> The platforms are disincentivized to stop that, because anecdotally "number of hackers on platform" is a stat that plays really well in their sales process, a

> The platforms are disincentivized to stop that, because anecdotally "number of hackers on platform" is a stat that plays really well in their sales process, and it's a drum they beat loudly. Anecdotally, the "number of hackers on platform" number is a statistic that causes consternation within the bug bounty community, specifically the number spruiked by some players. > They clearly do: companies pay out for (and H1 triage regularly fails to filter) complete nonsense findings to the tune of several hundreds of dollars or more. I said this elsewhere: > I think this perception might be because H1 didn't provide triaging for a while, but I think the situation is much better now. I'm absolutely sure there are still issues. I can't speak to the H1 process because I've never worked with it. I'm not here to wildly gesticulate at H1 like they're bad, though. I want them to do well. But have you tried Bugcrowd? I hear its laughable to compare them to Google Project Zero, but they've been nice to me, so yeah. I don't think either you or your colleague are really owed any gentleness from me at this point, so: I think you should both expect people to question your motivations if you get quoted in articles about another section of your own industry. I think you're both incredibly naive if you think bug bounty providers are systemically benefitting from the reputational damage the perception, that bug bounty reports are automatically generated script-kiddie outputs, delivers. I also think that you both need to cultivate a rudimentary understanding of how journalism works. Journalists are paid, almost entirely, by advertisers. Journalists get information from their contacts in the industry. Call of Duty gets great reviews in part because game journalists want to keep getting invited back to events, and because they know the ads for the game aren't likely to run next to a negative review. Hey, perhaps you did legitimately believe what you said in the article. But the journalist involved was motivated by many other things, and you may have been a useful... uhhh... something-or-other in the service of their greater agenda, keeping their advertisers coming back. Who would advertise on a website called CSO online, you ask....? I think we can both agree that people on bb platforms can be total amateurs. Gotta start somewhere.