Whoever successfully cracks
Google's Chrome operating system
at this year's Pwnium hacking
contest will walk away with a piece
of the pi.

Google, which had previously
offered totals of $1 million, then $2
million, in prizes for successful
hacks, is upping the ante at the
contest, to be held in March at the
CanSecWest security conference in
Vancouver, B.C. The company is
offering a total of $3.14159 million
in cash rewards.

That's a nod to pi, math's most
intriguing irrational number, and to
the added challenges that come with
cracking Google's ever-improving
security measures .

It's unlikely that any single hacker
will get the whole pi. Instead, many
contestants could win $110,000 for
each temporary compromise of
Chrome OS, or $150,000 for each
compromise that survives a system
reboot.

All exploits must be delivered via
webpages on a basic-model
Samsung 550 Chromebook using a
Wi-Fi connection.
"We believe these larger rewards
reflect the additional challenge
involved with tackling the security
defenses of Chrome OS, compared to
traditional operating systems,"
Google Chrome developer Chris
Evans wrote on the official
Chromium blog.

Rule change, and change again
Google's previous two Pwnium
contests, last March at CanSecWest
2012 and last October at the Hack in
the Box conference in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, were for
successful exploits of its Chrome
browser, not the similarly named
OS.

Google created Pwnium last year as
an alternative to the longer-running
Pwn2Own contest, also held at
CanSecWest, after Pwn2Own
temporarily changed its rules so that
successful crackers no longer
needed to reveal their methods.

That change was a bonus for
commercial hackers such as the
French company VUPEN, which
specializes in keeping exploits
secret and selling the information
only to the highest bidders.

This year, the full-disclosure rules
are back in effect at Pwn2Own, and
Google is back as a co-sponsor, along
with Hewlett-Packard.
But since the Chrome browser is one
of the targets at Pwn2Own, Google's
having the Pwnium participants
across the hall take aim at the
company's new operating system
instead.

Unlike Pwn2Own, Pwnium doesn’t
require contestants to use their real
names. A teenager known only as
Pinkie Pie , after the "My Little
Pony" character, has won $60,000 at
each Pwnium contest held so far.

Hard to beat:
Google touts Chrome OS as the most
secure operating system on the
market. Yet its market share is so
small that the OS hasn't truly been
field-tested in the real world.
It's noteworthy, however, that the
Pwn2Own prize for cracking the
Chrome browser is $100,000, as
opposed to $60,000 for Mozilla
Firefox and $65,000 for Apple
Safari.

Cracking Internet Explorer 10
running on Windows 8 yields
$100,000 at Pwn2Own; IE 9 on
Windows 7 is worth $75,000.
Pwn2Own winners also get to keep
the contest-provided laptops used in
their successful hacks.

The Pwnium rules don't mention if
winners can keep their
Chromebooks, but since Google sells
the machines for a relatively
inexpensive $450, the company
probably won't mind.

Google has never had to pay out the
full amount offered for Chrome
browser cracks, and it's unlikely
that it'll be writing checks totaling
$3.15149 million for the operating-
system hacks. But the Pwnium
publicity probably won't hurt efforts
to drum up buzz about Chrome OS.

www.news.yahoo.com/google-offers-3-14159-million-hacking-prizes-215026222.html?.tsrc=yahoo

Now this is a contest i wil like to take part in, in a few years!
But where the Bleep are the so "nigerian hackers" just when the illegals gets legal thanks to Google.

This is a perfect opportunity for hackers to make millions of dollars.

naija hackers cant compete if all theyre good at is the internals of a programming language. This domain specific (os , computer archtcture, computer security, etc.) not the kind of stuff xyz in 21days will offer.

.

when is the dead line and how do i participate?

RUKKY DOLL: when is the dead line and how do i participate?

It's still on, just go to Google website to apply.