home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
103089
/
10308900.018
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-18
|
790b
|
14 lines
BUSINESS, Page 75Business NotesCOMPUTERSThink You Can Hack It?
When LeeMah DataCom Security wanted to demonstrate the
impregnability of its computer safeguard, the company decided to
lay down a dare. The California firm, which provides equipment to
protect mainframes against interlopers, challenged U.S. computer
hackers to crack its code during a weeklong contest. In messages
sent to electronic bulletin boards frequently used by hackers,
LeeMah promised that any successful code breaker would win a trip
for two to St. Moritz or Tahiti. More than 7,000 phone calls came
into LeeMah from dozens of hackers trying to beat the system, but
none were able to retrieve the hidden message in the computer. The
odds against them, estimated LeeMah: 720 quadrillion to 1.