Computer Attack and Defense As Spectator Sport 142
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."
It's the... (Score:2)
Re:It's the... (Score:1)
Re:It's the... (Score:1)
I don't think that they'll give script kiddies any chance at all. It won't be to hard to set up the victim server in a way that no "script" exploit will work. At least it *should* be no problem for insiders of the cracking/hacking scene.
Will I be able to pick up chicks at this event? (Score:5, Funny)
ostiguy
ever seen Wayne's World II? (Score:2, Informative)
but in Hackers... (Score:2)
Re:Will I be able to pick up chicks at this event? (Score:1)
Re:Will I be able to pick up chicks at this event? (Score:1)
Not at the event.
However, if the event is at the Drafthouse Downtown [drafthouse.com], you may find a slightly greater likelihood at Polly Esther's Culture Club [citysearch.com] across the street. Remember to bathe, groom, and put on clean clothes.
worst idea ever (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to admit . . . (Score:1)
Junkyard Wars? (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Junkyard Wars? (Score:2, Informative)
There is a kids version on Saturday mornings on NBC. I think it is called "Operation Junkyard".
Re:Junkyard Wars? (Score:1)
Re:Junkyard Wars? (Score:1)
Re:Junkyard Wars? (Score:2)
Jesus Christ Ma, get off my back (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Jesus Christ Ma, get off my back (Score:3, Funny)
Try explaining
spectator sport? (Score:4, Funny)
"wow, he typed a string of commands... the crowd hushes"
Re:spectator sport? (Score:3)
"wow, he typed a string of commands... the crowd hushes"
This sounds about as exciting as
Hey, maybe this does have some potential...
0wning the competition (Score:1)
NcongruNt
Team Austin2600
austin2600.org [austin2600.org]
Re:spectator sport? (Score:1)
Re:spectator sport? (Score:2)
In line with the Hackers theme... (Score:4, Funny)
Hack the planet!
And yes, I am kidding
What the headsets actually do (Score:1)
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 [slashdot.org]?
Gold Medal in.. uh.. hacking? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Gold Medal in.. uh.. hacking? (Score:1)
Hacking Olympics ... the Tri-Athlon? (Score:3, Funny)
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...
Isn't this like watching paint dry compared to... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:Isn't this like watching paint dry compared to. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Ping? Ow! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ping? Ow! (Score:1, Funny)
Hackers? (Score:3, Insightful)
The movie 'Hackers' had nothing to do with computers or reality for that matter. Please don't feed the trolls.
Re:Hackers? (Score:1)
See here [unm.edu].
Re:Hackers? (Score:3, Funny)
Semi-OT:Spray painted keyboards (Score:1)
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.
Re:Semi-OT:Spray painted keyboards (Score:1)
now that is 1337.
Net visualizations? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Net visualizations? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
According to the (not very impressive) website, they're using HackerPacket 1.0 [unm.edu].
Description:
HackerPacket is a tcpdump utility inspired by "The Gibson"
Features:
Uses Winpcap for packet trapping
New Towers spring up on new host connections
Packets are designated by particles coming from the buildings.
Raw incoming packet information is displayed on the towers, along with IP address
w,s,a,d to move and e to lock the camera.
So apparently it will literally include animations like in the movie 'Hackers.'
Michael
Re:Net visualizations? (Score:2)
Re:Net visualizations? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Net visualizations? (Score:1)
Like NASCAR (Score:3, Funny)
Back in the day ... (Score:5, Funny)
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?!
Re:naked geeks? Eeeewwww! (Score:4, Funny)
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
wow! (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux Top Gun (Score:5, Interesting)
I attended part of the last LTG at Mojo's Daily Grind [mojosdailygrind.com]. 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 [drafthouse.com]...
When I meet new people... (Score:1)
and why their homepage has strangely changed to Slashdot...
and why all their friends recieved bizarre emails from them...
All-Star Core Wars (Score:1)
similar... (Score:2)
How are they going to make this interesting? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [gbronline.com]. So it could be good.
But it'll be hard.
Michael
Re:How are they going to make this interesting? (Score:1)
Re:How are they going to make this interesting? (Score:5, Interesting)
This meant that the "action" starts off hard and heavy. We saw people rooting and getting rooted right away.
To make things a little more interesting, we designed the scoreboard after the NASDAQ Big Board, and projected it on two walls. The teams' scores were displayed as stock prices. The scoreboard was also played over the Alexis Park television system. We had news updates on the status of the teams every so often.
Of course, we didn't broadcast the action as a cute little 'gibson' visualization. Nor were their live DJs (We used pre-set playlists). However, people still seemed to get a kick out of it. You could see the whole room go quiet and stare when a news update would come on...
Next year is going to be even better (Yes, this is a bit of shameless promotion).
R
Re:How are they going to make this interesting? (Score:1)
Worst website EVAR.
Re:How are they going to make this interesting? (Score:2)
They allow very little prep time (about 5 minutes, IIRC, from an insecure-by-default Red Hat install). Thus, it's not a matter of who can make the most secure box; it's a matter of who can close the holes which are most likely to be exploited *quickly*. So instituting a password policy is fine, but you still need to take the time to change the passwords, or run that apt-get (which means you need to first install apt-rpm and do an initial update, all of that taking up your precious prep time).
Now, I ended up walking downtown and strolling around on 6th street, and so missing a fair bit of the action... but what I was there for was not entirely uninteresting, if for no other reason to see the huge antenna put up by the 2600 team.
Color commentary... (Score:4, Funny)
-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 [hazardfactory.org]
I have the sure fire way to win: (Score:1)
H4X0R that, beotch!
Two questions: (Score:1)
Will it look and sound like Rez?
I'm thinking corewars. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
They may have problems (Score:2)
Lessons to be learned? (Score:2)
Useful network visualizatios? (Score:1)
Here's a question - Does anyone know of visualization software that would be actually useful in detecting patterns or attacks in network traffic?
Target Rich Environment (Score:1, Funny)
Mirror (Score:2, Informative)
Have fun
Sounds fun but (Score:2, Insightful)
sweet (Score:1)
Jamming (Score:2)
Sport? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sport? (Score:1)
Technology rolls on (Score:3, Interesting)
Why a linux machine with apache? (Score:4, Funny)
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*
Re:Why a linux machine with apache? (Score:2, Funny)
"and here they go, as they race to get each patch downloaded and reboot the server, over and over again before their preparation time is up and the server goes LIVE"
"oh! it's a blue screen of death!"
"and now, to bring out the secret weapon..... THE NIMDA VIRUS!! can the defending team download the patch in time???"
-seriously lame
ianawu (i am not a windows user)
Re:Why a linux machine with apache? (Score:1)
It is? Links please?
I suppose it would also help to know how we are using the word "hack" today too...
Also, it's a little hard to make on-the-fly patches to a system with closed source.
-Tommy
Re:Why a linux machine with apache? (Score:2)
Might be a good idea for a network security class (Score:4, Interesting)
This Would Be Good on the Net (Score:1)
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"...
The Iron h4x0r (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Like 'Hackers' !? I mean, like hackers. (Score:2)
Hmmm.. There's a sure way to de-value your sport.
How about combining this with CS ? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
... going on tour through North America? (Score:1)
I went to the last Linux Top Gun.. (Score:2)
My god (Score:1)
PS. I'd probably go watch
Suggested change (Score:1)
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
Defense? No problem.. (Score:1)
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.
Last Post! (Score:1)
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...
Re:In Soviet RUSSiA (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Competition (Score:1)
Everything is a sport. We just hand out the Prizes....
-1, TROLL!? (Score:2)