Google knew that its own hackers, and the most powerful fuzz farms in the world, were still no match for a country hell-bent on tracking its own people. And so Google came to the same epiphany iDefense had years earlier: it started tapping the world’s hackers for good. Until 2010, Google had only paid hackers for bugs in street cred. Anyone who responsibly disclosed a Google bug was rewarded with a T-shirt and a mention on Google’s website. After Aurora, Google decided it was time to start paying its volunteer army real loot.
