CFP for DEFCON 22 CTF?

[jmpcallpoop]

Is it just me or did CTF suck this year?

People walking through though dead quiet room had no idea what was going on maybe that is why nobody was ever in there? From the scoreboard it looked like several teams also had no idea what was going on.

As a DEFCON regular, it seemed that CTF had only gotten better and better over the past three ringmasters, but this year was a leap back at least a decade. Little boy CTF looked like a better contest.

I mean, like 5 teams left before it was over, what's up with that? That's not a good contest.

[meta]

Re: CFP for DEFCON 22 CTF?

Is it just me or did CTF suck this year?

People walking through though dead quiet room had no idea what was going on maybe that is why nobody was ever in there? From the scoreboard it looked like several teams also had no idea what was going on.

As a DEFCON regular, it seemed that CTF had only gotten better and better over the past three ringmasters, but this year was a leap back at least a decade. Little boy CTF looked like a better contest.

I mean, like 5 teams left before it was over, what's up with that? That's not a good contest.

This is an impressively uneducated comment. The new CTF organizers (LegitBS) did a fantastic job! Have you ever even played CTF? Do you know how the scoreboard engine worked and how it was different from last year? LegitBS was very gracious in explaining the game and educating all the people who stopped by to ask questions and learn. All you had to do was ask. Please do some research before you comment on something you do not understand.

For others reading this thread: Among other very cool changes, the CTF scoreboard was zero-sum this year which is a completely new and challenging twist on the game. It means you actually steal points from other teams. This in turn means that defense matters a lot more than maybe it used to. I strongly encourage everyone to try their hand at a CTF game sometime. The Defcon CTF is the most elite hacking competition on the planet and deserves the utmost respect. :)

[psifertex]

Re: CFP for DEFCON 22 CTF?

Meta's already said it, but I figured I'd chime in as well. While as a spectator sport the game might not have been as good, as a participant (and quite possibly the only person to have played in all of the last 8 finals), it was clearly one of the best years ever.

Take a look back at the timeline for this year. The organizers had almost no time to get the game on. Remember, they ran /TWO/ events. First, they were notified they were selected (or, at least, the public was), in mid-March. Then, in mid-June they ran a qualifier event, and in early August they ran the finals. That's a ridiculously short period of time to put on two events especially considering they switched architectures, and had to build their codebase from scratch, not just challenges. Did you stop by the table to see the custom hardware (homemade, dual redundant power-supply) they built?!

This was an incredibly well-run game. The staff were helpful, friendly, and really concerned about making the game go as smoothly as possible.

It's unfortunate they couldn't have made it better for spectating, but not surprising. If I had to choose between the game looking good and the game being good, I know which one I'd pick.