Be a good citizen: help DARPA by playing a video game today! The agency has created Verigames, which features puzzle games that are a lot like the games you probably already play on your smartphone or tablet. The difference is that there’s a bit more to these games than meets the eye. DARPA is on a mission to hunt down bugs in commercial software. Since money is pretty tight in the government (now that I think of it, it’s probably tight everywhere), they’re indirectly sourcing the work out to the public by bundling the software up in the form of a fun game.
Each of the games DARPA is offering features a possible that must be solved before they can move on to the next level. But what does this have to do with the bugs? Well, the code behind each game is actually math problems that represent specific programs. When the player passes a certain level, algorithms are created that reveal security bugs in the software itself. Fresh puzzles are generated on the spot for the problems that need further review.
When a player stumbles upon any issues while they’re playing, DARPA will contact the company responsible for the software, who will then deploy a team of professional analysts to study and fix the problems.
The five games are called CircuitBot, Flow Jam, Ghost Map, Stormbound and Xylem and can now be played on Verigames.
VIA [ Dvice ]
