I'd just bought Barnaby Jack a pint of Harp when it hit me: Shouldn't he be buying my beer? Jack, as you might know, is the good-guy hacker who figured out a way to digitally hijack ATMs and command them to spit out $20 bills. Not that he would ever do that to buy a columnist a beer - or for any other reason, for that matter.
"I suppose I'm on the good side of the fence," said Jack, 32. "I couldn't really bring myself into a criminal life. Besides, my mom wouldn't like it if I was in jail."

Jack was back home in San Jose between trips in a summer of trips, including one in July to the Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas. That's where he achieved rock star status by demonstrating how he hacked two different models of ATMs and turned them into cash-spewing wonders.

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