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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Argus Systems Case |
Current rating: 0 |
by LSD Research Group
Email: contact (nospam) lsd-pl.net (verified) |
30 Dec 2002
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45 000 USD contest rip-off by Savoy, Illinois software company
We are a group of computer security researchers from Poland. In April 2001, Argus Systems Group (http://www.argus-systems.com), an Illinois based company announced the 5th Argus Hacking Challenge - the contest for hackers in which 50 000 USD prize money was offered to the first person (or group) that would successfully hack into the web server protected by the company's flagship product - the Pitbull Foundation
System.
Our group took part in the 5th Argus Hacking Challenge. Within less than 24 hours, we managed to break into the protected web server. Our successful performance was officially accepted and announced by the Challenge committee, consisting of Argus and sponsor representatives (Fujitsu-Siemens, Integralis). The whole event was widely discussed in various medias around the world, both traditional (CNN) as well as Internet-based ones (wired, register, vnunet, iw, zdnet). |
Dear Sirs,
We write this letter to your newspaper to inform you about some unpleasant case that concerns the Argus Systems Group company from Champaign-Urbana.
We are a group of computer security researchers from Poland. In April 2001, Argus Systems Group (http://www.argus-systems.com), an Illinois based company announced the 5th Argus Hacking Challenge - the contest for hackers in which 50 000 USD prize money was offered to the first person (or group) that would successfully hack into the web server protected by the company's flagship product - the Pitbull Foundation
System.
Our group took part in the 5th Argus Hacking Challenge. Within less than 24 hours, we managed to break into the protected web server. Our successful performance was officially accepted and announced by the Challenge committee, consisting of Argus and sponsor representatives (Fujitsu-Siemens, Integralis). The whole event was widely discussed in various medias around the world, both traditional (CNN) as well as Internet-based ones (wired, register, vnunet, iw, zdnet).
According to the Challenge rules, the prize was about to be paid until May 15th 2001. Almost one and a half-year has passed since the Challenge and still no more that 10% of the prize money has been paid to us.
The case of unpaid prize money has been recently published by us in the Internet. You can read more about the case at http://lsd-pl.net/argus.html). Many Internet portals has been also writing about it (just to mention SecurityFocus publication available at http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1717 or Wired News article at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56736,00.html). Currently, there are many journalists inquiring us about it.
Since this unpleasent case concerns the US company from the state where your newspaper is available, we thought that you might get interested in it as it could be a good
material for an article.
If you have any questions or if you are interested in writing the article about this case, do not hesitate to contact us.
With Regards,
Members of LSD Research Group
http://lsd-pl.net
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Re: Argus Systems Case |
by splintr
deepsplintr[at]yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
03 Jan 2003
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Great story. What reason does Argus give for not paying-up? Anybody know?
splintr |
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Re: Argus Systems Case |
by anonymous
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Jan 2003
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Gotta pay the employees before the hackers. |
