Barnaby Jack, a celebrated computer hacker who forced bank ATMs to spit out cash and sparked safety improvements in medical devices, died in San Francisco, a week before he was due to make a high-profile presentation at a hacking conference.
The New Zealand-born Jack, 35, was found dead on Thursday evening by "a loved one" at an apartment in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood, according to a police spokesman. He would not say what caused Jack's death but said police had ruled out foul play.
Jack was 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.
His genius was finding bugs in
the tiny computers embedded in equipment, such as medical devices and
cash machines. He often received standing ovations at conferences for
his creativity and showmanship while his research forced equipment
makers to fix bugs in their software.
Jack had planned to demonstrate his techniques to hack into
pacemakers and implanted defibrillators at the Black Hat hackers
convention in Las Vegas next Thursday. He told Reuters last week that he
could kill a man from 30 feet away by attacking an implanted heart
device.
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