Slashdot Mirror
Computer Attack and Defense As Spectator Sport
zanbar writes "There was a Slashdot story in March about the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin -- using WiFi in a theater. On Jan 11th, an event at the Alamo will combine video with wireless.
LinuxTopGun.org gives details about a series of computer network attack competitions going on tour through North America.
They bring in a Linux/Apache web server, a bunch of teams bring in their laptops and attack it over a wireless network. Teams take turns onstage defending the server and then answering audience Q&A about their strategies. MCs interview competitors and explain network attacks to the audience. DJs mix and VJs flip live video with network visualization software -- animations like in the movie 'Hackers.' Judges award points for how well competitors perform, both online and onstage, and the top teams win prizes... It's like watching computer attacks as a live sport. There is also some discussion taking place in #ltg on efnet."
Geek Olympics!
Magic 8 ball points to very doubtful.
ostiguy
People watch movies like swordfish and think people can break into a network in under a minuite while getting their knob schlobbed. The truth is hacking is a lot slower in real life. I would rather watch the pong channel.
I'm not a crook or a terrorist for God's sake. I'm in *training.* Coke is talking contract and they're considering me for a color commentator position with "Monday Night Crack."
Oh stop crying Ma. That does *not* mean I'm a junkie.
Jesus I've gotta move out of the basement and find my own place.
KFG
if they have trouble with video game tournaments getting mega-popular, i cant imagine how hard it will be to promote the local ghost white chubby kid typing away at a command prompt.
"wow, he typed a string of commands... the crowd hushes"
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Why not put phone booths up where the guys who are doing the hacking will go, and kit them out with bizarre headsets (with no apparent function) and laptops that have been doused in spray paint.
:)
Hack the planet!
And yes, I am kidding
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
And here I thought I was geek supreme; Even I don't see the thrill in this. It just seems massively boring.
It's like watching computer attacks as a live sport.
As the geeks slowly take over the earth, and the collective physical fitness of the human race goes down.. we'll be seeing this at the Olympics one day.
Awesome.
As Garth said, "That's a UNIX book!"
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Isn't this like watching paint dry compared to... UNREAL touraments?
Why would I watch hackers hack, when I can see graphics of blood and gore in a game of tag that even an ape can enjoy and understand?
I mean, I'm a geek, but this just seems a little too bizzare for all but the uber-geeks of the world.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I want to see a DDoS illustration using people and ping pong balls. Now that's edutainment!
and VJs flip live video with network visualization software -- animations like in the movie 'Hackers.'
The movie 'Hackers' had nothing to do with computers or reality for that matter. Please don't feed the trolls.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
I wonder what network visualization tools they're using? It'd be interesting to see what visualization tools are compelling enough to use in a spectator sport.
I checked the site, but there was only a link to one.
Does anyone else know of any dynamic, visually-interesting (and preferably free) visualization tools? Something like this might be a big hit if done at conferences and the like. I'd like to introduce them to a few I attend.
.@.
There should be some "Old Joke"-moderation entry for these :)
The problem in the world today is communication. Too much communication - Homer Simpson
that climaxing right at the moment of guessing the root password to a nice big supercomputer would be so choice.
Anybody else get a blank page when clicking that link? I am using Konqueror 3.0.5, and the document source looks like it should work, but all I get is whitespace.
Why do the Europeans have to complain about everything the Americans do?
This is the kind of thing you only watch hoping someone gets hurt. Whether it be the server or a sudden case or carpal tunnel.
Modular Redundancy--Because 4 out of 5 Nodes agree
Junkyard wars is 12 hours long (10building+1tweeking+1competing), but when slimmed down to an hour TV show it is one of the best things on tv.
Why?
Because they talk with the teams, and explain the engineering behind the plans. I think that by having teams rather than individuals compete, with a team radio or something that the audience could listen to it would be worth attending/watching.
How long does my younger brother have to wait for the cartoon?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Laptops used attack over a wireless network? Teams take turns onstage defending the server?
Bah, Feh!
Whatever happened to the good-old-days of experimental theatre when the audience was encouraged to take off _their_ clothes and join the fun onstage?!
--- have you healed your church website?
I can get all my 8th grade l337 friends, and we can go clean up!! what fun, a competition for script kiddies...maybe we could hax0r the dj box..
At least the war on the environment is going well
How could you even be in that same room and not feel like a total douchebag? I mean get a life for chrissakes.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
bizarre headsets (with no apparent function)
Of course the headsets have function. They provide real-time auralization of what's going on at the remote end. Remember that story about interpreting ping results with audio frequencies?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Naysayer's to the contrary, it's actually an interesting event.
I attended part of the last LTG at Mojo's Daily Grind. There were many, many people there participating and watching, and you have a lot of opportunity to meet new people. The actual "hacking" was slow, but there was music and a projector screen showing what was going on, if you could follow it. One of the better features was that after their attempts each team would have a Q and A session with the audience. I'm looking forward to attending the next one at the Alamo...
Next: All-Star Core Wars ....
-kgj
Dominion!
but in "Hackers" Kate Libby (Angelina Jolie) is a hot, female, hacker...what's that? huh, your saying that's not reality...damn, becuase everything else in the movie is *so realistic*...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Hey,
My main question would be: How are they going to make this interesting?
I mean, computer security usually means good network structure, strong passwords, turning off services that aren't required, and keeping up to date with patches. And they almost certainly won't allow rewiring (i.e. firewall installation).
And the red team institutes a password requiring passwords to be 18 charachters long, and not found in any dictionary! The crowd goes wild!
Oh, and the blue team schedules an automatic twice daily apt-get of all updates! Surely the red team are done for?!
But no, the Red team have found a finger daemon they missed, and deactivated it! This is turning into a very close contest!...
Of course, the website talks about support by models from Hot-Tool Fashion Crew. So it could be good.
But it'll be hard.
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
here's another similar one that i used to play around with...Robocode...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Do they have /. discounts? and maybe some beer?
Everything is a sport. We just hand out the Prizes....
-Well Norman, looks like team 1337 is going for the Port 24567 vulnerability.
-Yes Edmond, but I think that h4x0r's defenders probably have that patch on disk.
-(9 hours later)Oh, 1337's coders were just using that as a distraction while they sniffed other open ports.
-Well Ed, looks like team 1337 has really got a 'handle' on the buffer overflow.
-Thanks, Norm, looks like this could be the end for h4x0r. We'll be back with highlights after the break.
hazardfactory.org
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
I would pull out my Network card!
H4X0R that, beotch!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Now, the fun games to watch are the really pretty space combat sims like freespace 2 for example, which is old enough to now play at high resolutions on mediocre machines. I have a tbird 1.4 gig with a gf3ti200, which is way more machine than you need to play THAT... And it looks especially pretty at 1024x768x32bpp which was only barely playable on my old config (GF2MX400, Athlonclassic 700.) They're pretty, they're accessible thanks to years of prime-time sci-fi programming (TELEVISION programming) and they're epic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Will Angelina Jolie be guest emceeing?
Will it look and sound like Rez?
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I'm thinking back a few years... actually, quite a few. There was a game called "CoreWars". Bell labs , I think.
It was one of the first, if not the first, kind of game where software was programmed to attack each other and basically be "kind of the hill".
Anyways, I'm thinking that the only real way to make a "hack" session interesting is to have a visual aspect, which is what corewars had. You both wrote your code. Put it into the system's core memory, then let them rip. You'd actually be able to see the memory map being consumed by the programs.
Too bad the same can't be said of people breaking into systems, that is... unless you have a massive network of say... 5000 systems and they have a "flag" system so as they are taken over and used, their "allegiance" color changes.
But do these people actually have any idea how long that takes or how numbingly boring it is?
It would be interesting to see what they come up with, but I think maintaining systems and fending off network abusers is "interesting" enough without turning it into a sport.
Especially true people make some associations between your particular "style" and some criminal files which are still open on a detective's desk. Yes, that can become quite interesting in a spectator kind of way real fast.
Winged Power Photography
All their visualization software did was crash my PC. Neat.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
I tried using the visualization program (the gibson looking thing). I got everything setup but it can't find any adapters. Anyone had any luck?
As a member of a newly cobbled together group of 'entry level' security analysts I am looking at this as an example of something we may put together for our lab in order for us to gain more experience in this area. We have a number of OSes and a few lab computers as well as some of our own personal 'lab' computers to work from. [Many years' IT experience this is our first security job so we start by yep, you guessed it, watching IDS sensors but it is good learning].
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Okay, so they're going to use network visualization software to make it look more interesting to the audience. It'll probobly be way too flashy and 'Hollywood' to be useful.
Here's a question - Does anyone know of visualization software that would be actually useful in detecting patterns or attacks in network traffic?
That's right, Mr Hacker... just enter the competition, put all your personal details on this form... we PROMISE we won't give it to some government agency when they think one of you might have taken part in a crime... oh NO, we'd NEVER do something like that to you.
And next month: The "Flying passenger planes into large buildings" competition. Only those of Arab descent need apply.
Rather than setting up a specific new target, just select a spammer, or a website that a spammer is advertising and take it off line for good. Find the spammer and melt it down.
Took the liberty to setup a mirror for topgunlinux, as it has been /.'ed and the downloads of the videos are slow, you can find the mirror here..
:)
Have fun
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
I don't imagine that there will be too many available connections left to watch on after the NSA and FBI bogarts most of them to monitor things for themselves. I don't see them missing out on the opportunity to watch a crapload of different approaches to cracking all at the same time from the crackers' perspectives. That'd be like them not bothering to watch an international bank robbing competition.
Shawn
Because you gotta bitch
Another good reason to head down to the Drafthouse. The Two Towers there was sweet. Unfortunately I'll be at CES when this event happens. :(
ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com
Since they're attacking it over a WiFi link, can't the server team jam the WiFi band? What about non-geek methods, aka Human Engineering hack attempts?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Now this might be a sport worth watching if they were hacking the server while being chased by FEDS with clubs and tasers, that would add some sport element to it.
I guess we have all outgrown the days of C-Robots and CoreWars... *sigh* I know, I know, it was just real cheesy pseudo-animation, but for its day it was pretty cool.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
It's a proven fact that more people hack Windows :)
than Linux. I think they'd open the competition up
to more people if they use the number one operating
system for the target. There is an enormous pool of
MCSE's nationwide they could draw upon to defend the
windows server. I personally think that would be a
lot more fun to watch. *cough* *cough*
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
While this idea sounds like it might be rather slow paced, I think this would be a great idea for an advanced network security class. The class is divided up into teams that is responsible for admin'ing a server. They have to keep it up while attacking the other team's machines. You get to learn about system admin as well as actual hacking techniques and defenses. I wish my school had a class like this...
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
in real-time, it would be slow as people are complaining about.
But, like soap operas, on the Net, you could log in, check out what's happening, get alerts when something interesting is goining on...
And while you're online, with streaming video, you can watch the hot babes (call them "Hacker Hooters Girls"!) while nothing else is going on...
Get your porn and your hacking at the same place!
Look at it like Survivor - who woulda thought something that stupid would take off?
This could be interesting if "done right" - unfortunately nothing is ever "done right"...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Today's secret ingredient is...a Tux webserver!!!
Fuki San! (yes, go ahead!) The challenger is now going into the KDE menu and invoking nmapfe!
(one of the guest judges:) Hahaha, he'll soon find out that the people running the server took notes from a different competition and firewalled everything but port 80 on the server.
Fuki San! (yes!) The Iron h4x0r Linux commented on the challenger's methods by saying true l337 people run nmap from the command line. The Iron h4x0r has also already discovered that only port 80 is open and is now launching a brute-force attack on any default CGI scripts the secret server may have installed.
Ah yes. They could call it the I 0w|\| j00 Stadium and have Iron Cracker for Linux, BSD, Solaris, and I guess Iron Cracker Windows would be like "Iron Chef TV Dinner" or something.
Okay, This needs some airing out.
LTG is an event that when concieved and thought out as an idea, is a pretty interesting one. However, in reality as it is executed and planned, it is fouled and nothing more than a farce and silly game of the organizers.
Unfortunatly, the lead organizer is able to rule over with an Iron thumb, and that thumb is attached to a very stupid and clueless man, Paco Zander Nathan, a dim bulb in even the arthouse wannabie-wired-magazine-trend-whoring cyber-lifestyle scene. This man has unfortunatly let his colors show in the last 2 LTG's and will most likely continue to do so. Before we get into some of the results of the last LTG, let us talk about the disorganized events of the past. First, they are trying to run a hacking competition with a losely defined set of rules, rules that they even make up on the spot, and rules which don't even make sense as security does not come from people only obeying the rules. They run the whole event off wireless for the sake of being interesting and for easiness, but do not like to acknowledge the downside of having no control over the network and attacks on its structure. They did change it so you could not attack the actual network, but it still provides for some failings regardless. As well, the Event is not what you'd really call much of a hacking event, more like a quick cracking and use of the exploit of the day, as they tend to think a default install of RedHat Linux with unpatched and well known vulnerabilities are fine for such an event, apparently no one would pay attention if it where any longer than the 10 minutes of actual attack that takes place against the server. On this note: The Team which took First Place in the last LTG did a good enough job, however they did not manage to keep the server up during the attack, only one team managed that, and managed to be in a large part responsible for the attacks that managed to succeed against the the other teams on defense. It was chalked down to a win for presentation, something with was never clarified in the rules or guidelines for teams. No real matter, the rewards are a joke and fun was had by all, and certainly fun is a worthwhile cause. Though anyone who would take this event seriously as a 'hacking' competition would be advised to look elsewhere. Unfortunatly it seems like lots of media attention without explanation of how this is not a realistic real world security situation (however, in previous conversations with the organizers, they have claimed otherwise to this). It is a good idea in theory, once again, and still remains a fun farce of simple attacks and defense with only one team having done anything to really show a major use of skills to keep things going (Austin2600).
Prehaps it will still evolve into something greater, and it's an interesting event to attend for shits and giggles.
it is - in fact - quite entertaining to see. one of the greatest things is that even as a spectator, you can participate. the network is open to anyone who wants to attack. even better, if you participate on a team, it's fun to 0wn every other team out there. there does happen to be some commentary going on during the competition as to what is going on, so that the audience has a good idea as to what is going on. it's really a matter of interest whether on not you find this kind of thing entertaining. personally, i find baseball incredibly boring. hacking competitions, on the other hand, are very entertaining to me. it's very much a competitive team sport.
NcongruNt
Team Austin2600
austin2600.org
We know who you are, Mr. Thompson!
"...animations like in the movie 'Hackers."
Hmmm.. There's a sure way to de-value your sport.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Would you really want a bunch of pasty white geeks getting their kit off on stage, and "joining in" on the action?
It would certainly violate most cities decency laws, as well as pushing the bounds of bad taste in ways only John Waters could almost tolerate.
the AC
I'm going to relapse into a quivering useless mass until I purge those thoughts from my poor brain
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Sports turn everything into Americans.
actually, my uni does a module like that
Why is that a troll? It was a relevant comment, even if it is worded in a way to piss off some Yanks. Get over it. It's a valid question; our culture is totally competitiveness-centric. We delight in so-called "reality" shows whose main feature is the kind of humiliating petty competitiveness that would have made Caligula proud.
Someone call Carmen Electra! This is the next battle bots, and just as fucking lame.
If you could tie things like Telnet and different port acess points to map locations and then have to fight to gain control of those areas and then have people doing the actual hacking while your team is fighting for control... I think this could have possibilities.
Imagine having areas where you could gain access to a root terminal, password files etc... Combine the high adreneline of FPS game with the slower meta game of hacking the other guys system. Make the ultimate goal cutting off the other teams access to the game server or something like that.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
+1, John Waters reference
The password is 'god'
So long, gibson.
ZeR0Co0L
If I said Windows.NET Technology instead of winshit, would it still have been trolling?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
COMMENTATOR 2: Oh my God! He pulled out a Mountain Dew! Folks, jaws are dropping.
COMMENTATOR 1: But don't count out Jimmy yet from the Canadian team... he's
COMMENTATOR 2: Sacrificing features for stability. That's a rare move in this sport...
I spray painted my entire computer case, monitor, and keyboard silver with blue cloudiness and a blue stripe on the case. Why? I don't know... It did look pretty cool. Coincidentally it was shortly after I first saw the movie hackers.
No, I didn't have any problems typing, because I can type with my eyes shut. If I make a mistake, I feel it, and hit backspace without even needing to see what's on the screen.
A solution to the problem with music today
Maybe I missed it, but I see no reference to this "showing" anywhere but the Alamo. Did I miss a link somewhere?
Sure, we're fat and pale, but those are the best of us. You don't see these people on TV on any show, even Freaks and Geeks. We're way too wierd looking... messed up hair, bad skin, poor taste in clothes, a smarty pants sense of humor. Who wants to see that? I just don't think any of the world's miracle workers are doing makeup backstage. Because they probably won't have many choices which are both skilled and attractive enough to put on TV, the geeks will look down their noses at inferior skills or the rest of the world will change the channel away from the wierdo show.
a-cow:
my employer looked into sponsoring the event and it's done by several people, with backing from a company called symbiot. the 'lead organizer' is somebody different than who you are foaming about.
you could at least get your facts straight. we won't go as far as asking you to learn about spelling, but at least try not to waste everybody else's time.
they usually want to know why I changed their root password...
and why their homepage has strangely changed to Slashdot...
and why all their friends recieved bizarre emails from them...
--- My dad's political betting
In Austin. They had it at Mojo's Daily Grind, a local coffee house. It sucked, frankly. There were about 20 people there and it was pretty lame. I left like right after I got there. Frankly I'm surprised this is getting slashdot coverage. If the next one is better, maybe.. but if it's anything like the last one you'd be wasting your time going.
If the competition is to just make the other team's server worthless... Just post a story on slashdot as "New linux kernel!" and point the link the their box....
If that story doesn't work, just pull a headline from slashdot, and resubmit it... They'll never suspect a dupe, and the box gets hosed!
This is by far the geekiest thing I have ever heard of in my entire life.
PS. I'd probably go watch
NEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRDS!!!
:)
hehe
See who's on the board of Sybiot:e Id=000001 002
http://www.symbiot.com/main.php?uf=0&pag
Damn, shut down!
Forget about the stupid cartoon made by .hacking illiterates, this one is .hacking for real! Not only that, you can do .crack and .slash too!
Hey Thompson,
Those first and last lines gave you away, you malignant HST-wannabe beeotch.
http://www.vivato.net/images/culture.jpg -- see the last entry "At Vivato"
While you're "airing out", why don't you tell everyone what's really on your mind?
Like how Austin police issued a Criminal Trespass against you for threatening to bring a ".45ACP" to the last LTG, and now you'll *never* be able to get that concealed carry license that you've been creaming about all these years.
Like how you've been responsible for litigation at almost every firm where you've worked: Sun Microsystems, Tadpole, Smallworks, Fringeware, ReallyEasy, Wayport, Musenki, and none will even consider doing business with you or your obese retarded wife.
Like how you were kicked out of your cushy Aspen Smallworks job at Sun by the CEO for spewing (see example in post) at one of their top customers.
Like how you tanked Fringeware by inducing McCarter and others working there into slave labor on your pathetic, failed Y2K survivalist collective disguised as an organic garlic farm in Blanco, Texas. What a moron!
Like how your ongoing character assault on Paco has more to do with him walking in on you doing your accountant in the Smallworks office -- and now you're afraid he might tell your nutcracker wife. Oops, he already talked to loads of people, including that accountant.
Like how you had to move to Spokane because the VC firms in Austin have you blacklisted.
Oh, and while you're spewing about "Wired", why don't you tell all the kiddies listening about how you got drunk and fucked up your big press demo of Vivato at the Wired offices? As if it would work, anyways.
You might also mention that your sacred cow Vivato vaporware just happens to compete with one of the backers for LTG, and that's the other reason why you've been putting so much effort into trying to smear it.
It's a beautiful day.
- Someone who cares
I suggest they change the concept.
:-)
They should call it Crash-It-UrSelf and give the winner a new linux box.The one who crashes his box beyond repair first is the winner.
Better not come in second
If the assaults are carried out over wireless,
the best defense we can do is enclose the whole thing in a faraday cage, that should do the trick.
Alternatively, the best defense is a strong offense, so a modded microwave oven with a waveguide attached could be used to toast the suckers.
This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland
student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87.
One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use
Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one
computer language to another and has a built-in editing system
which identifies errors in the original program.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...