maybe what jason spence likes to wear, but a white hat is what he likes to call himself. >> i can call myself a white hat hacker. >> a white hat hacker being an expert that searches out weaknesses in websites, networks and software not with the intent to exploit them, but get them fixed. >> i do it because it makes the world a better place. >> spence is far from the only one of his kind in the bay area. >> wherever there engineers, you will find white hat hackers. >> the san francisco native is

maybe what jason spence likes to wear, but a white hat is what he likes to call himself. >> i can call myself a white hat hacker. >> a white hat hacker being an expert that searches out weaknesses in websites, networks and software not with the intent to exploit them, but get them fixed. >> i do it because it makes the world a better place. >> spence is far from the only one of his kind in the bay area. >> wherever there engineers, you will find white hat hackers. >> the san francisco native is perhaps one of the world's best known. >> you need hackers to fight hackers like soldiers to fight soldiers. >> he identified a flaw in the system that directions traffic around the internet. in the wrong hands it could have been used to compromise banking websites, e-mail and almost anything that happens online. good thing for us then that knowledge was in his hands. >> i and another engineer started calling very large companies and saying listen, we have to do something about this bug. we have to work together. we have to fix it together. we have to fix it in the same way. we have to fix it at

maybe what jason spence likes to wear, but a white hat is what he likes to call himself. >> i can callyself a white hat hacker and be proud of that. >> a white hat hacker being a computer expert who searches out weaknesses in web sites and software, not with the intent to exploit them but to get them fixed. >> i do that because i think it makes the world a better place. >> and spence is far from the only one of his kind in the bay area. >> where there are engineers, you will find white hat hackers. >> dan kominsky is perhaps the best known white hat hacker. in 2008, kominsky identified a flaw. with the wrong information, it could have been used to compromise bank accounts or almost anything that happens on line. good for us that knowledge was in kominsky's hands. >> i and another engineer started calling various companies saying, listen, we have to do something about this bug. we have to work together, we have to fix it together, we have to fix it in the same way together, we have to fix it at the same time together. >> reporter: and fix it they did. but was kominsky ever tempted to ma