The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hopes DefCon 22 attendees are up to the challenge of helping eliminate phone spam – also known as robocalls.
The “Zapping Rachel” contest will involve three standalone contests, which are scheduled to be hosted throughout the upcoming August convention, according to a Monday post by Lois Greisman, associate director at the FTC.
The contest does not aim to specifically eliminate phone spam, but instead focuses on developing “robocall honeypots,” which are systems designed to attract robocallers and collect data for law enforcement and others to analyze, according to the post.
In October 2012, the FTC offered up $50,000 as part of a contest seeking an end to robocalls. One of the winners, Nomorobo, claims its solution has been used to stop more than 4.3 million robocalls.
