Yahoo! Invited Hackers to Try

While numerous hacker groups like Anonymous and LulzSec are trying to prove that they can break into any system in the world and therefore being legally pursued by all large corporations, Yahoo!’s made its own contribution to file-sharing by doing the opposite. The company’s appetite for innovation has led Yahoo! to organize a number of events in which they invited people to try and hack Yahoo APIs. The events weren’t held for the first time, and the last year’s winners of the Open Hack and University Hack Day events sponsored by Yahoo! were again given a chance to let their imagination go wild.

The latest event was called Hack All-Stars, and was held first time in New York City. More than three dozen hackers participated in the meeting that previously won different Yahoo Events. The participants were given only one day to try and access Yahoo’s goodies. The teams delivered sixteen hacks, and at the end, a file-sharing tool called Ruum was declared the winner.

Ruum is a file-sharing instrument that was designed and developed by the Team D1W from Carnegie Mellon University. The software allows Internet users to interact, share information, communicate in the chat and exchange comments. The Team D1W was granted $10,000 prize. In addition, the developers received a chance to spend a whole year with the Yahoo developing team. Finally, they can now bring their own file-sharing application to the market.

The jury of the contest included Forbes and Yahoo!’s senior executives. The company is going to organize more similar events in the future, so everyone who is interested in taking part in them are invited to visit the Hack University website and get ready to participate next time.