The account holder’s information—name, address, bank, even signature—had been redacted to protect the unnamed agency Charlie had sold his exploit to. But over the course of half an hour, Charlie relayed to an audience of economists and academics how he had gone about selling his zero-day to Uncle Sam. For the first time, the secret was out: the U.S. government was willing to pay hackers—quite a bit, as it turned out—to turn over vulnerabilities in the products and leave their customers—including American citizens—vulnerable in the process. And the government was doing so with money from
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