I just caught this TechCrunch article about uTest, a sort of outsourced/crowdsourced software testing broker. In short, get paid to find bugs or pay others to find your application’s bugs.
Seems like something similar but focused on security testing would be incredibly useful. Who’s going to launch that one?
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February 10th, 2008 
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Like a bounty-based system? (Break into system X and complete task Y and collect Z dollars/credits/etc)
@David Along those lines.
But more of a “Hey, we’re about to launch MyShinySite. The exposed beta is at http://MyShinySite.com/beta2 — who can find any security holes?”
Kinda of a get paid to hack or crowdsourced penetation test.
Granted, maybe it would end up being an easy way to DDOS and crumble a beta site… perhaps a “gate keeper” would be necessary so it doesn’t get flooded.
Interesting to noodle on though.
With the software evolution, to offer to their users more features and become compatible with the most popular operative systems, some software applications tend to have hidden bugs. Imagine if you are Bill Gates, and you want to know if the last version of Word contains bugs! Microsoft and other companies uses the power of their community to test their software (and of course report bugs) and in exchange the testers will receive a discount, money or a software application. [...]
http://blog.belive.ws/2008/02/13/utest-beta-testers-community/
Regards,
Adriano Lopes