Hector Martin Cantero (born September 9, 1990), also known as marcan, is a Spanish

security hacker A security hacker or security researcher is someone who explores methods for breaching or bypassing defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, pro ...

and former lead developer on the

Asahi Linux Asahi Linux is a project that Porting, ports the Linux kernel and related software to Apple Silicon-powered Mac (computer), Macs, started by Hector Martin (hacker), Hector Martin. It does so by Reverse engineering, reverse-engineering the System ...

project. He is also known for hacking multiple

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

generations, the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

and other devices.

Biography

Education

Martin went to the American School of Bilbao (Spain), where he received his primary and secondary education.

Career

Since 2011, he has been an official staff volunteer at Euskal Encounter, Gipuzkoa Encounter and Araba Encounter

LAN parties A LAN party is a social gathering of participants with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing m ...

. He is the coordinator of the

Free Software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

area, where he organizes the "Hack It / Solve It" competition (a cybersecurity challenge known as capture the flag) and the "AI Contest" competition. He has been part of fail0verflow, (formerly known as Team Twiizers) where he was responsible for

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

and hacking the

. He was the first to write an open source driver for the

Microsoft Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light o ...

by reverse engineering for which he was widely credited. Sony sued him and others for hacking the PlayStation 3; the case was eventually settled out of court. In 2016, he ported

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

to the

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

and demonstrated that at the 33rd

Chaos Communication Congress The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual hacker conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues related to security, cryptography, privacy and ...

by running

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

inside Linux. He wrote the usbmuxd tool for synchronizing data from

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

s to Linux computers. In 2021, Martin founded the

project, an effort to

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

Linux to the new

Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

-powered Macs. While reverse engineering Apple's hardware, Martin discovered the " M1racles" security vulnerability on the

Apple M1 Apple M1 is a series of ARM-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., launched 2020 to 2022. It is part of the Apple silicon series, as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) for its Mac desktops and no ...

processor. On 14 February 2025, Martin resigned as lead developer of the project. On 7 February 2025, Martin stepped down from directly working on the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

over a dispute regarding Rust for Linux.

References

External links

*
Hector Martin's YouTube
― Asahi Linux coding streams {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Hector 1990 births Living people Hackers Computer security specialists PlayStation (brand) Reverse engineering