Richard Feynman repeatedly played a prank to safeguard the secrets of the Manhattan Project, the early 1940s’ American quest to build an atom bomb. The Nobel-winning physicist kept cracking open safes containing highly confidential papers, forcing higher-ups to install more secure processes. The onus has sharply shifted in the digital age. These days, government agencies go out to hire hackers for cyber operations. In such an era, an IIT-Kanpur aspirant’s effort to hack into the institute’s system to demand a cybersecurity seat spells of desperate innovation and sweet irony. To his credit, the institute’s director has decided to give the hacker-candidate—who simply left a note, “Site is hacked, all I need is a fair chance”—another shot. Sometimes, that’s all students are asking of an extremely competitive system.
