The Romanian Teen Hacker Who Hunts Bugs to Resist the Dark Side. It’s 3 am, and his eyes are almost closed. The pack of gummy bears on his desk is empty. So’s the Chinese takeout box. Romanian white hat hacker Alex Coltuneac has had three hours of sleep tonight. And the night before that. The Dark Side: Hackers versus Crackers There are, of course, programmers who do fit the media's picture of the computer hacker. These programmers use their skills to cause trouble, crash machines, release computer viruses, steal credit card numbers, make free.He’s busy trying to find a vulnerability in You. Tube live chat, which he plans to report to the company and hopefully get some money in return. None of the bugs he has discovered in the past few days electrifies him, so he keeps digging. In the past four years, Coltuneac has gotten bug bounty payments from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe, Yahoo, e. Bay, and Pay. Pal for flaws he reported. Such bounty programs are a chance for Eastern European hackers like him to pursue a legitimate career in cybersecurity. And he’s only 1. 9 years old. In a country better known for cybercrime, the teenager is part of small but growing cohort of hackers who are deciding to play it nice. This is a departure for the hacking community of Romania, known for such hits as the hackers Hackerville and Guccifer, and fraudsters who steal money from American bank accounts, perpetrate e. Bay frauds, and land themselves on the FBI’s most wanted list. The Sidehackers (also known as Five the Hard Way) is a 1969 American action film about motorcycle racing with a twist. Each motorcycle has a sidehack (or 'sidecar'), in which a passenger rides and tilts to one side or another when going around curves. Welcome to the world of social hackers. We know how to break the code. Facebook Email or Phone Password Forgot account? See more of The Social Hackers by logging into Facebook Message this If. Computer hackers are frequently denigrated as mere digital pranksters. But some are now finding they have the power to change the world for good Hackerspaces are the digital-age equivalent of English Enlightenment coffee houses. They are places open to all, indifferent to social status, and where. The FBI is no better than hackers when it comes to 'violating' security measures of the iPhone, a leading Apple executive has said in an interview. Apple's Eddy Cue defended the company's refusal to help the FBI unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters in a lengthy interview. Coltuneac is a freshman at the Babes- Bolyai University in Cluj- Napoca, where he learns Computer Science taught in English. Raised by a family who emphasized honest values, he started using a computer when his was 6. First, he taught himself how to play games, but as he got older he began to see the computer’s potential as a tool to make money. He spent his early teenage years watching fellow Romanian hackers make astounding sums of money selling exploits on the black market. They were able to rake in thousands of US dollars with just a few clicks, far more than Coltuneac’s parents made in a month. He didn’t want to join them. But he did want to pay for college. The allure of that life was powerful. Which is why he was so grateful to find out about bug bounty programs when he was 1. They pay enough to keep his conscience clear and his bank account full. Share The One Thing Criminal Hackers Have on Their Side That You Don’t on Twitter Share The One Thing Criminal Hackers Have on Their Side That You Don’t on Facebook Share The One Thing Criminal Hackers Have on Their Side That You Don’t on LinkedIn. Classic hacking documentary from 94'. Brings back many memories, and the phone box they phreak from in Brighton is still there today!! Goes out to you Leroy!! The boys heard a distress call from a stranded motorist, he’d drive them to the side of the highway. Model Railroad Club, which had been founded thirty-four years earlier by train hobbyists at M.I.T., had evolved into “hackers”—the first group to a. It represents a new genre, 'hacksploitation,' Mac expert Andy Ihnatko grumbled on CompuServe, adding that like a lot of other computer movies it achieves the neat trick of projecting images from. Bounties cover the cost his education and living expenses, so “there’s no excuse to break the law,” he said. Coltuneac won’t say how much he earns as a vulnerability hunter, yet gifted white hat hackers doing the same kind of job brag about making in a lucky month about $6,0. That’s how much an ordinary Romanian earns in a year. The average take home pay in the country was about $5. March, one of the lowest in the European Union. On the white market, a flaw found and reported legitimately is priced at a few hundred dollars, enough for Coltuneac to pay his rent this month. Sensitive ones are often rewarded with several thousand dollars. In very few cases, the bounty exceeds $1. He’s constantly hoping to find one of those. And that sum is still far less than what he would get if he sold the same vulnerabilities on the gray or black markets. Like most Romanian hackers, the teen is self taught. Soon, he got his first few hundred dollars from Google, and used them to buy himself a brand new computer. His desktop was dead slow.“I got lucky. I found a sensitive file. I used brute force,” he said. The tech giant is among the companies he closely monitors for bug bounty programs. He has recently found an LFI vulnerability and several XSS flaws in Google Feed. Burner. Last year alone, Google awarded over $2 million to security researchers globally, and since 2. For 2. 01. 5, Google highlighted Romania as among the top countries bug bounties were paid out to. Coltuneac has also made it to Microsoft’s Bounty Hunters: The Honor Roll. This spring he found an XSS vuln in their OAuth interface. Microsoft is constantly improving its bounty program, and last year, the company included rewards for flaws found in Azure, ASP. NET, . NET Core runtime and the Edge browser.“. However, according to data available online, Microsoft has given white hat hackers on the Honor Roll a total of $6. Another $1. 10,0. Edge technical preview.“The average payout for Europe- based researchers is $6,0. Germany,” said Betz. On Trend. Coltuneac is industrious when it comes to finding a pay day. Along with looking at companies directly, he also uses Hacker. One and Bugcrowd, platforms that help organizations set up bug bounty programs. Some of the top researchers working on the two platforms are based in Eastern Europe, according to Kymberlee Price, Bugcrowd’s Senior Director of Researcher Operations. This is ironic in some ways, because they are helping to improve websites that they often can’t afford to use themselves, in many cases–Tesla Motor’s web site, for instance. Eastern European countries, Romania included, have some of the highest average reputation scores for hackers in Europe, calculated based on submissions to Hacker. One, according to co- founder Michiel Prins. Hacker. One customers have to date fixed over 2. Prins. With bug bounty programs, companies across all industries have started offering money instead of T- shirts, USB sticks or plain ignorance when a white hat hacker finds a flaw in their products. This is wonderful news for everyone, as WIRED has explained, as it incentivizes better security and helps keep talented hackers from going over to the dark side. But more specifically, for Alex Coltuneac and Eastern European security enthusiasts who formerly had only nefarious hacking opportunities in their native lands, this is great news. More bug bounty opportunities means more cash and more sleepless nights. And no reason to consider criminal hacking. It’s 7 a. m. He’s ready to go to class. Skip To: Start of Article. The Sidehackers - Home.
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December 2016
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