Kids learn how to hack at DefCon
(CBS) - Should children learn how to hack? Some say yes!
At this year's DefCon, the world's longest running and largest underground hacking conference, kids swarmed, learning - not to mention teaching - hacker ways.
Children were welcome in the first-ever "DefCon Kids village" to learn how to hack. Among the 10 pairs of students were nine-year-old Anna and her 10-year-old brother Jake, reported AFP.
No stranger to cracking computer software, little Jake told AFP, "the secret [to hacking] is you don't add code, you just move the code around."
Hacker and author of "Social Engineer: The Art of Human Hacking" Chris Hadnagy along with other tutors, who were amazed by the kids, implemented games like deciphering clues, picking locks, coaxing information out of people and reading subtle facial expressions. They also learned how to hack hardware, software and websites.
"The teams, shadowed by supportive parents, darted about DefCon chasing clues and getting strangers in the notoriously edgy assembly to reveal secrets or do odd things," according to AFP. "Each of the teams finished the contest, with one almost conning its way to first place by talking people into revealing hints instead of decoding ciphers."
A 10-year-old whose hacker name is "CyFi," presented an amazing discovery at the conference. "She found that advancing the clock on a tablet or phone can, in many [mobile] games, open a loophole that can be exploited. CyFi discovered the bug after getting bored with the pace of farming games and seeking ways to speed them up," BBC reported. "While many games detect and block clock-based cheating, CyFi found ways around these security measures. Disconnecting a phone from Wi-Fi and only advancing a clock by small amounts helped to open up the loophole as it forced the game into a state not tested by its original creators."
Cool, huh? Considered a new class of vulnerability, her findings were shared with the makers of the software.
Would you send your little ones to DefCon to learn how to hack?
