and all the staff members of the constabulary...
No need to preselect
The terms of the competition are cunning enough that they're protected by the law of averages.
You get to keep the device whatever happens, so there is no disincentive to stop non-hackers turning up. This will effectively crowd out the hardcore crackers, who would have been hampered by the unrealistic restrictions. Real-world hackers get more than two hours, and clearly don't play within the law, after all.
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