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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."
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 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.
.@.
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.
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...
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
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.
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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!
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
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.