Mac OSX hacker challenge shut down

THE MAC USER who set up a 'hack my Mac challenge to prove how secure the operating system has had the rug pulled from under him.

Dave Shroeder's challenge was set up in response to a similar challenge in which a hacker managed to get into a Mac within 30 minutes.

Shroeder thought the original test unfair, so challenged hackers to break into his PC at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Unfortunately, it turned out that Schroeder had forgotten to ask the University if he could allow hackers to batter its system before the authorities arrived to shut him down.

Shroeder's challenge was replaced by the folowing message: "Yesterday we discovered the Mac OSX "challenge" was not an activity authorized by the UW-Madison. Once the test came to the attention of our CIO, she ended it. The site, test.doit.wisc.edu, will be removed from the network tonight. Our primary concern is for security and network access for UW services. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused to the community."

Schroeder claims some minor success for his challenge, saying his Mac survived for thirty hours unhacked.

It might have been interesting to see if the challenge had been up longer if it would have interested a few members of the hacker community. According to one Bulgarian team contacted by the INQ they had not even heard about it until it was too late. µ