Why didn't you compete?

[TheCotMan]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

yea id have to had my hat to the "i know ppl that compeat and totaly own at it so i didnt think id have a shot" category

lol so menny memories of seeing renderman walk around with dual yagies and a backback sensor :P

Please avoid using abbreviations like "ppl" for people, "u" for "you" and other SMS-abbreviations.

Also, here is a copy with some spelling fixes, in case you are looking for constructive criticism, fixes are in bold:

Yeah. I'd have to hand my hat to the, "People I know that compete and totaly own at it, so I wouldn't think I'd have a shot," category

I have so many memories of seeing renderman walk around with dual yagies and a backpack sensor :P

I don't compete for a few reasons. I investigated the concept of war driving, many years ago, built the tools on my laptop, walked around and "found" access points, and that was enough for me to see how the technology worked. The fun for me was the solving of the problem, and seeing it work for the first time. After that, extrapolation made it less sexy to me.

The contest was becoming one that removed strategy and skill. It was becoming one that (forgive me Chris) could become a contest like the "WiFi Shootout" in this way:

The WiFi shootout started to become a contest where people with more money and resources could beat people with less money an resources. The changes to the newly named "wireless contest" were good to see, as they brought skill back into the picture.

The War Driving contest (driving around to find access points) was becoming a contest where people could buy really nice equipment, multiple antennas, multiple cards, and follow nearly any online docs on selection of antennas, orientation, and "installing and configuraing software" had become a simple step of adding an RPM, or using apt-get/emerge/whatever.

The early adopters solved these problems, and made it easier for those that folowed them.

It was becoming a contest where problem-solving-skills and "hacking" had almost NOTHING to do with snarfing access points.

The addition of the new contests meant that people would have to come up with new solutions to new problems, and maybe even code their own additions to existing tools or new tools. THIS (in my opinion) is where the hacking element is exposed. This process of creation of something new, cobbling dissimilar ideas together, and demonstration of genuine depth of knowledge, that can create the "wow" factor from peers.

Here is what I heard from people:
1) The original war-driving contest had no "forced" schedule. Yes, it had a start time, and an end time, but people could take turns, and schedule their driving, so certain members could attend talks. This made is easy for people to arrange time for competition.
2) The new contests had specific schedules that conflicted, or may conflict with other events, contests, or speakers' schedules.
3) Since traveling by plane has become so restrictive when bringing equipment on-board, there is an even greater problem with bringing the quipment to con.
4) The Driving aspect means people really far away need rental cars, and the people closer must drive or also get rental cars.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

how about an idea along the following lines...

a contest that predominantly involves wardriving and wifi hacking but which also has many breakout challenges along the way... challenges which become accessible or noticed only as people progress. essentially, this would take the best of the wifi games, the old "find leeto" contest which sounded cool as hell but which no one knew about, some minor picking/bypassing, the "shirt contest" which people discussed in a forum thread, etc etc.

most of all, however, i feel that to make the contest fun and accessible for the maximum number of participants, two factors should be taken into consideration...

1. no fixed time frames except for start/end
2. multiple vectors of attack / paths of progress

the second point is where i'd like to be as clear as possible, because i feel that this can make or break a large-scale contest. i think for a game like this to be most accessible and fun, the challenges should take the form of a tree chart...

the first challenge could simply be to find an open access point somewhere. simply provide the SSID and MAC address, etc. just about anyone could do this. a participant assocaites with the AP, pulls a web page from a local server, and gets some instructions. here is where it gets interesting... there could be a variety of "paths" to choose at this point. maybe you designate them as easy/medium/hard or perhaps you just toss them out there and let people proceed at random. however, each step of the way when a challenge is accomplished there shouldn't be simply a "proceed to this next challenge" instruction but multiple (possibly semi-hidden) clues which people could follow.

this way, even if someone hits a brick wall their team can backtrack and try another route and alternate puzzles. also, teams can do as much or as little as they wish. if they don't dig on picking locks, then the heck with it... they look for another hidden clue that leads to a totally different challenge.

it's like the old video game "out run" where you'd drive a car through southern california. (anyone remember that game? it was one of the first, as far as i can recall, which featured a full-size "car" enclosure that moved and rocked as you played) in this game there were multiple places where you'd approach a fork in the road and have to choose left or right. depending on your choices, you'd wind up on different paths and in different settings. this vastly increased replay value since people could race through the game again and again, always seeing new cities and scenery and obstacles.

a team could progress through many levels of challenges (some public key tokens would be sufficient as evidence that people had reached the various goals) and then jump way back to the first or second "level" and look for alternate clues which they perhaps didn't find before, then progress along to other new things.

[converge]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

1) The original war-driving contest had no "forced" schedule. Yes, it had a start time, and an end time, but people could take turns, and schedule their driving, so certain members could attend talks. This made competition easy to include.

The very first, absolutely orignal drive was very simple. It had a start and an end approximately 2 hours later. Short. Sweet. To the point. It grew into a monster and the attempt to alleviate this by making it an open timeframe across the entire weekend? just encouraged those nuts to drive for 48 frickin hours across multiple states.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

The very first, absolutely orignal drive was very simple. It had a start and an end approximately 2 hours later. Short. Sweet. To the point. It grew into a monster and the attempt to alleviate this by making it an open timeframe across the entire weekend? just encouraged those nuts to drive for 48 frickin hours across multiple states.

My mistake. I remembered looking at the program and seeing something about the wardriving on Friday and then something else on Saturday. Maybe I was reading something about registration one day, and competition the next day, or maybe I am confusing the first year it was hosted with another year, or maybe I just got it wrong.

Sorry about that. Thanks for the correction.

[theprez98]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

the second point is where i'd like to be as clear as possible, because i feel that this can make or break a large-scale contest. i think for a game like this to be most accessible and fun, the challenges should take the form of a tree chart...

the first challenge could simply be to find an open access point somewhere. simply provide the SSID and MAC address, etc. just about anyone could do this. a participant assocaites with the AP, pulls a web page from a local server, and gets some instructions. here is where it gets interesting... there could be a variety of "paths" to choose at this point. maybe you designate them as easy/medium/hard or perhaps you just toss them out there and let people proceed at random. however, each step of the way when a challenge is accomplished there shouldn't be simply a "proceed to this next challenge" instruction but multiple (possibly semi-hidden) clues which people could follow.

this way, even if someone hits a brick wall their team can backtrack and try another route and alternate puzzles. also, teams can do as much or as little as they wish. if they don't dig on picking locks, then the heck with it... they look for another hidden clue that leads to a totally different challenge.

it's like the old video game "out run" where you'd drive a car through southern california. (anyone remember that game? it was one of the first, as far as i can recall, which featured a full-size "car" enclosure that moved and rocked as you played) in this game there were multiple places where you'd approach a fork in the road and have to choose left or right. depending on your choices, you'd wind up on different paths and in different settings. this vastly increased replay value since people could race through the game again and again, always seeing new cities and scenery and obstacles.

a team could progress through many levels of challenges (some public key tokens would be sufficient as evidence that people had reached the various goals) and then jump way back to the first or second "level" and look for alternate clues which they perhaps didn't find before, then progress along to other new things.

I like the "tree" concept very much. Your post is basically a well-written version of the thoughts that have been percolating around in my mind over the past few weeks. I think I'd like to go down that sort of road.

[caffeine20]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

The ideas floating around here are great and make me wish Defcon wasnt almost a year away again, oh well.

I have an idea of my own which i might add does take slightly from a few ideas mentioned around this thread.

scenario:

the idea is to incorporate a little warwalking with a little hacking. you could place Access points around the building, hosted behind these access points are various challenges. these could be anything from Web based hacking challenges to Riddles. once the challenge is completed you win a prize.

its by no means a perfect idea but could possibly be refined into something enjoyable for everyone involved.


Few ideas that might make this interesting:

1. hide easter eggs in the DC guide that lead to AP's
2. have the AP's only broadcast at intervals or set times according to clues
3. have speekers read off clues at the end of talks.

going back to the question renderman posed about what we would like to see more of, i would definately prefer to see more on pen testing.


on a side note i thought the riviera's speeking halls were excellent, although the parties werent as bumping the venues were definately better. all in all i thought it was a move that inevitably kept things a little calmer and more professional.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

I like the "tree" concept very much. Your post is basically a well-written version of the thoughts that have been percolating around in my mind over the past few weeks. I think I'd like to go down that sort of road.

thanks for the vote of approval. i was thinking about it more... and perhaps it doesn't totally have to be a constantly-forking tree... maybe after about the fourth or fifth level of the tree (at which point there could be as many as 12 separate challenges) the subsequent "clues" could start becoming redundant... or, rather, pointing to smaller and smaller numbers of challenges... until at long last there is just one "final" challenge. the competition overall wouldn't be judged around getting to and completing ths one final item, however... i feel scoring and ranking should be based around a system of "points"

but yeah, the notion that everyone has the opportunity to reach and at least attempt the final challenge, even if their skill level isn't tip top, is cool in my mind. this could allow for the maxium liklihood of people making it "far" in the game but would still reward folks with the most innovation and skill in the end.

request for input

if this sort of a concept sounds fun for people, maybe render can make it happen (i'd be happy to help organize it and get it going with you, man... i don't want to create a monster here via my suggestions and then toss it in your lap) but i think it would be great to see what people could suggest in terms of challenges that can offer multiple clues to next steps. if you wish, think of one or two and send a PM to renderman and i (do not post in the forum since we wouldn't want this knowledge totally in the public sphere if your suggestion gets used) describing how to go from "clue" to "puzzle" to "multiple next clues"

for example... here's one i just came up with on the fly...

a team solves one puzzle (say, they pick a lock on a small box) and within that is a little MP3 player and a set of headphones. maybe this MP3 player contains...

* a single playable file which consists of a person speaking the instruction "go to Uncle Ira in the vendor area... walk up to him and introduce yourself as Uncle Bob and ask him if he is selling any swordfish." (if the team does that they are handed a sealed envelope from Ira with a seal of authenticity -- for points -- and the next clue inside.

* one or two hidden or semi-broken MP3 files that do not play (maybe they just have the wrong filename extension and therefore don't play by default) but which, if copied via USB, can be made to play and contain somoene just speaking a string of numbers. maybe these are ASCII data, perhaps sent through ROT-13. this could be another instruction on how to proceed with a different task

* maybe, for even a third path of travel, there could be a small message inscribed in the plastic underneath the battery (if the unit runs on batteries) with an instruction to go somewhere else and do yet a different thing.

that's what i mean by "multiple forks in the road" at various points. and since the locked box and MP3 player would be available almost all the time, a team could always go back and re-inspect older challenges if they want to see if there's anything they missed. this sort of challenge would also reward methodical searching and inspection as opposed to just headlong rushing from one clue to the next.

[Mother]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

OK - so, to make this sort of thing work, do we agree we'd need to leave APs running around various places in Vegas? What would be the best way to do this, try to get the collaboration of shops/coffee houses/whatever to leave the things there for a couple of days, rented cars parked with a big battery and an antenna on top...? Again, just throwing out ideas.

The WRT54s or equivalent give very wide options for setting this up - the tree could also be implemented, and if we had communication between the APs, it could be even more fun. For example, once you pick your path on AP A, it sends this choice to the rest of APs, so they can configure their paths for that particular player.

Designing this could actually be more fun that playing it... :)

Mother

[Chris]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

First off....you are forgiven...

The contest was becoming one that removed strategy and skill. It was becoming one that (forgive me Chris) could become a contest like the "WiFi Shootout" in this way:

...

The War Driving contest (driving around to find access points) was becoming a contest where people could buy really nice equipment, multiple antennas, multiple cards, and follow nearly any online docs on selection of antennas, orientation, and "installing and configuraing software" had become a simple step of adding an RPM, or using apt-get/emerge/whatever.

The early adopters solved these problems, and made it easier for those that folowed them.

It was becoming a contest where problem-solving-skills and "hacking" had almost NOTHING to do with snarfing access points.

This is really not accurate. The FIRST year of the contest was a drive only. One day (Sat) for 3 hours. The second year was the marathon year (as converge pointed out). It was also the last year of the Drive itself being the primary focus of the contest. In year three the drive was there, but we introduced the mini-games (as I said before). These were almost 100% focued on skill and hacking, and only minor DF skills were required. With the exception of Fox Hunt ALL of the WLANs were located on the Alexis Park grounds. You didn't need that great of DF equipment to find them. In fact, if anything the DF requirements were the least of the skills required to win them.

In year four...skill was the focus and again...expensive equipment was not required. To be fair, I think that both Render and PSKL had WAAAY more equipment that was required for any of the stages of that contest. An iPaq or Zaurus with a cheap yagi would have been PLENTY for the DF on those and would have probably worked better....of course once the DF was done you would almost certainly need a laptop to complete the rest of the challenge. That is all neither here nor there...the main point is that the more diverse skills we required for the games, the less interest people had in them. I think a lot of this is because people are afraid they will be embarrassed or their friends won't think they are '1337 if they don't win...which sucks.

Here is what I heard from people:
1) The original war-driving contest had no "forced" schedule. Yes, it had a start time, and an end time, but people could take turns, and schedule their driving, so certain members could attend talks. This made is easy for people to arrange time for competition.

The original contest was a 3 hour set time (man..deja vu ) There really shouldn't have been any need to switch out drivers. Now...the second year that would have absolutely been required.

Now...to be fair I made a HUGE mistake with the second year regarding the teams. I don't want to get into the whole thing but the short version is that in some cases people were assigned to teams with other contestants that they did not know. Big mistake...HUGE. Ruined the contest for some in my opinion.

2) The new contests had specific schedules that conflicted, or may conflict with other events, contests, or speakers' schedules.

Fair point, but if you run the games after the talks are done people either won't participate because they want to party, or can't participate because they are drunk and some level of 'Driving' is required for a 'WarDRIVING' contest.

3) Since traveling by plane has become so restrictive when bringing equipment on-board, there is an even greater problem with bringing the quipment to con.

I think this is a very legitimate point...but it is born of fear and FUD, not actual problems. If you put that shit in your checked baggage you won't notice any appreciable delay. I travel with DF equipment all the time for work and have never had one additional second of delay because of it.

4) The Driving aspect means people really far away need rental cars, and the people closer must drive or also get rental cars.

Again, that is why we placed every WLAN so that it could be picked up from the Alexis Park or within close walking distance. The fact that these WLANs were located on or close to the AP grounds was also posted in the contest info page which was placed online a full three months before DEFCON. I just don't think that transportation was a factor in people not participating.

I think your points about it not being cool or sexy anymore are better points. That coupled with the attendees general lack of confidence in their abilty and/or fear of looking stupid are much more indicative of the problem with this contest.

[Mother]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

I think this is a very legitimate point...but it is born of fear and FUD, not actual problems. If you put that shit in your checked baggage you won't notice any appreciable delay. I travel with DF equipment all the time for work and have never had one additional second of delay because of it.

This is true - travelling from Barcelona, I almost had by bowels emptied at the two security checkpoints before boarding, but in the checked luggage I carried:

- The modded WRT54G, with the PCB and the spaghetti of cables all around the inside, *that* must have been some sight on the X-ray.
- One cantenna, a big round metallic cylinder with a cable sticking out one side...uhmmm.
- One magmount 7dBi omni, with cable.
- One magmount mini-panel, with cable.
- One mini-yagi with cable and hand grip.
- Various pigtails and gender-changers.
- Chargers and power adapters for all the other shit I carry.
- A couple of pounds of Semt...naah, just kidding!

If this made it through, with one connecting flight and at least two scans, then I don't see a reason to worry.

Cheers,

Mother

[TheCotMan]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

First off....you are forgiven...

Thankks man. :-)

This is really not accurate. The FIRST year of the contest was a drive only. One day (Sat) for 3 hours. The second year was the marathon year (as converge pointed out). It was also the last year of the Drive itself being the primary focus of the contest. In year three the drive was there, but we introduced the mini-games (as I said before). These were almost 100% focued on skill and hacking, and only minor DF skills were required. With the exception of Fox Hunt ALL of the WLANs were located on the Alexis Park grounds. You didn't need that great of DF equipment to find them. In fact, if anything the DF requirements were the least of the skills required to win them.

Yeah. It is my fault for not remembering things as they were. Sorry about that.

In year four...skill was the focus and again...expensive equipment was not required. To be fair, I think that both Render and PSKL had WAAAY more equipment that was required for any of the stages of that contest. An iPaq or Zaurus with a cheap yagi would have been PLENTY for the DF on those and would have probably worked better....of course once the DF was done you would almost certainly need a laptop to complete the rest of the challenge. That is all neither here nor there...the main point is that the more diverse skills we required for the games, the less interest people had in them. I think a lot of this is because people are afraid they will be embarrassed or their friends won't think they are '1337 if they don't win...which sucks.

When you added the new contests (Defcon 13?) it seemed to include more problems for people to solve and really started to emphasize the use of wireless technology to solve problems more than driving. Was this also the year that the next of the contest was changed from "WarDriving Contest" to "Wireless Contest" or was that this year?

Now, I doubt what I remember about this contest, as far as when things happened.

The decision to remove the simple wardriving portion of the contest as a major/primary category, whenever it happened, was a very good step; it brought more requirements for people to think more about "how" to build and organize their tools (like the early adopters of war driving.)

Could the modern-day wireless contest be also suffering from the same kinds of things as the TCP/IP device contest, and embedded device contests? Your mentioning the fear-factor of people not wanting to be judged as "non-1337" by their buddies when they lose reminds me of some things that Lost mentioned about a possible reason for people not competing in his contest(s).

The original contest was a 3 hour set time (man..deja vu ) There really shouldn't have been any need to switch out drivers. Now...the second year that would have absolutely been required.

Doh! I get it from Pete and Repeat.
[Shatner]Can't... get-away...! My... mistake... has... caught... up... with-me! Bones. what... have... I-done?[/shatner]

[schedule conflicts...]

Fair point, but if you run the games after the talks are done people either won't participate because they want to party, or can't participate because they are drunk and some level of 'Driving' is required for a 'WarDRIVING' contest.

Yes, but adding other contests beyond WarDriving, was the "right" direction to take from my view.

[Equipments on a Plane! (Parody of title "Snakes on a Plane")]

I think this is a very legitimate point...but it is born of fear and FUD, not actual problems. If you put that shit in your checked baggage you won't notice any appreciable delay. I travel with DF equipment all the time for work and have never had one additional second of delay because of it.

/me adds more to the FUD table...
Due to wage disputes between baggage carriers and management about wages, there has been high turnover in the employment of baggage carriers. There seems to be a correlation between this turnover rate and theft of items from bags, or bags going "missing" too.

Because of this, I don't like check-ing my electronic equiment.

Even before 9/11, the addition of a laptop/notebook back in the late 1990's caused me to be delayed several times. Visual inspection, requests to disassemble parts, and power up the laptop caused delays, and then assembling and repacking it became more of a delay. My next "notebook" will probably be one of those full-featured computers that are hand-sized with USB ports for full-sized keyboard/mouse connectivity and SVGA video ports, so it is easier to transport, and would be considered a PDA by airline security people and be something I can carry on me at Defcon for notes, schedule listings, and other stuff.

Again, that is why we placed every WLAN so that it could be picked up from the Alexis Park or within close walking distance. The fact that these WLANs were located on or close to the AP grounds was also posted in the contest info page which was placed online a full three months before DEFCON. I just don't think that transportation was a factor in people not participating.

Good points. People really interested in wardriving would probably enjoy having the tech to at least show off to their buddies: "Look what I can do" and "check this out."

I think your points about it not being cool or sexy anymore are better points. That coupled with the attendees general lack of confidence in their abilty and/or fear of looking stupid are much more indicative of the problem with this contest.

(Re-stated) Your mention of people being afraid to compete because of the fear-factor of being judged by their peers as non-leet, reminds me of something similar mentioned by Lost about his contest.

Maybe this contest has more than this in common with these kinds of contests like the one run by Lost, and the one run by DC480 and others? Are there any other similarities between this contest, and TCP/IP Device/Embeded Device contests? Level of difficulty too high? Fear? would-be [layer Effort/Laziness?

[Chris]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

Maybe this contest has more than this in common with these kinds of contests like the one run by Lost, and the one run by DC480 and others? Are there any other similarities between this contest, and TCP/IP Device/Embeded Device contests? Level of difficulty too high? Fear? would-be [layer Effort/Laziness?

Perhaps. I think one thing that would be nice to do (and something that I believe Lost actually attempted to a degree this year) would be to have a (referring to this contest only in this instance) Wireless Attack and Defense 101 talk that precedes the Wireless/WD contest by 2 or 3 hours. Use that time to let people that are interested in participating but afraid their skills aren't up to snuff get a feel for the basics of what is required. These 101 talks should be very detailed and geared specifically towards the types of skills that would be/are required for the contest.

In other words, you do Wireless Attack/Defense 101 two or three hours before the Wireless contest. An Intro to TCP/IP Device Hacking a few hours (in that case maybe even a day so people have the opportunity to think about and obtain the necessary equipment) before the TCP/IP Device contest, etc.

The '101' track in general is something that I really think is missing from DEF CON and would like to see brought back.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

Perhaps. I think one thing that would be nice to do (and something that I believe Lost actually attempted to a degree this year) would be to have a (referring to this contest only in this instance) Wireless Attack and Defense 101 talk that precedes the Wireless/WD contest by 2 or 3 hours. Use that time to let people that are interested in participating but afraid their skills aren't up to snuff get a feel for the basics of what is required. These 101 talks should be very detailed and geared specifically towards the types of skills that would be/are required for the contest.

In other words, you do Wireless Attack/Defense 101 two or three hours before the Wireless contest. An Intro to TCP/IP Device Hacking a few hours (in that case maybe even a day so people have the opportunity to think about and obtain the necessary equipment) before the TCP/IP Device contest, etc.

The '101' track in general is something that I really think is missing from DEF CON and would like to see brought back.

This is a great idea! 101 or BoF/BoaF presentations would be great! We have those skybox rooms too, and I hear even more space next year. Lockpicking/TOOOL, Wireless Attack/Defense, Robot building, TCP/IP Devices, all of these could be presentations with (likely) many people wanting to attend.

Also a great way to build a social network of people with similar interests without the pressure of competition. :-)

Maybe it would be good for me to add another "contests/event" subforum to contain all 101/BoF/ "classes" in skyboxes or elsewhere. It could also contain the announcements of skybox availability, requests for application, and discussions of any scheduled skybox events found in the main page.

[converge]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

Maybe it would be good for me to add another "contests/event" subforum to contain all 101/BoF/ "classes" in skyboxes or elsewhere. It could also contain the announcements of skybox availability, requests for application, and discussions of any scheduled skybox events found in the main page.

I think the Lockpick Village hands down proved last year that there is enough hands on, content, and learning to fill an entire Defcon with camps/villages/skyboxen with a specific topic. As mfreeck mentioned after Defcon, Hardware Hacking Hut would make a great addition.. but so would other things like Wireless Waypool would definately take well to this idea if someone.. some group .. (coughcowfcough) stepped up, planned it out, and ran it like a mofo. Hell, people could having a Programmers Paradise with adhoc sessions showing basics of rootkit programming, exploit development ... think it and do it.

Mr Moss was looking for ideas to fill more space than what we can *possibly* use ... I propose there is not a hard drive large enough to contain our intellectual synergy and goals. People just need to think it and more importantly do it.

[Z^2]

Re: Why didn't you compete?

I like the class 101 idea:

It is an education tool- Having a human explain things to you every once in a while as opposed to just a continuous google/textbook-stream is great.

It is a possible indicator of success/failure of an event- It would also help contest organizers figure out what contestants have problems with, indicating that, if necessary/possible, last minute changes could be done to make the contest more successful.

It is a recruitment tool- People who just started getting interested in [insert wardriving/hacking hut/etc. here] that year would then have the option to go to the talk as well, and that would give them a taste and starting point for their next year(s) of studying up to get to the point of being able to compete.

I think LPcon did a good job of this - holding an intro talk about 'this is a lock pick' 'this is a lock'. Otherwise, it definitely does scare people away because you don't know who does what, and the only people you *know* know what you're looking to try are the competitors, who you don't want to ask and thus bother.

(If this is incoheret, I have the martian death-flu, but I tried to re-read as much as possible.)