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Announcing Starfighter

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Re: Announcing Starfighter

#141

Post by joeyyang »

patio11 wrote: post #60
marssaxman wrote: post #47

I find this announcement fascinatingly incomprehensible; it clearly emerges from a slice of the software universe quite distant from mine. The use of the acronym "CTF" suggests that the authors are very familiar with this genre of game; but how exactly does it work? What does it have to do with programming? I guess they are making programming into a game (?) and this somehow has something to do with hiring?

A CTF is a game that one plays by programming. I wish I could point you to competing CTFs that you can sign up and play right now, but most disappear from the Internet because they are fiendishly difficult to keep running. Ask me (or any team that has shipped one) why if you're curious. One example would be MicroCorruption. https://microcorruption.com Thomas and Erin helped build it back when they were still at Matas…

I'm curious – why are they hard to keep running?

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#142

Post by PanMan »

patio11: Why name the company Starfighter, while the domain is startfighterS(.io)? Why not name the business Startfighters? (I understand the other domain was taken).

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#143

Post by patio11 »

joeyyang wrote: post #141
patio11 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A CTF is a game that one plays by programming. I wish I could point you to competing CTFs that you can sign up and play right now, but most disappear from the Internet because they are fiendishly difficult to keep running. Ask me (or any team that has shipped one) why if you're curious. One example would be MicroCorruption. https://microcorruption.com Thomas and Erin helped build it back when they were still at Matas…

I'm curious – why are they hard to keep running?

They're operational nightmares. Among other reasons, their designed intent is to allow untrusted users to execute arbitrary computer code on your infrastructure. The abuse problems are mammoth, the not-malicious-but-still-bugged submissions from users even worse. They have lots of moving parts, most of which are more complicated than standard CRUD app components.

Also, fundamentally, a CTF is a distraction from the core business everywhere it runs.

Except Starfighter.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#144

Post by throwawaymaroon »

tptacek wrote: post #2

I'm all, involved? and stuff? You can, like, ask us stuff, I guess. Let me answer the most frequent questions we're getting right here: "CTF" stands for "Capture The Flag". Conventionally, it's a contest with a collection of "flags" each of which is guarded by a programming puzzle; teams of people compete to collect flags. What we're doing is not a conventional CTF, but if you want to get the flavor of what we're doi…

Will you be allowing anonymous participation?

By this I mean, the article uses some creepy language as only a company enthusiastic about its power to broker reputation can.

>>We can tell you exactly what happened when your candidates tried to implement a REST API.

What, are you going to keep a record of the time I fiddled with it for an afternoon and then use that to disqualify me from a job?

You say elsewhere about MicroCorruption:

>Microcorruption player identities were totally private. There's no way for a recruiter to look someone up, unless they used a very-identifiable username.

Sounds like a good starting point, but what if I don't want my report card stored and used to compare with other people? What if I don't want to feel like my performance is owned by you?

>>We assess for skill first, passively as players play our games and then actively. Our founders — talented technologists — personally reconstruct candidates’ solutions and evaluate them.

If I don't have any control over how and when my information is going to be monitored, I'm forced into an ugly position where I have to treat the whole thing as part of my career and perform competitively. The sense of relaxed exploration is killed, the idea of treating it like a college course or project isn't viable, and honestly I begin to resent the project.

Alternatively, I play on an anonymous account, and then if I decide to use my information about me in a professional setting, I'm best served by creating a new account and just redoing everything.

Edit: I should say that the idea really excites me and I'd love to learn in this format.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#145

Post by TeMPOraL »

marssaxman wrote: post #47

I find this announcement fascinatingly incomprehensible; it clearly emerges from a slice of the software universe quite distant from mine. The use of the acronym "CTF" suggests that the authors are very familiar with this genre of game; but how exactly does it work? What does it have to do with programming? I guess they are making programming into a game (?) and this somehow has something to do with hiring?

I guess you might be confusing the very unfortunate use of the acronym CTF for security-related programming games with the usual meaning of Capture The Flag, as in a game mode in First-Person Shooters where people work as a team to capture enemy's flag and bring it back to their base.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#146

Post by pnathan »

tptacek wrote: post #134
pnathan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are some things you'd worry about a company like this doing that would increase dance-monkey-dance factor? Not the OP, but anything where a recruiter can go look my rating up, they will. And then that becomes a positive signal, increasing the speed of the rat race, because to be "hip", you have to do the N+1 things. Blech. If you want to reduce the "dance" factor, have a sheltered tunnel from Starfighter to th…

Microcorruption player identities were totally private. There's no way for a recruiter to look someone up, unless they used a very-identifiable username. Privacy is important to us. How would you imagine the bizarro-world third party recruiter that would emerge from something like Starfighter could interoperate with employers to shield you from the kind of BS you're concerned about? We're interested in ideas!

I would suggest Starfighter Recruiter, LLC have a contract with a VP, CTO. Something to the effect of...

"We provide you the names of people interested in your fine company, along with our certificate of credibility. You in turn agree that the interview process will be entirely on the intangibles[1] of interpersonal relationships, career goals, etc".

Along with that would be a rider that would involve Starfighter Recruiter LLC taking liability for providing a measurably crappy candidate, as well as disclaimers all around relating to intangibles.

Personally, I don't really want to futz around with long-winded negotiations and alpha male chest thumping. I want to demonstrate my capability, discuss my career goals and interests, and verify that fine hiring company is actually a reasonable place to work that meshes with me and my career aspirations.

[1] I.e., candidate is a loud-mouthed jackass that can't work with anyone, but can pass any technical challenge with flying colors.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#147

Post by eugeneionesco »

tptacek wrote: post #2

I'm all, involved? and stuff? You can, like, ask us stuff, I guess. Let me answer the most frequent questions we're getting right here: "CTF" stands for "Capture The Flag". Conventionally, it's a contest with a collection of "flags" each of which is guarded by a programming puzzle; teams of people compete to collect flags. What we're doing is not a conventional CTF, but if you want to get the flavor of what we're doi…

How are you planning on combating cheating? For sure people will post solutions online to your CTFs.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#148

Post by jmgrosen »

tptacek wrote: post #2

I'm all, involved? and stuff? You can, like, ask us stuff, I guess. Let me answer the most frequent questions we're getting right here: "CTF" stands for "Capture The Flag". Conventionally, it's a contest with a collection of "flags" each of which is guarded by a programming puzzle; teams of people compete to collect flags. What we're doing is not a conventional CTF, but if you want to get the flavor of what we're doi…

As someone who plays in a lot of "conventional" CTFs (e.g. DEFCON, Codegate, GitS, etc.), this sounds very cool, even if my participation in those already gets me some job offers :)

One question: for a less "just for fun" site like this, with no time barriers, how do you plan on dealing with people just following write-ups? You can randomly generate the flags, but people could still follow the steps. You can say "don't write write-ups," but write-ups will still be written ;)

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#149

Post by erbo »

careersuicide wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #2

I'm all, involved? and stuff? You can, like, ask us stuff, I guess. Let me answer the most frequent questions we're getting right here: "CTF" stands for "Capture The Flag". Conventionally, it's a contest with a collection of "flags" each of which is guarded by a programming puzzle; teams of people compete to collect flags. What we're doing is not a conventional CTF, but if you want to get the flavor of what we're doi…

Is this a reference to "The Last Starfighter"?

"Greetings, Starfighter! You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada."

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#150

Post by Apocryphon »

digisth wrote: post #139
achompas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think patio11 and tptacek hope this can replace those things, so that you can work towards a new gig on your own terms (instead of going through the usual song-and-dance).

There are lots of ways to acquire and prove skill and knowledge; ultimately, they are all monkey dances to at least some degree. Until we develop a way to read minds (and it'd be great to also do the reverse: give everyone the ability to insta-learn, Matrix-style), we will continue to have to use some kind of signaling mechanism. Right now, there are many of them, all with various levels of difficulty, entrance requi…

Whatever happened to companies spending the resources to train and mentor green recruits?
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