Mystery Challenge Questions? FAQ?

[LosT]

Feel free to ask questions about the Mystery Challenge here.

Never heard of the challenge?

Don't really know what it is?

Don't know if you should play?

Ask.

[LosT]

Re: Mystery Challenge Questions? FAQ?

What's in a name?

"The LosT @ Con Mystery Challenge" is the official title of the contest.

It is often referred to as "Mystery Box" or "Mystery Box Challenge"- these are all the same thing. The nickname "Mystery Box" came from the metal boxes that were used as part of the challenge the first year.

Mystery Challenge is an official Defcon contest.

First place has been awarded a black badge in the past.

[LosT]

Re: Mystery Challenge Questions? FAQ?

New teams are encouraged to join. Participation in previous years does not give a team a leg up.

It is suggested that teams be 5 members. Varying skillsets will better equip teams for success.

In the past the following skills have been helpful:

Lock picking
RFID knowledge
ability to read a schematic
ability to prototype a circuit on a breadboard
riddle solving
mathematics
crypto (one time pad, caesar, box, shit, affine, etc)
keen powers of observation
social engineering
spontaneous MacGuyver-esque solutions to problems
skill with powertools
knowledge of languages (chinese, latin, korean)
Googlefu
TCP/IP
IC fuzzing
lipograms
phreaking
hacking (in every sense of the word)
microcontrollers
covert channels
base conversions
costuming
card games
pop culture references
embedded systems
palindromes (binary, hex, octal)
circuits to modulate light encoding/decoding audio
the Venture brothers!
logic operations

just to name a few. (All created by one person....)

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[LosT]

Re: Mystery Challenge Questions? FAQ?

The NEW, OFFICIAL site for the contest is live:

TEN-FIVE-SEVEN.ORG

Just in case you are curious...

1o57