Hello all!
Sorry for the late notice, but the Tamper-Evident Contest is returning to Defcon 23! This year the MFP team will be running the contest and filling the box with all sorts of tamper goodies. Prepare yourself for an action packed thrill ride into the tamper world!
What is the Tamper-Evident Contest?
You are tasked with intercepting a package, covertly opening and inspecting it, and returning it with no evidence that it was touched at all. On and inside the package you will find tamper-evident, tamper-resistant, and so-called "tamper-proof" seals whose sole purpose is to ruin your day by making it obvious that you made any effort to get access to the package's contents. Inside the box you'll find a series of challenges which your team must overcome to prove their skills in tampering, counterfeitting, and good, old-fashioned hacking. Once you have tampered all seals and conquered all challenges, re-seal the box and return it to the contest staff in the Tamper-Evident Village.
Box pickup and a quick contest orientation begins in the Tamper Evident Village (Silver Room) on Friday at 10:00. Boxes are due back for judging by Sunday at 12:00 (Noon). If your team does not arrive by 11:00 Friday to pick up your box, your box may be given to a replacement team.
How is the contest graded/scored?
All seals and challenges are worth points. The better you do at tampering while leaving no evidence the more points you get. You are required to attempt a seal to get points - leaving a seal in-place gives you zero points for that seal. The contest is designed in such a way that you should not easily be able to skip any seals. If you find a way to do so - great, let the contest staff know about it so you don't lose points.
Scoring occurs on Sunday by a panel of judges who inspect your returned package and all seals on/within for signs of tampering. Please be available for judging in case the judges have any questions for your team.
Do I need to document anything?
No - UNLESS YOU FIND A WAY TO CHEAT. We try to design the contest so that we'll both know if you got access to something. If you find a way to bypass a flap or seal and you do a super awesome job at leaving no evidence, we need you to take photos to verify that you got access to the contents of the package (or an inner package, such as an envelope). Typically, a phone with some photos you can show the judges is sufficient.
"No documentation" is a departure from previous years where full documentation was required by all teams. Please play responsibly so that we can continue to do this in future years!
What is allowed? What do I need to bring?
All tamper techniques are allowed, including full counterfeitting. The only exception is theft or damage to staff equipment and other teams' packages.
As for what you need to bring, this is challenging because we are not going to give you any advance notice of what is in the box. Your toolkit is strongly tied to what you need or want to do against a target seal. I would strongly recommend Googling around for information from previous years to get an idea of what tamper seals you might see and what defeat methods you want to prepare for. It is not required to bring a warehouse of equipment to win this contest, but it sure doesn't hurt to have extra supplies.
PS: MacGuyver "limited toolset tampering" is for suckers.
How do I sign up?
PLEASE SIGN UP BY REPLYING IN THIS THREAD! Max 4 persons per team - please provide a team name and the names/handles of all team members. There is a limit of 10 teams for this contest so SIGN UP NOW! Any overflow teams will go on a waiting list. If a team doesn't pick up their box in a timely fashion on Friday, we'll start giving boxes away to waiting list teams.
Box pickup and a quick contest orientation begins in the Tamper Evident Village (Silver Room) on Friday at 10:00. Boxes are due back for judging by Sunday at 12:00 (Noon). If your team does not arrive by 11:00 Friday to pick up your box, your box may be given to a replacement team.
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