Infamous hacker Barnaby Jack dies, one week before Black Hat convention

NBC News ^ | 7/26/2013 | Jim Finkle

[wideawake]

Barnaby Jack, a celebrated computer hacker who could force a bank ATM to spit out cash and sparked safety improvements in medical devices, has died in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office said Jack died in the city on Thursday. It gave no details. He was believed to be in his mid-30s.

Jack was due to appear at the Black Hat hacking convention in Las Vegas next week, demonstrating techniques for remotely attacking implanted heart devices. He said he could kill a man from 30 feet away.

His genius was finding bugs in the tiny computers embedded in equipment such as medical devices and banking machines. He received standing ovations at hacking conventions for his creativity and showmanship.

[wideawake]

I'm sure this will pass unnoticed by the Michael Hastings analysts.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Forgot he had a pacemaker???

[novemberslady]

Bttt

[RainMan]

Back in 2010, Barnaby was a good friend of mine and we travelled extensively together. I heard this news on the radio this morning and was deeply saddened. He was one of the few Hackers that I respected.

[hoosiermama]

Do you suspect anything ?

[A_perfect_lady]

... He doesn’t really sound like an admirable fellow. Talented, perhaps, but... not very admirable.

[PAR35]

Your tax dollars at work?

[molson209]

will he be able to hack his way out of this ?

[bigbob]

Wonder if they gave him ALT-CTRL-DEL?

[longfellow]

He sounds like a computer genius, was he ever jailed? anything illegal?

[novemberslady]

I’m very sorry you’ve lost your friend

[Nita Nupress]

Brietbart or Hastings were diabetic or wearing a pacemaker, were they?

[Nita Nupress]

... He doesn’t really sound like an admirable fellow. Talented, perhaps, but... not very admirable.

Probably started out as a black hat, but most recently he seemed to be a white hat. From the article:

Jack's most recent employer, the cyber security consulting firm IOActive,...

Two years ago, while working at McAfee,...

BTW, the rest of that sentence is interesting; it's why i thought of Breitbart and Hastings.

Two years ago, while working at McAfee, he engineered methods for attacking insulin pumps that prompted medical device maker Medtronic to bring in outside security firms and revamp the way it designs its products.

[Nita Nupress]

oops.

Brietbart or Hastings were weren't diabetic or wearing a pacemaker, were they?

[freedomlover]

When hackers die, do they first get the Blue Screen of Death?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

There is no such thing as a coincidence.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

No. He merely found security vulnerabilities and made the responsible parties aware of them.

[longfellow]

oh that’s amazing. keep us posted about this. with all this nsa crap i don’t trust anything.

[SE Mom]

No details? No word on how he died?

Still waiting to hear the facts on Hastings death..very odd.

[Right Wing Assault]

Maybe the NSA figured out a way to crash his internal CPU from 30 feet away.