Is it possible to view tasks from the past challenges? Just curious how it looks like
NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
81–90 of 90 posts
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#82After reading "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden and "Cult of the Dead Cow" by Joseph Menn, I can't help but feel like the NSA is basically "the bad guys", and I assumed most hackers would feel the same. Are people really excited to do challenges like these for them? I don't mean that in an accusatory way, just genuinely curious as my perspectives (one from a whistleblower and one from 80s hacker culture) are obvio…
I'd recommend reading James Bamford for a more positive look at NSA and their charter...which is essentially math, math, and more math, and unrelated to politics within NSA anyway. The Snowden stuff is extraordinarily excerpted to that which a contractor (Snowden) was seeing in a post 9/11 strange fiasco which did bring politics into play. Bamford predates that mess. Here's a link, for example. https://a.co/d/eMTidtP
> The Snowden stuff is extraordinarily excerpted to that which a contractor (Snowden) was seeing
I highly recommend you read his autobiography. The typical Beltway career in IT is getting clearance and then coming in as a contractor, there is nothing out of the ordinary here.
Adding to that, he was directly employed by the CIA from 2006 to 2009. The "contractor" line is a really sad attempt to discredit him.
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd recommend reading James Bamford for a more positive look at NSA and their charter...which is essentially math, math, and more math, and unrelated to politics within NSA anyway. The Snowden stuff is extraordinarily excerpted to that which a contractor (Snowden) was seeing in a post 9/11 strange fiasco which did bring politics into play. Bamford predates that mess. Here's a link, for example. https://a.co/d/eMTidtP
> The Snowden stuff is extraordinarily excerpted to that which a contractor (Snowden) was seeing I highly recommend you read his autobiography. The typical Beltway career in IT is getting clearance and then coming in as a contractor, there is nothing out of the ordinary here. Adding to that, he was directly employed by the CIA from 2006 to 2009. The "contractor" line is a really sad attempt to discredit him.
The point is not discrediting but scoping what he was involved in, which for example does not intersect a different area I know personally.
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are missing the entire point. Even if they hired the sum graduating phd class of every math program in the country it wouldn’t change the fact that math phds are not their hiring target. They have to hire N non-math phds for every M math phd they hire to support their hiring metrics. Like every other large technical bureaucracy in the world. None of that has anything to do with advanced capabilities and, again li…
I got the point. I can be wrong then, for the collective interest. Even if they hired the sum graduating phd class of every math program in the country If all the elite Ivy League math outlets followed a similar excellency distribution that would be a waste of budget. But the top 5 PhD's at the top 3 institutions are far more capable then the sum of the remaining, especially to the incredibly niche, relatively uninte…
"Factoid" is the right word choice here.
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#85Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people whom this is meant for are not the people who would complain about "needing" an EDU email and would just get one or figure out a bypass.
Options I can see: 1. You can get one from Hafis: https://hafis.net/product-category/edu-email/ , 2. or host your own mail server after registering an .edu address, 3. or maybe you can find someone in your network who still has a valid .edu address and is willing to register for you.
Just looking at the site it seems they pull from an approved list of .edu domains so I think 2 probably wouldn't work unless you could social engineer you way onto the approved list. The ones sold by Hafis might not either, I didn't see a list of approved institutions readily available though.
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#87[dead]
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was kinda an obvious analogous exaggeration. Although, not too unbelievable for highly-sensitive contexts. A pilot with less obvious motivation to go AWOL institutionally could only benefit the context.
Is that a rule, or just something you think should be a rule?
Once it's written down, it doesn't matter what it was, it's a rule
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#89[dead]
Re: NSA Codebreaker Challenge 2024
#90Is it possible to view tasks from the past challenges? Just curious how it looks like
I archived what I could from the years I participated: 2018-2021:
https://github.com/luker983/nsa-codebreaker-2018
https://github.com/luker983/nsa-codebreaker-2019