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Linux Top Gun Hacker Contest Report
We heard about this from a slashdot article ("Computer Attack and Defense As Spectator Sport").
Tough Audience The event was held at the Alamo Drafthouse, a movie house with tables and a wireless network. The theatre was packed, and there was a waiting line going out the door. I talked to an admin who had driven in from Brownsville (South Texas) for this event, so obviously there was a lot of interest, although we didnt know what to expect. Many attendees, maybe 10%, had computers with them.
The event was supposed to start at 7 p.m., but because of technical difficulties, it didnt start until 9 p.m. In the outer lobby were vendors selling metal bras and edgy political/sex books. Very Austinesque.
The Event Itself When the Top Gun event itself started, it went like this: there are a few registered teams; each team is given the 'target' box, and has ten minutes to secure it. After that, everyone in the room has thirty minutes to try to hack into the box. A few services had to be enabled -- http, https, ssh, smtp, and ftp. The defenders start with 100 points, and points are deducted if any of the services seemed unavailable, or if judges determined the box was compromised. DoS attacks are not allowed.
Already the idea sounded weak. On the big screen, they were running a homebrew GUI app that showed the score, time, IP addresses, and the services on the target. The services were being polled by a monitoring machine, and the response time was displayed. If the response time increased, i.e. the service was laggy, then points were automatically deducted from the defender's score. Laggy web server performance? That's a strange definition of 'hacked', but it is (or should have been) easy to monitor, which is probably why they did it.
Part of the draw to this event was that they were going to use "video animation" to "show how network attacks happen." I didn't have my hopes up for this, but I was still disapointed. They used their (Linux-based) homebrew GUI, which looked like it just used some libraries from etherape to draw lines from ips to the services on the target they attach to. That was it for the visualizations. The list of services was supposed to turn from green to red when they went slow, but for most of the night they stayed red and displayed just zeros, no readings. Their software appeared very buggy, hardly ever working, and windows in the background showed them fixing it as they went.
The commentary was sparse and uninformative. "Yes, that line shows connections to http, and it is taking a beating!" There was no discussion of exploits, security, concepts, attacks, what is currently happening, etc. After the attack session ended, the defenders were brought up for a brief Q&A, which reminded me of a post-fight boxing interview. "Uh, yeah, we felt good, we had a plan. A lot of things happened, and we applied patches."
Before, during, and after the attack session, no one knew what was happening. It seems that despite hours of trying by different teams, the target box was NEVER compromised. During the second Q&A session I stood up and asked, "Was the box hacked in any way whatsoever?" The reply? "Probably." But no one knew. If it had been hacked, I believe the person doing it would have said something, or at least bragged on the irc channel for the contest.
The entire operation seemed very amateurish. Technical difficulties occured during the event, giving one team a higher score becuase the monitoring software wasnt working to remove points. Most attendees left early, and a highlight of the evening was when someone posted ascii porn to the irc channel.
On the upside, the DJ had a good stream of music, there were more women than you'd expect, and some in small metal bras. And it was a gathering of a lot of smart geeks, a great opp to meet people.
Room for improvement. The longest topic of conversation in the audience was how to fix this mess. We came up with some ideas:
Visuals
They should have used proven, off-the-shelf network visualization and monitoring tools for the event. We were _dying_ for some snort output, to see what exploits were being attempted. A tool like Demarc would have been perfect to show the events as they happened. Or at least snortsnarf or acid. The screen should have rotated between different monitoring tools to give an idea of what was happening.
Contest Format
The format of the event was flawed. The truth is most hackers take advantage of easy targets. Defending a box is not that hard. Simply applying the latest patches and configuring a basic iptables firewall about does it. After those steps are taken by the defending team, only truely leet hax0rs with 0day exploits are going to get root in thirty minutes.
A better format would be this: Bring an unpatched or lightly patched Linux server for everyone to attack. As soon as someone gets in, stop the show. The hacker gets a prize, and has to explain/show what they did. Then that vulnerability is patched, and the contest starts up again.
All in all, the event was a let down. Austin is a cool town, and lots of smart geeks came out. There is obviously interest in an event like this, but the execution didn't result in any entertainment or learning. If this is a PR event to generate publicity for the sponsors, I think it failed, because if this is an example of their organizational and technical skills, I would not hire them myself. But then, they're probably better at security than they are at public events.
Slashdot welcomes reader-submitted features; thanks to marc for this one.
Did someone hack this page? Seems it won't load for me :)
"I believe in everything in moderation. Including moderation." -Dean DeLeo, Stone Temple Pilots
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Amateurish? From the site...
"Everyone join #ltg on efnet for some Paco bashing, and to witness Dick Hunter in full rantitude.
What are you expecting?!
After the excitement of all of those hacker movies and TV shows, I'm suprised at this result.
Yet another event trying to make it look like hacking into computers is really cool and a fun activity... when in fact it's long, boring, solitary and quite pointless for most people when you think about it (especially pointless for those 14 year olds with too much time who would do better to go out and get laid than to DoS someone they don't like on IRC with one of the boxes they got into courtesy of code red or whatever). Daniel
Carpe Diem
pics plz
Username taken, please choose another one.
"and a highlight of the evening was when someone posted ascii porn to the irc channel.
You say that as if the highlight of ANY geekfest ISNT pr0n???? Just where are your priorities man!!
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
On the upside, the DJ had a good stream of music, there were more women than you'd expect, and some in small metal bras
One of the women was probably Leslie.
this sure sounds terrible. i would be sad if i had to pay to go to this event. i guess you cant expect a bunch of geeks to know how to throw a good party.
Won't even be at this show. They are too busy elsewhere.
Personally, the idea of a hacking competition is interesting, but it would have to be done over a long period of time, and set up more like a war game than a boxing match.
Skr1p7 k1dd13s treat hacking as a boxing match. Real hackers are far more efficient and skilled at it.
An idea for a real hacking competition (Almost like capture the flag): Two sides to the fight, different locations for both. One side will have multiple targets, the other side will have multiple attackers.
The goal of the attackers will be to get specific files from the targets, using any technique desired. (Including Social Engineering) The goal of the defenders will be to catch/name/etc the attackers, and thus completely neutralize them.
Do this over a course of a month or a year, and make a TV show with the highlights of battle. Now that would be excellent viewing.
** NOTE: the term hacker above can also be translated as cracker for those who are offended by this use of the term hacker, thank you **
~ kjrose
Speaking of which, did anyone get tired of the poorly thoughout contest and break into a game of Quake, Counter Strike, or War Craft III???
Honestly, this event sounded like it had potential, but the organizers just didn't plan things well enough
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
To me this seems true of all 'wargame' style events, and was the same at HAL (www.hal2001.org), any half competant admin can secure a box to public exploits, and no-one is going to use 0day during a wargame, but, can anyone think of a decent alternative? The idea in the story seems ok, but it would just be a case of someone using one public exploit on one service, until all services that are publically exploitable have been 0wned and then it gets boring again. Any suggestions on a decent way to do a wargame?
Boring, way boring.
But, the format they used, while it has some problems, might be useful. I think a show-off night would be more fun. Everyone brings their laptops with their code on it, and they take turns showing off what they've done to the group on the big screen. While I wouldn't want to try this with a full theater, it'd be fun with 30-40 people.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
An alternative would be a case-mod contest with action packed 3-D live animation of the modifications in progress and quotes from the contestents; "Um yeah, like we hacked the case with a jigsaw and added some blue neons right, and now it runs and looks cooler".
Maybe even a contest to make the smallest distro right from downloading the latest mandrake linux to booting up on a 486DX66 with 32MB ram. Should be a fascinating spectator sport.
Over the past few years I have tried convincing my ole demoscene buddies to convert (or atleast try out) Linux, maybe only for the fun of it. They have good technical/mathematical knowledge and can code assembler even in their dreams (did some quite good 3d-demos in C/asm back in the old days). But they seem to be stuck in the Windows-mud forever and hate everything that doesnt smell MS. What should I do to help them convert? Is the demoscene as a whole _completely_ stuck with windows, and is that because of lacking linux 3D-drivers? I really need them to open up their (very closed) minds.
Being on an actual team at the contest, It was a lot better than their 2nd attempt.. Every time LTG throws an event. it gets better..
Although #2 required you to run a specific application on the webserver.. this one you could put anything you want.. (aka a static page with hello world).
But all and all it was good.
I came in #1 for the 2nd contest.
Team 2600 came in 1st this time
(We, team penguinati, came in second this time).
but oh well.
It was fun.... the best thing is the food and beer...
ChiefArcher
I agree wholeheartedly. I also plea to Slashdotters, avoid gun shows!! They just encourage people to go and shoot random bypassers. While you're at it, never go to a bar again, because they promote drunken driving. Designated driving is just a way to make it LOOK like they aren't. Oh, and never play a computer game again, because you know those crazy Everquest addicts that haven't seen the sun in 14 months... you could turn into one of those. Geez... it's just a convention. It's not a cry to go out and 0wnz some b0x3s. If you can't find a stable job, that's too bad. How's telling people not to go this convention gonna fix that?
Take it, just take it.
Seriously. I am not worthy of the title, because there is no way in hell you could ever drag me to one of these events.
It turned out to be pretty boring?
Gee, I wonder why.
Hacking IMO isn't a spectator sport.
Kinda like eating oatmeal isn't a spectator sport.
Uh oh, here come the flamebait mods.
Hey, it's my opinion folks. Don't like it? Reply with why. But you know I may just be the first to say it, but I'd be willing to bet many here are thinking the same thing.
its not our fault you cannot get/keep a job, so stop bitching. If you want handouts, go on welfare, but stop bitching please. Its such a buzzkill, just let others have their fun in peace, you know that individual right to 'pursuit of happyness' thing.
I want 2D games back.
http://www.gbronline.com/brooksdesign/
Yah... People asked... I found... it seems...
perhaps a lightly patched server to begin with and teh team/attacker who comprommises gets to take over defending the box till it is compromised again..
let's get together and start hacking each other's backdoors!!
-Pete T.
Hey man! I'm white, so I am offended by people calling me a craker ... oh, sorry, that is a cracka ...
did the ref take 3 seconds to throw a flag if there was an infraction??
3 seconds = to a Miami fan
What was her name?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
How do you do it? You actually got an "Interesting" mod for that despite springing "terror" in the second word and using the phrase "poor Telnet." I bow to your trolling skillz.
go home troll and get yourself that MCSE or whatever cert you want.
this isn't crime any more than a gun show is inciting terrorism, or flying on airplanes is inciting terrorism. it would be really nice if this society could get off this whole terrorism soap box, but i guess GWB will ensure that doesn't happen for a few years.
attempting to crack a box is entertainment for lots of people. some like to spend their saturday afternoon watching the nfl playoffs, some like to try to crack into another's server. it's not like they don't have permission to the box or anything.
trolling, trolling, trolling..
I could gain root access any one of those in a few seconds with a can opener. All I ask is the opportunity to prove it.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Since this is in the Austin area, I recommend checking out the Austin area slash based GeekAustin. They had a head's up on this event a while ago. I haven't seen a followup yet.
I don't condone it because it couldn't help but be bad or boring. Hacking, for whatever purpose, is tedious if anything, and tedium rarely makes for exciting stuff. Having a technical discussion afterward might be neat, doing it as a demonstration, but mixing in DJ's and scantily clad women just comes off as silly. You might as well hold your next math convention at a strip club.
As far as terrorism goes... please! There's nothing illegal or "black hat" about breaking into a box you've been told to break into. What better way to find bugs or flaws, so that you can then close them? I'd be a lot more worried about gun shows before I worried about hacker conventions cause last I checked, the gun to computer related death factor was still INFINITE.
The more people banned (or are bullied) into stopping completely legal and (possibly) worthwhile activities, the more I'll seriously consider moving to Canada... or running for office. Neither of which I'd really enjoy, BTW.
Any hacker worth the time wouldn't shuffle off to an ACM-esque programming comp. Just doesn't seem to be what's cool to me. I'm much more inclined to believe the monitoring box was hacked to flop-like-a-fish all night.
As far as hacking, why not run a box per team local to the gathering all night. They all have the same holes, and the team that can exploit it best wins.
For the majority of my time though, I'd prefer to simply watch presentations about known hacks and documented exploits. Esp. given the mystery about the GOBBLE and such latests dealing with P2P.
mug
A bunch of geeks sitting around trying to compromise a remote machine sounds like "hackers" to me.
I assume that all of the people that posted something about "what real hackers do" must be the real thing. How else would they have insight into such an elite and presitgious field of uber-nerd malevolence?
Transistors and Beer!!
I'm amazed the writer of this article was SURPRISED it went poorly and was badly organized.
Did anyone actually look at that disgrace they call a web site? What is that PHPNuke? If it is...they have no business doing any kind of security work or running a "hacking competition" unless it involves hacking the web page.
between Hacker contests and the poor job market for computer geeks. It seems to me that this would actually help to publicize the problems out there that many people don't know exist. As more people are educated about computer crimes, more security oriented jobs will be created. Novell certification? No wonder you are working at Staples.
Worst. Sig. Ever.
All elements meant to distract you from the fact that there is nothing going on in the room and you wasted gas and money driving there.
I'm heading off to a dog show now...
Best shouted just before being doused in liquid nitrogen.
The entire idea of this contest is flawed. Like the article said, securing a box is trivial. Apply the newest patches and set up a simple firewall, bingo. But if everyone knew what was going to be open ahead of time, it'd just be a race to see who could run their exploit scripts first.
Truth is, hacking in general is not rocket science. Anyone can do it. Securing a box is not hard, however the reason so many machines get hacked is ignorance and/or apathy to the situation. Hell, the hardest part about hacking is finding a box with holes to exploit. If you already know the box has holes, you can run a script to find them. I went to the first Linux top gun and it was a total washout as well. This one sounds a bit more organized (at the first one, half the attendees were bums there for pizza) but the entire idea of this contest just sounds stupid. Anyone can be a l33t h4x0r, it takes intelligence not to want to.
http://www.espressowebdesign.com/gallery/gallery.p hp?gallery=16
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
If you left too early and missed the penguinati presentation.. Check it out
http://www.penguinati.com
we did an "odd todd" ripoff to present our information.
ChiefArcher
OK, I guess it's official now.
Hacker = Cracker
and good linux programmers are just good linux programmers.
It's sad that mass media has finally triumped over the geeks.
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
On the upside, the DJ had a good stream of music, there were more women than you'd expect, and some in small metal bras.
Come now, don't disappoint the Slashdot community. Where did you post the pictures?
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Does anyone else find it amusing that they are not allowing DoS attacks but are awarding points based on service response times?
It seems to be that the most legitimate measurement that response times provide in a hacking contest is how effective a DoS attack is.
Past that, all the majority of that result comes from how much traffic you have. Last time I checked, this was a hacking contest, not a web server benchmark.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
Computer-related death is non-zero, so the gun to computer related death is not infinite.
...that frameset is way 2 1337 4 m3.
Expecting geeks to know what is entertaining in a group format is asking a little much. Also, the more intellegent the audience, the harder it is to satisfy them.
Some real thought needs to be put into the venue. Conduct some tests and trials for christ sakes. That would have exposed the weaknesses of the format.
- Just because you can't, doesn't mean you shouldn't
** NOTE: the term hacker above can also be translated as cracker for those who are offended by this use of the term hacker, thank you **
I was telling that to some homey's on the South side last night about 2AM. They was strutting in there NFL jackets/NBA shorts with gold chains and giant medallion and a stocking caps. The was like like "This muthuh fnck1n cracker iz just aksin for a cap in his muthuhfnck1n a55!"
I replied, "Sir, I appreciate that. Most people call me Hacker. And I much prefer Cracker."
What swell fella's.
(writing in from hospital)
tell me more about these bras that you speak of and that which they contained
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
There are a bunch of firearms enthusiasts in the open-source software community, but ESR's probably one of the most vocal :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Okay, so they failed on the visual aspect of the show. Good idea, maybe next time, keep it up. What about aural effects? Say a chime every time a packet was received by the target machine, or every 5th packet, etc? Different sounds for different packets. Maybe different sounds for packets aimed at different services. Each team could provide a "themed" sound board, and thus you could tell which team was attacking which service merely by the sound. Depending on how many teams are simulaneously attacking, it could be neat, or just really irritating. In addition to some good graphics, and actual possibility of a hack, it might a better night out of a bad night.
Enjoy:
http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity1556.html
They should have taken a page from Swordfish and let the contestants receive blowjobs as they hacked. That would of spiced things up.
HY: In a lecture, you mentioned that you didn't use passwords, and had no security for your computer.
RMS: Uh-huh. Security might make sense with banks and military facilities, but in a computer lab, that is a sign of a social breakdown.
This event BETTER have had Tom Cruise in it, and in the most intense parts of the action, they better have played "Danger Zone"...
Use real targets.
Create a points system based on method of entry and create a rating system (open, hardened, impossible, etc.) for targets. Scores are created by combining the various entry levels with the various target ratings. Targets could be selected by the audiencs, the teams or the event coordinators. Targets could be published before hand or not.
Granted this would be shut down so fast. All involved would be sent to Guantanamo Bay for being terrorists but it would be _really_ fun to watch. I also think that it could be done without causing real damage and in fact would _increase_ security. It would still be shut down though.
Sounds like the people putting this event on should have paid attention at Defcon 10. The Ghetto Hackers put on an excellent Capture the Flag event.
on March 7th/8th, SANS is having another 'IDNET'
event. The target boxes are preconfigured with
known vulnerabilities for this even. It is part
of the vendor expo at SANS 2003 in San Diego.
usually, there are some nice prices and admission is free or cheap ($10-20).
details
---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Well, duh... of course there would be lots of women, some in small metal bras. Aren't those everywhere in your town?
I think it needs a bit of expansion. I'd set it up as an industrial or military espionage situation where *both* sides are trying to access vital data the other team has, while protecting their own. Even more like capture the flag than your suggestion.
Each side would have three boxes with "hot" files on them. The goal of the game is to capture as many of your opponents hot files as you can while protecting your own. You get points for every file captured and, obviously, also loose points for every breach of your own security, even if some of those breaches don't result in the loss of a hot file. Points would also be given for every attacker "captured."
Thus each side would have two squads. There would be the security team protecting the files, as well as a "tiger team" trying to gain access to the opposing teams systems.
In fact, rather than calling it a "hacker's contest" I'd call it a Tiger Team contest.
If nothing else it makes geeks sound more "macho."
KFG
Nah, it'll be a, ummmmm, "big" success when it starts attracting women with *large* metal bras that just *look* small.
I can't help but wonder though. Are the metal bras protection against the aliens beaming messages to their "assets"?
KFG
I was disappointed even reading this article!
--------
Free your mind.
the crackers will be on one team and the hackers on the other.
Logic, macros, and more
I was undecided until the last minute this time around if i would go at all to LTG. However I ended up going, and spent most of my time in the back doing installs and configuration on my laptop since I was bored and had nothing much else to do. This was once again proof that the people who manage and put on the LTG event are incompitent, refusing to listen to the feedback that has been given.
I must point out once again that an individual makes most of the decisions for this event, his name is Paco Nathan and as an individual he really is unorganized for this type of thing, he's been through a lot of jobs and companies for a reason. The security company backing this is one he chairs and as far as i've seen evidenced, these guys don't really have much in the way of security knowledge.
Enough critisim of that though, its old news. The LTG Suffers from issues which could be fixed, and LTG could be actualy turned into something worthwhile, imo. (I'd like to see the name changed, the logo of the penguin wearing a pilots mask and invoking images from that stupid top gun movie really doesen't do it for most people)
The biggest flaw is the competiton style, its weak and really doesen't do much for teams defending, attackers, or the audience, there are many other types of attacks/defense that could happen at an event of this nature and happen at other events like Defcon that would work out much much better. In addition to that, the audience needs something better, and having two girls stand around this time in some metal bikinis trying to hock their services for some Geek Dating/Makeover/Social scene service that no one cared about then showing a broken boring visualization with no explanation to the general audience of what was going on was just not fun.
The other issue is this time they neglected to even tell people (including teams) exactly when certain things had started or ended or other critical issues, communication was pretty dead overall. A lot more could be done with a mix of visualization tools and videos and music and live commentary to make it exciting, even for those who are not participating and who don't even know that much about the topics at hand.
Anyways, the event is still kicking it seems and is on target for a big show at SXSW, sounds like it will still be a mess and failure though. on a last note, my biggest irk with this one was the fact they where hours late getting things started.. and why? because they had to setup all this equipment and configure the server, etc.. obviously not enough forethought and rehersal of setting things up. I certainly know they could get all this set up at one location, then break it down and move it to the event within a matter of two hours before the event's start time rather than do it all while people are waiting around bored.
Mod, did you even click the link? I clicked it and my eyes damn near popped out of my head. The background is about the most evil thing I have ever seen.
Nice boobies though.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
who said canada would take you?
you've uncovered out secret weapon!!
sh-2.05a$> send spike
i am invincible!!!!
NcongruNt (Team Austin 2600)
They talk about women in small metal bras at a hacker event and there is at last count only one Root Access joke. Come on people your letting the side down.
Well done, sir.
Let's be honest, this was a moot point to anyone with the skills to actually get a hack in on that box. The really nefarious and brilliant crackers were sitting right in the back of that auditorium where no one else could see their laptop screen. Why? Becaue they were probing all the other machines they could find on that network looking for holes.
What could be more fun than cracking a hacker? Plus you didn't have a window of time to do it in, you could probe and play as long as you like (and that is how we really work).
In any event the real bad asses don't go to public events where their face can be associated with "hacking" for all posterity. Now a "security professional" would check his hair for the shot...
FYI-
USA has given USD 90 billion to Israel 1949
Umm, high gain wireless antenna?
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
This type of event is like golf--sucks to watch, but fun to play. However, if you want to host an event that is fun to watch, how about a reality TV series? Put a handful of the most l33t haX0rs you can find in a hooked up pad and see how they work and interact with each other. Think it will work?
Linux at home
why not let the slashdot community vote who is UGLY, you get into your revealing metal outfit, and we'll vote.
'You might as well hold your next math convention at a strip club'
:)
As if this is a bad idea? Sheesh, I might even go.
Ansi's and stupid tricks!
I used to do a lot of virus removals on an undernet irc channel. We always had spectators, people wanting to learn what we are doing how we are doing and what we are doing to tackle new viruses (note new as in now causing problems).
I personally have ran across a few viruses our team was not famillar with and typically could have a complete cure within an hour, or within 2 hours I could be taking advantage of code that created IRC drone bots that come as payload with a few viruses.
One I received in particular was attached to leaktest.exe from grc.com. Before testing it on my near dead laptop I searched for leaktest.exe via google and found it was in connection with grc.com. I downloaded a fresh copy and checked the md5 checksums.. Totally off.
I then took the infected one to my guniea pig and executed it and watched my tcpdump on the linux box, noticed an outgoing irc session to an unfammilar network. So I tuned my client to it. I couldnt find anything. So I just idled around for a little bit in a main channel (had like 6 ppl) while I examined the laptop for out of place files.
I found something in windows dir so I took the files back to the linux box and ran cat file | strings, didnt see anything useful then took a hex editor to it and found a name and a version number. I googled for the name and version and found an exploit site with packages and control information as well as a little file that explained, nowhere near in laymans terms, how the setup information was obsfuscated, just an 8 char pad. So I looked at the setup trojan and the original trojan in hex and located where the setup info was, and tried decrypting it. Took 8 passes (needed 8 different things to get full control) to get the info i needed. I found out the commander needed elite in their userid so i created a new account on the linux box and irc'ed from there. I joined the channel I had unobfuscated and sent the bots the master password and got reconized. I was so sure I would get dossed off the face of the earth. I then executed a file delete command on all the drones and then commanded them to all die. Then left with a message saying they really should have made it harder by using newer trojans! I then published all my findings and logs, omitting my last message, to the group I worked with.
A few months later I got kicked from the group and 3 weeks after that I got contacted by a member that got canned as well and started her own chan. She was trying to break open the door on the same trojan but couldnt get anywhere with it so she googled and ran across a reply I placed to a virus examination technique article I commented on. She said out of everything she has looked thru I was the only person that had much information on the virus.
I think a better show would be to invite 30 regular users that easily get infected with things to be handed pc's and have teams have to protect and disinfect their own number of users. Have the court open to having team members attempt to infect other users. It would be good to show the techniques teammembers use to identify, stop and disinfect trojans and viruses. Anyone who administrates multiples of pc's could benefit from learning the techniques. It's mostly research techniques and trial and error on guinea pig machines. I wouldnt do the infections/disinfections live, I would instead run a week or month trial and have them documented by paper and video and show the good cleanups in the show 30min-1 hour in 13 min spots with 2-3 min explaination spots then at the end have a free for all Q and A session for 30 min to an hour (possibly with demonstrations).
DRACO-
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
there were more women than you'd expect, and some in small metal bras.... None survived.....
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
There was no cover charge. That's one of the initial requirements.
The hottie in the metal bra runs a bookstore, so you dreamers who would be intimidated by a Viking shaped lass in person, in metal, might acctually enjoy a conversation with the one wearing the dainty dragonfly. Having avoided the contest, you'd also miss her serious questions about what was going on on-screen.
I'd say there were more than 10 women in attendance, but maybe not more than 20.
Please, someone get informative and tell me where else on a weekend night can you find as many thinking, technically oriented, conversational individuals enjoying a beer in a non-smoking room, in Austin? Don't try to push your Dave & Busters claims on me, that place is fun, but not conversational, and has fewer coin-op video games than Alamo has. Super groovy would be getting the owner of this place north of town involved somehow, he doesn't have the arcade open over the winter season.
Maybe linuxtopgun can get a game console company involved, one of the ones that has linux-ability (that discounts Xbox, yes?)
The technical difficulties decidedly do need to be addressed exponentially better as the event continues to mature.
Personally, I miss the glory days in Austin, when there were weird cool venues to dress-up for on a closer to weekly basis. Planet Austin, Proteus, Paris25... Places you could get a mix of danceable music, see interesting and even well done fashion efforts, with a few nooks where you could talk without having to shout.
Chicks in metal bras are:
42. Easy. What is 32 + 8 + 2?