Intellectual Property Law

A new contest running at the DefCon hacker conference this year (held in Las Vegas in August) is already stirring up controversy. It will challenge hackers to design malware that can't be detected by anti-virus programs such as ones offered by Symantec and McAfee.

The contest is dubbed Race to Zero, which refers to zero-day exploits -- malware that is so new that protection against it doesn't exist yet.

Contestants aren't being asked to create new viruses but to modify existing ones to see if the anti-virus programs can catch them.

The contest has been criticized by anti-virus vendors for encouraging hackers to thwart their products and teach virus writers new tricks. But the contest organizers say it's actually a test to show how poorly anti-virus products work and to demonstrate that not all anti-virus shields are equal.

"Poorly performing antivirus vendors should be called out," say the contest organizers on their web site.

"The majority of the signature-based antivirus products can be easily circumvented with a minimal amount of effort," they write.