Computer Experts Vie in Hacking Contest

Armed with laptops, modems, hard disk drives and sandwiches, 12 computer experts hunkered down Friday for a seven-hour contest to find the best hacker in tech-savvy Singapore. Divided into six two-man teams, the contestants participating in “BlackOPS: HackAttack challenge 2004” have to defend their networks and servers from hacking while attacking other teams’ systems. The top prize is a DVD burner and computer classes. “It’s a very realistic scenario,” said Julian Ho, the organizer of the government-backed contest. “Most security professionals engage in some kind of ‘dark art’ … Computer espionage is a very big thing.” The contestants hailed from Brunei, China, Myanmar and Singapore, but their identities couldn’t be revealed because they all work in the computer security business, organizers said. All entrants had to pass a preliminary competition. Teams were not allowed to use the Internet as a hacking tool, only computers and modems.

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