Mozilla has had cash rewards for bug finders for a while, and when the cash reward rose from $500 to $3000 not too long ago, it seemed more than tempting for 12 year old Alex Miller to go bug hunting.
Very quickly the pre-teen found a bug which was apparently not big enough, but Alex remained diligent, and apparently spent bug searching for 90 minutes a day for 10 days until he found a problem big enough to rake in the $3k. Not bad for 15 hours work. It's been reported that he gave $100 to an animal rescue charity, but I'm sure he will be enjoying the rest of the money himself.
In regards to this rather amazing child, Mozilla's security program manager Brandon Sterne said, "Mozilla depends on contributors like these for our very, sort of, survival. Mozilla is a community mostly of volunteers. We really encourage people to get involved in the community. You don't have to be a brilliant 12-year-old to do that"
This kind of story is pretty promising for Firefox who have been bitter over Apple's possibility of blocking of them from their Mac App Store because of their bugs and betas. Maybe we should all give Mozilla a hand and find their bugs to help them get into Apple's good books (there is definitely no ulterior motive in this plan).
Via: Geeky Gadgets, CNET