Tag: hacker

Twitter will pay hackers to discover biases in its automated picture cropping after being accused of doing so.

Twitter is running a competition in the hopes of finding biases in its picture cropping algorithm, and the best teams will get cash awards (via Engadget). Twitter hopes that by allowing teams access to its code and picture cropping model, they will be able to identify ways in which the algorithm might be detrimental (for example, cropping in a way that stereotypes or erases the image’s topic).


Those that compete must submit a summary of their results as well as a dataset that can be put through the algorithm to show the problem. Twitter will then give points depending on the kind of damages discovered, the potential impact on people, and other factors.


The winner team will get $3,500, with $1,000 awards granted for the most creative and generalizable results. On Twitter, that figure has sparked some debate, with some people arguing that it should include an extra zero. For example, if you discovered a bug that allowed you to execute activities for someone else (such retweeting a tweet or picture) via cross-site scripting, Twitter’s standard bug bounty programme would pay you $2,940. You’d make $7,700 if you could find an OAuth flaw that allowed you to take over someone’s Twitter account.


Twitter had already conducted its own study into its image-cropping algorithm, publishing a paper in May that looked at how the system was biassed in the wake of claims that its preview crops were racist. Since then, Twitter has mainly abandoned algorithmically trimming previews, but it is still utilised on desktop, and a good cropping algorithm is a useful tool for a firm like Twitter.


Opening a competition allows Twitter to receive input from a much wider group of people. For example, the Twitter team had a meeting to discuss the competition, during which a team member stated that they were getting queries about caste-based biases in the algorithm, something that software developers in California may not be aware of.
Twitter is also searching for more than simply unintentional algorithmic bias. Both deliberate and unintended damages have point values on the scale. Unintentional harms are cropping behaviours that may be abused by someone publishing maliciously created photos, according to Twitter. Intentional harms are cropping behaviours that could be exploited by someone posting maliciously intended images.


The competition, according to Twitter’s announcement blog, is distinct from its bug bounty programme; if you submit a complaint regarding algorithmic biases to Twitter outside of the competition, your report will be closed and tagged as not applicable, the company warns. If you’re interested in participating, visit the competition’s HackerOne page to learn more about the rules, qualifications, and other details. Submissions are open until August 6th at 11:59 p.m. PT, and the challenge winners will be revealed on August 9th at the Def Con AI Village.

Ethical Hacking and IT

Data Technology (IT) is one of the greatest and most mainstream businesses as far as building up a profession on the planet today. Industry 4.0 has invited various innovative headways because of which specific IT experts have discovered conspicuousness, in IT organizations as well as in different enterprises. Maybe, the most famous among them is a vocation in online protection.

More than 1 billion network safety experts are required to be sought after over the course of the following 2 years in this field, making it perhaps the most worthwhile profession ways on the planet today. Notwithstanding being a mammoth association, National Health Services couldn’t shield themselves from a huge scope hack. A main nourishment application, MyFitnessPal, likewise went through a monstrous security penetrate where the individual information of more than 150 million clients was taken. The recurrence of these assaults has expanded off-late, making network safety basic in each association.

Huge banks and gems stores regularly enlist proficient hoodlums to endeavor burglaries, to recognize provisos in their security frameworks. Through these preliminaries, these establishments can reliably redesign their security frameworks, to ultimately arrive at a phase of becoming invulnerable. Taking motivation from this interaction, the network protection space has likewise reversed the situation on hacking and made it a legitimized idea through moral hacking.

Moral hacking is a cycle through which experts are paid to hack into an association, to pinpoint weaknesses in the security framework that the association needs to fix. Ill-conceived programmers have likewise discovered lawful conspicuousness in the IT world today because of the developing significance of moral hacking as an idea.

Moral programmers are recruited and prepared to utilize a huge number of methods to attempt to penetrate various associations. They help in the identification of holes inside the security framework as well as during digital assaults.

Government associations wherein digital fighting holds extraordinary unmistakable quality, moral programmers are accustomed to balancing endeavors made by noxious programmers with the expectation of outmaneuvering them, and protecting the information. Another use of moral hacking is of supporting in the examination that follows a digital assault.

Law implementation offices frequently recruit moral programmers to follow the means of a programmer and distinguish the culprit.

Thinking about the incredibly specialized nature of the calling, a basic degree is for the most part insufficient to build up an effective vocation in the field a particular preparing is fundamental. Many driving IT organizations today offer affirmed courses in Ethical Hacking that involve the nuts and bolts of PC organizing as well as intricate methods and driving cycles for keeping up with digital protection.

Think inventively and out-of-the-box:

Aside from these specialized ideas, it is additionally fundamental for moral programmers to have the option to think imaginatively and out of the container. The explanation programmers are developing and can penetrate confounded security frameworks is that they are reliably attempting to concoct new ways and approaches for something very similar.

Another significant quality to have is critical thinking, as the expertise can be fortified after some time, and sharpened with experience and down to earth openness. In this manner, getting ready for a vocation in moral hacking needs to involve a decent blend of both, specialized and reasonable viewpoints.

Be that as it may, there is an exceptionally clear ability hole in the business today, and subsequently, an absence of qualified staff in the field. Attributable to the hole between the interest and supply of moral programmers, this vocation way has gotten very rewarding with monstrous extension later on.