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Celebrity hacker found dead
San Francisco - Mr Barnaby Jack, the celebrated computer hacker whose research forced manufactures to fix bugs in their software, has died in a week before making a high-profile presentation at a US hacking conference.
Mr Jack is one of the world's most prominent "white hat" hackers - those who use their technical skills to find security holes before criminals can exploit them.
He was the director of embedded device at IOActive Inc, a security consulting firm with offices in Seattle and London.
He became one of the world's most famous hackers after a 2010 demonstration called "Jackpotting" - getting ATMs to spew out bills. A clip of the presentation has been viewed more than 2.6 million times on Youtube.
By demonstrating a range of electronic vulnerabilities, he also sparked safety improvements in medical devices.
The New Zealand-born Mr Jack, 35, was found dead last Thursday evening by "a loved one" at an apartment in San Francisco, according to a police spokesman. He would not say what caused the death but said police had ruled out foul play.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner's office said it was conducting an autopsy, although it could be a month before the cause of the death is determined.
Mr Jack's genius lay in finding bugs in the tiny computers embedded in equipment such as medical devices and cash machines.
He had planned to demonstrate his techniques to hack into pacemakers and implanted defibrillators at the Black Hat hackers convention in Las Vegas this Thursday 1 July 2013.
He told Reuters this month that he could kill a man from 9m away by attacking an implanted heart device.
His passion for hacking sometimes got him into trouble. In 2010, he connected his laptop to a gold bullion dispensing machine at a casino in Abu Dhabi, according to fellow hacker Tiffany Strauchs Rad.
She said he had permission from a hotel manager to hack the machine but security intervened. It turned out that the hotel did not actually own the gold machine and the American Embassy had to be called in to help resolve the misunderstanding. Ms Rad said.
"He would hack everything he touched," Ms Rad said.
After his death, his friends pitched in to help the family with funnel expenses. They collected about US$4,300 in 13 hours through a crowdfunding website.
Black Hat said it will not replace Jack's session at the conference, saying the hour would be left vacant for delegates to commemorate his life and work.
Bloomberg, Reuters, AP
