Hector Martin Cantero, born on September 9, 1990, is also known as marcan. He is a Spanish computer expert and was once the main programmer for the Asahi Linux project. He is also recognized for hacking several versions of the PlayStation, the Wii, and other devices.

Biography

Martin attended the American School of Bilbao in Spain, where he completed his primary and secondary education.

Since 2011, he has worked as a volunteer staff member at Euskal Encounter, Gipuzkoa Encounter, and Araba Encounter LAN parties. He manages the Free Software area, where he organizes the "Hack It / Solve It" competition (a cybersecurity challenge called capture the flag) and the "AI Contest" competition.

He was part of the group fail0verflow (previously called Team Twiizers), where he focused on reverse engineering and hacking the Wii. He was the first person to create an open source driver for the Microsoft Kinect by reverse engineering, which earned him recognition. Sony took legal action against him and others for hacking the PlayStation 3, but the case was resolved without going to court. In 2016, he adapted Linux to run on the PlayStation 4 and showed this at the 33rd Chaos Communication Congress by using Steam inside Linux. He also developed the usbmuxd tool to transfer data from iPhones to Linux computers.

In 2021, Martin started the Asahi Linux project, which aimed to run Linux on Apple computers with new silicon chips. While studying Apple's hardware, he found a security flaw called "M1racles" in the Apple M1 processor. On February 7, 2025, Martin stopped working directly on the Linux kernel due to disagreements about using the Rust programming language in Linux. On February 14, 2025, he left his role as lead developer of the Asahi Linux project.