Ben Weitzenkorn
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.
