Skilled hackers are often annoyed by amateurs who use automated attacks to cause mayhem. They refer to the youngsters as “script kiddies,” since they follow scripts and aren’t truly skillful. So a new web site called RankMyHack.com has emerged that will allow underground hackers to anonymously submit their exploits and have the community vote on them.
The New York Times reports that some 700 hackers have submitted evidence of more than 1,200 web site hacks for peer voting. The site was created by a hacker named Solar to bring accountability to online forums where hackers trade barbs about who is more skillful. RankMyHack.com awards points based on the popularity of the hacked site and the technical difficulty of the hack. The best hackers appear on the “leader board of legends.” Hackers can also fight duels with each other.
The site has its own political slant. Participants can win “bounties” for taking down racist sites, as well as those belonging to university, military and government bodies. The aim is to focus the “abilities of talented hackers against political and government forces.”
The top break-in on the site so far is a hack of AOL’s The Huffington Post, worth 1.7 million points. The attack was claimed by Mudkip, who is the top-ranked hacker. Of course, if RankMyHacker.com were itself the target of government-sponsored hacking, the hackers who brag about their exploits on the site might find themselves the object of unwanted law enforcement attention. It would be brilliant if RankMyHack.com were a fake site created by law enforcement to entrap criminal hackers.
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