Last November, Charles Tendell quietly launched a website called Hacker's List. Its name was literal. In this online marketplace, white-hat security experts could sell their services in bite-size engagements to people with cyber-problems beyond their grasp.
"Hacker's List is meant to connect consumers who have online issues to hackers or professionals out there who have the skills to service them," Tendell told Ars. "Consumers get bullied online, they lose personal information, they have things stolen from them, they get locked out of things, and they have people post negative things or post personal information. They didn't have a place to go to be able to get help and make sure they're getting the right price or the best person for a particular job. That's what Hacker's List is for."
The idea seemed clever enough. Soon after launch, The New York Times found the site and brought a stampede of traffic that initially caused it to go down under the strain. In the six months or so since, Hacker's List has been running without technical hitches. (The site is also utilizing CloudFlare's content delivery network nowadays.)
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