Microsoft @ Black Hat
I have seen a couple of articles now talking about Micrsoft at Black Hat in Las Vegas, NV. I think it is about time that MS is looking for the somewhat "shady" programmers for their security tests. I am not one to subscribe to the outlook of hiring hackers to provide security for your network or applications, but it does make sense to me to allow them the chance to break your software while it is still in testing. Now before anyone yells at me, yes I know that not everyone at Black Hat is a hacker or criminal or anything of the sort. I know that many security officials and security experts attend the event as well.
I just believe it is a good idea to get the people that are good at breaking code to try and break yours. Just to see what they come up with and if you can do it in a controlled environment where you get to collect the data then you should have everything you need to go back and fix what they found.
Any programmer knows that no matter how much time and effort you use on any project, there are always going to be issues you did not dream of. This is also the reason I believe Open Source is a good thing. So many people all getting a crack at it, but that is another blog entry.
(see one article here)