Hack Google's Native Client and get $8,192

Google is challenging hackers to rip apart their ActiveX alternative called Google Native Client. Native Client allows users to run native x86 code on the web -- something that has been deemed as extremely dangerous, especially from untrusted sources.

Google says this challenge is to make Native Client more secure, but I think this may also be a great way to gain some trust points for technologies like this. Winners of the challenge are awarded cash prizes -- the grand prize is $8,192USD.

There are five cash prizes: The first prize is $8,192, the second prize $4,096, the third prize is $2,048, the fourth prize is $1,024 and the fifth prize is $1,024. All amounts are in USD.

If they can get through this challenge without any serious problems being reported, that's a huge win for Google, and some pretty impressive marketing material. That type of marketing ammo can be used to possibly help future pushes to get this type of technology pre-installed in browsers.