If there is one thing hackers love, it’s a challenge. Capture the flag (or CTF) competitions have become a staple of hacker conferences like DEF CON and you can even find some available online year-round. These competitions can range in difficulty, from simple trivia scavenger hunts to full-blown tests of skill. Some CTFs award prizes for completion while others were designed to teach new skills. No matter your experience level, there is probably a CTF available for you.
Last year, at the 2017 Black Hat and DEF CON events in Las Vegas, WatchGuard Threat Lab ran our own CTF. Participants had to track a missing agent of the Crimson Thorn hacking collective over a series of challenges of increasing difficulty. In some challenges, they needed to solve a riddle and crack an encrypted message, in other challenges they had to locate secrets hidden in images or audio. Participants that completed enough challenges quickly enough earned prizes.
This year, Crimson Thorn is back for the 2018 Black Hat and DEF CON events, and they’re recruiting new agents via challenges for participants of all skill levels. While the official contest doesn’t begin until August 8th, you can get started with a few intro challenges right away at crimsonthorn.net. The more challenges you complete, the more points you will earn. Prizes this year include a DJI Spark drone and a 3D Printer for whoever has the most points near the end of Black Hat (August 9th at 3PM) and DEF CON (August 12th at 2pm) respectively.
We look forward to challenging all of the new Crimson Thorn recruits when the contest begins on August 8th!
Hi fellow tec geeks!
I usually go through the trash in our electric recycling room. Often i find fully functioning stuff (computers, screens etc.) but this time i found something special. It was a Defcon badge with a map and LED lights with a 4x 1.5V battery pack. After some WD40 treatment the corrosions where disolved and the badge was responsive. Shaza!
But then i found something even more interesting. A- what looks like a programable portable console. It had a seperate display with bent pins that i fixated back to there right position. The thing is, i dont have any multimeter and I am not sure what i posess right now. Have search for data sheets and card info but only gets directed here or to crimsonthorn.net.
Im not really a programmer myself, but i do remember a bit. Just went back to linux with bootmanager ofcourse to start learning some basic C and be comfortable navigating in terminal instead of visual menus.
The red (lets call it console) har a battery pack on the back with a 2 pin connector that you can pull apart. I have charged the battery and it seems like it still holds the power after unplugging the charger according to led indicators.
The screen on the other hand seems completely dead. I cant see anything that indicate that it would be broken but it just wont turn on. There are 6 buttons in the classic NES constilation, D-pad to the left and “A and B” on the right.
Is there any way to bring this little beutiful gadget to life? I would love trying to make a game and upload the ROM to this little machine. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Best regards, Nils Rydén