Need to do some digital breaking-and-entering but don’t have the skills? Don’t worry: Hacker’s List provides a space for you to find your dream hacker, ready to undertake your computer crimes for you.
As the New York Times points out, the site currently lists a chap from Sweden who will pay up to $US2000 to someone who can break into his landlord’s website, while a woman in California will stump up $US500 for someone to hack her boyfriend’s Facebook and Gmail. Lovely!
So far, the site has had over 500 jobs listed on it, with hackers vying to get the work. As you might expect, it’s all done anonymously: the website collects fees when tasks are satisfactorily completed, and nobody knows the identity of the those involved in doing the work. While some of the tasks on the site seems innocuous — taking down unflattering photographs, say — some sounds rather more serious: gaining access to a company database, for instance.
While the activities listed on the site, registered in New Zealand, are clearly illegal in some cases, Hacker’s List claims to be insulated from legal liability, pointing out that it neither endorse nor condone illegal activities. There also a 10-page terms and conditions section which everyone has to agree to, which plainly states that uses shouldn’t use “the service for any illegal purposes”.
How well that would stand up in a court of law remains to be seen, of course. [Hacker’s List]