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I came across a good interview with Johnny Long over on Computer Defense this morning. If you don’t know who Johnny Long is…well…he is pretty well known in the hacker and security community. More about him on his web site and by doing some Google searches (he wrote a very good book called “Google Hacking” BTW).
Anyway, when I was at Defcon 15 this past summer I sat in on his “No Tech Hacking” presentation and remember Johnny talking about a charity organization that he started called “I Hack Charities” or better known as “Hackers for Charity”. While honestly at the time I was more interested in the talk he was about to give, I had thought that this was a really cool idea. Hackers for Charity basically gives hackers an outlet to use their skills for good and to also help build their resumes. Basically, you help them out with a technical project, they will give you a job reference (via a LinkedIn connection and resume reference). In addition, Hackers for Charity accepts all sorts of donations from old hardware to swag you may have been collecting over the years from all those security conferences (I know I have tons of this stuff). They collect this swag and send it to needy people over in Africa and other underdeveloped countries. I am thinking about getting all my co-workers to dig out all of their swag and we could send them a big box of this stuff…think of the possibilities if several big corporations did the same thing…something we should all think about.
Great stuff, right? How can you get involved? Check out the web site here. Sign up for the mailing list here. You can donate time, money, swag, or any skill set that you may have. They are even looking for people with soft skills as well (business, management, etc…). Let’s help spread the word and get other security professionals to support this worthy cause.