The Last CTF Talk You'll Ever Need: AMA with 20 years of DEF CON Capture-the-Flag organizers

Presented at DEF CON 25 (2017), July 27, 2017, 4 p.m. (105 minutes)

Today there is practically a year-round CTF circuit, on which teams hone their skills, win prizes and attain stature. For many, the ultimate goal is to dominate in the utmost competition, DEF CON's CTF, and walk away with a coveted black badge. Capture-the-Flag (CTF) is one of DEF CON's oldest contests, dating back to DEF CON 4. Over the past decades, the perennial contest has matured into an annual event requiring months of preparation and nearly continuous dedication both of players and organizers. Organizers strive to make the events unique while taking extreme measures to prevent games from being gamed. Participants often have to cope with novel challenges while simultaneously demonstrating continued excellence in domains like reverse engineering, vulnerability discovery, exploitation, digital forensics, cryptography, and network security. In this session, we will present the evolution of DEF CON CTF, highlighting key points of advancement in the CTF culture - most of which broke new ground and are now present in other contests run around the world. Capitalizing on the multi-year tenure of recent DEF CON CTF organizers, we are able to concisely represent over 20 years of organizers on a single panel. Where else can you ask cross-generational questions about challenges of running CTF? Where else can you inquire about evolutionary design, and get answers from those that actually did it? Where else can you ask about hidden challenges, secrets, and CTF lore...from whom it originated? The panelists represent over 20 years of DEF CON CTF organizers. Staples in the CTF community are present comprising of decades of experience in participating and organizing CTFs. On stage we have past organizers representing Legit BS, DDTEK, Kenshoto, Ghetto Hackers, and before - many of which also participated as part of top recurring teams such as Sk3wl of r00t, Ghetto Hackers, Samurai, and Team Awesome. Many also played some role (infrastructure, challenge author, announcer) in the Cyber Grand Challenge culminating last summer at DEF CON. They have received and distributed dozens of black badges. Panelists and the roles they represent for this panel: Hawaii John, Legit Business Syndicate; Chris Eagle, DDTEK; Invisigoth, Kenshoto; Caezar, Ghetto Hackers; Myles, Goon.

Presenters:

  • Tim Vidas / Vulc@n - Difensiva Senior Engineer, DDTEK   as Vulc@n
    Vulc@n have been involved in the community since DEF CON 11, which in some ways seems recent but upon reflection is clearly more than a decade ago. In his early years he sprinted from talk to talk, dodging curious things like mid-school aged folks with baby chickens, couches in purple-dyed pools, and real dunk tanks. He even sat through talks in the blistering heat in outdoor tents at Alexis Park. Starting with his second year attending, he was pulled more and more into the CTF contest with then new-found and now lifelong friends at Sk3wl of r00t. Much of his time in the years since has been dedicated to playing in CTF or organizing it (as part of DDTEK). Ever since convincing one of his college professors to finance my first DEF CON trip, the hacker scene has been kind to him. He now finds himself in possession of two black badges (and leather jacket). More recently he was part of the Cyber Grand Challenge development team and was an on-stage referees for the all-computer hacking competition this past summer. In summary, it seems that he just keeps finding novel ways to be very involved with DEF CON and CTF. @tvidas, @ddtek
  • Myles - CTF organizer, Goon
    Bio coming soon.
  • Riley Eller / Caezar - CTF organizer, Ghetto Hackers   as Caezar
    Bio coming soon.
  • Invisigoth - CTF organizer, Kenshoto
    Bio coming soon. @kenshoto
  • Chris Eagle - CTF organizer, DDTEK
    Bio coming soon. @sk3wl
  • Hawaii John - CTF organizer, Legit Business Syndicate
    Bio coming soon. @LegitBS_CTF, @hj_lbs

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