I'm surprised at the number of people here who think this is a bad idea. To quote Bruce Schneier, "Security is a process. For software, that process is iterati

I'm surprised at the number of people here who think this is a bad idea. To quote Bruce Schneier, "Security is a process. For software, that process is iterative. It involves defenders trying to build a secure system, attackers -- criminals, hackers, and researchers -- defeating the security, and defenders improving their system. This is how all mass-market software improves its security .... Smart security engineers open their systems to public scrutiny, because that’s how they improve. The truly awful engineers will not only hide their bad designs behind secrecy, but try to belittle any negative security results." A couple of things to note here, - This is not the first time. It was done before in 2009. - It is in a physical location, and will be monitored by people. - There are various "stages" involved, and I'm guessing anyone who's invited will be vetted. So we have a monitored, time bound, physical access to device hack-day, open to people to try and break a system to learn it's possible flaws - if anything, the system is only going to get better not worse. The likelihood of someone finding a vulnerability and not disclosing it is much more troublesome when they were the only people doing this. If the system is opened up to a large number of people, it is more likely that the vulnerability in question __will__ be found and fixed.