SAFE - Security Cracking Contest (was Hackathon)

Marketing
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Had a bit of a discussion on the PM line a while back with a @happybeing & @nicklambert regarding an open hacking contest similar to how all the big tech companies do as a way of marketing SAFE once it goes live.

The discussion kind of thawed out and mainly because there was no clear concise way for MAID to make a splash in this competitive area as it has no were near the resources compared with Google, Microsoft, Apple etc.

I’d like to open the discussion here for all and offer up the idea with a twist.

What if instead of SAFE running the competition APP developers did?

So for example you would have a SAFE app that goes live, runs some press releases and advertises their own mini hackathon which says ‘if you can obtain document XYZ from us, we will award the winner X amount of SAFE coins’ or ‘We have a treasure chest filled with X amount of SAFE coins, if your break our systems its yours for the taking’ or something along those lines and if no one achieves said task maybe you could just award people for their contributions.

What ends up happening is you have the SAFE app benefiting, the SAFE network benefiting and you distribute more SAFE coins into more hands.

Now take this idea and replicate it among more than just one app it has the potential to draw a lot of attention.

What do others think on this topic?

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Sounds awesome and sort of like the secret cow level from Diablo. :smiley:

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625×605 90.6 KB

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Although it occurs to me that the above method would not only be testing the SAFE network but also the app’s coding. I mean the SAFE network could be secure but a hacker could find some exploit or work around via the app.

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Precisely. It’s a win/win situation.

If they can’t get in, great! If they do get in, they have to explain how and that gets fixed.

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A Hackathon is exactly what SAFE needs/will-need. It really is a win win win win for anybody that has an interest in SAFE.

My SAFE Community Sponsored Hackathon Contest proposal:
We (I can create it) create a multi-sig wallet. BitPay’s Copay with 3-4? of 6 (total multisig’s allowed) signer required.

We set the Hackathon terms with something like the total balance amount will be sent to the contest winner 90 days after the official launch of SAFECoin or something. Terms will be put into the voting block like so: http://foldingcoin.net/the-coin/fldc-voting/

A winner will be determined by voting done through counterparty’s voting mechanism
http://blockscan.com/vote/U28PHD9JAS for example.

Voting tokens will be distributed by following @dallyshalla auction crowd sale design of
2,147,483,647 voting tokens. For example, if there are 10 BTC’s total donated and I contributed 5 of the 10 btc then I have 50% (1073741823 voting tokens) of the tokens to vote by sending to contestant of my choice receiving address.

Contestants will be selected by using the forum and listed at the top of this thread and anywhere else someone would want it. A voting token receiving address will be made for each listed project leader/name by an agreed time to end the selection process. Voting will be given a set time of something like 3 days for each project? Not sure how to ensure every project gets reviewed fairly? Then when a winner is selected the Copay Co-signers (3 of 6) will release the entire fund to the wining contestants publicly signed btc address.

I don’t care specifically who the 6 CoSigners are for the contest funds. I think they should be a good mix of the community. My vote (pun intended) would be for one from MAIDSAFE, forum moderator, and maybe from each pod or someone from Bitpay (provided an amazing gift of open sourced Copay) or ShapeShift folks, Sovern Tech or Freedom phoenix or Crypto Gossip (to create more buzz from big voiced supporters of SAFE)? They would definitely need to be very good at protecting their private Cosigner key, obviously.

We could also build in set amounts that if met the winnings could be broken into 30% to second place, 10% to third. Or if it gets to a ridiculous amount we could do winners from each categories we want to see. Just brainstorming. I know I will be happy to donate because it will result in me getting the apps I want and will only make SAFE (coin and network) more valuable.

People can use ShapeShift.io to donate other currencies as well.

I think this is the best way for all of us and each of us to play a part in building the SAFE network. Well friends, what are your thoughts?

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I do like the idea of bringing app developer to the forefront and kudos to @MrAnderson for putting his BTC where his mouth is!

I think the hackathon itself would need to be very carefully defined. End point security has as not yet been catered for and a file could be obtained despite both the network and app being robust, but the device itself has been compromised. I’m also not sure how you establish criteria for judging each app, I would imaging that judging something from a security standpoint would require a decent amount of coding knowledge, for example, is the app copying network data back onto the device itself. To be more inclusive, maybe the judging becomes more about the UX of the app itself in addition to its functionality, allowing more people to be able to judge?

I’m very much for MaidSafe also running a hackathon when the time is right, it’s one of the best ways to build a community and we will throw as much PR as we can around it. I think this will become clearer to plan and understand a bit moire about timescales once we have delivered Dev Bundle 1 (Rust 5) objectives.

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Minor but possibly important point: I’m not sure hackathon is the right term for this - at least it’s not what I understand by it. So we’d need to make sure it’s pitched appropriately.

I think involving apps sounds good, but this seems to make the prospect less likely rather than easier to achieve.

My reasons: currently we don’t have any spare effort in SAFEpress to even think about this. We need to get something built and working - if anything, our marketing needs to be aimed at attracting developers to the SAFEpress project. If anyone wants to help by doing that I’m all ears! I can’t speak for other projects, but I imagine they also have other priorities for the foreseeable.

To have impact, I think you do need several Apps on board, all in agreement, but for the reasons mentioned I don’t think you can expect this work to be done by the App devs. I think it would need to be set up and managed centrally (like a hackathon) - perhaps by a committee from the community or MaidSafe, or both. Then App devs can have input, but be left to put 99% of our effort into building the Apps.

All qdos to @goindeep for trying - I certainly welcome the discussion of this and all innovative ideas to help market the project. I think it is a good idea to try and get going at some point, so if people want to have a go I’ll certainly watch and offer the meagre support that I can, but I can’t get involved at this point. In the mean time if anyone wants to help the SAFE project, I’m sure some of the App projects could use extra help.

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This is also a fun way to think about a hackathon

If I’m financially able I’m supporting every SAFE Network app coming out :stuck_out_tongue:

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for free? would that work?

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Yea, it seems there are two parallel thought processes going on. One is the obvious I am only now seeing, which is hiring hackers to test/challenge the network. I agree very important, but I see MAIDSAFE being the absolute best entity to dictate how that is done.

The way I read hakathon was developers building onto the network, like bitcoin hackathons. The only difference is the reward judges could be anyone who contributes to the fund. So the percentage of total reward would be the weighted value of the individual judge/vote. The cosigners are just stewards of the funds while the event is active.

I love adding further incentive to donators/investors/judges/voters by offering a ROI from the monetary success of the project. I will say that is my plan to include that component to the project I would enter with. Figured it would give my project even more value to the thousands of hackathon judges.

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This is a fun way to test the SAFE Network:

https://cobalt.io/how :stuck_out_tongue:

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Sure but this is just as much about marketing, so not sure cobalt does anything for that.