tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46589322027544612182024-03-14T12:33:24.080+00:00We ChallI Chall. You Chall. We Chall!!!quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-20207244288086800332014-05-01T08:44:00.001+01:002014-05-01T08:50:43.703+01:00Capture the Flag - CTFSo recently beside solving challs on challenge sites, I'm also playing CTFs.<br />
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Just like challenge sites, CTFs are also computer security competitions. There are 2 types of CTFs: jeopardy and attack-defence. So far I've only played jeopardy ones, and because they are very similar to challenge sites, in this post I will mostly write about them :P<br />
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In jeopardy CTFs, you are given a number of challenges in different categories: crypto, stegano, web, pwn, RE, forensic... By solving these challenges you will get special passwords called "flags". Submitting these flags will earn your points. Unlike challenge sites, CTFs are events that usually last for 2 days, so it is recommended that everyone should play CTFs in teams. The teams with the most points will win the CTF. CTFs are a fun way to solve challenges, and many CTFs even offer cash prizes for the top teams.<br />
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Most CTFs have qualifier and final rounds. Usually the qualifier rounds are online, and final rounds are on-site. The biggest CTF is <a href="http://defcon.org/">DEF CON CTF</a>, which comes together with the famous conference that everyone already knows about.<br />
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My team is <a href="https://ctftime.org/team/5348">penthackon</a>. It is a new team consisting mostly of high-ranked players in the <a href="http://www.wechall.net/">WeChall network</a>, and as a result we have done quite well and is currently #6 on the <a href="https://ctftime.org/">ranking</a>. We even <a href="http://defcon.org/html/links/dc-news.html#dc22qualifiers">pre-qualified for DEF CON</a>, and some of us will be going to Las Vegas in August to pwn there :P<br />
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<br />quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-64595938070724993892008-08-04T03:32:00.004+01:002018-09-19T19:56:27.425+01:00Farewell to ScortileOur fellow challenger, <a href="http://www.wechall.net/profile.php?username=Scortile">Scortile</a>, passed away last month in a car accident, at a young age of 23. The sad news was <a href="http://www.wechall.net/forum.php?action=showthread&boardid=16&threadid=90">delivered to Gizmore by his brother</a>. An article of the accident is available here: <a href="http://www.ad.nl/utrecht/2466511/Ongeluk_met_dodelijke_afloop.html">http://www.ad.nl/utrecht/2466511/Ongeluk_met_dodelijke_afloop.html</a><br />
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Scortile had been around in the challenger world since 2003. He was active in many popular challenge sites, among which are TheBlackSheep, HackQuest, Rankk, and of course WeChall. He was especially skillful in cracking, with 63.46% crackits solved at TBS. And he is currently holding the record of achieving the quality of 82% for fuzzy fingerprinting attack against an SSH private key, as part of a challenge at WeChall.<br />
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It was just a year ago that Scortile <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2828&page=1">expressed his desire to compete with rhican and pvcuong on the race to the top</a>. But now he's gone. Forever.<br />
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Farewell to him! May he rest in peace!quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-76778823919185282642008-04-26T15:51:00.003+01:002008-04-26T16:41:41.717+01:00Net-ForceI guess it's time to promote another challenge site: <a href="http://www.net-force.nl/">Net-Force</a>.<br /><br />Net-Force is a dutch challenge site with challenges divided into categories similar to TheBlackSheep and HackQuest. The challs are mostly in English, however.<br /><br />At Net-Force you are ranked according to the ancient Roman empire, from slave to general. At the moment using some magic rhican is the second general there, having solved all the challs :O<br /><br />And as promised by ilias, Net-Force will be a new member of the WeChall network "pretty" soon.quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-19791568282146865862008-03-21T03:10:00.003+00:002008-03-21T08:51:23.075+00:00Hacking schoolMost challenge sites have a ranking, where people can compare themselves with other challengers. It is a great source of motivation, but also on the other hand, the root of all evil. Many people have been competing dishonestly by trading solutions, begging for hints and cheating. A true challenger would not want to see that other side of the challenger world. And as a result, a group of topgamers, among which relee, rayden5, bb and chrisi, worked together and finished a cool project - the hacking school.<br /><br />The main purpose of the hacking school was to create an educational challenge site where people can learn and grow their skills, and especially, cheating and solution trading are prevented. The challenges are reviewed by the "group leaders" for quality assurance, so that only good ones are published. The solutions are different for each user, and all solution attempts are monitored, so that "swapping answers" will not work.<br /><br />Hacking school was built over 2 years, but in the end for an unknown reason only a framework was released. The framework was hosted at <a href="http://www.hacking-school.org">http://www.hacking-school.org</a>, but for an unknown reason it is down for now. You can still have an overview of the site from the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.hacking-school.org">Wayback Machine</a>, and if you want a copy of the framework, feel free to contact me.quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-11810451734865468722008-02-26T14:58:00.019+00:002008-03-03T12:51:15.167+00:00Nature of a challenge siteChallenge sites have been around for quite a while. The first one that this writer knows is Cyberarmy's <a href="https://www.cyberarmy.net/about/QuickHistory">Zebulun</a>, which was started around 1999, at about the time the browser market was dominated by Internet Explorer and Netscape. Over the years, many have sprung up in different corners of the web. Some have survived the changing face of the Web and are doing well, some have been neglected by their founders while others have faded away. New ones have been born and as I write, even newer ones are being conceptualised and coded.<br /><br />This article is an attempt to describe the characteristics of a challenge site according to the writer's best knowledge. Feel free to share your thoughts :)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1) Single vs multiple domains<br /><br /></span>Some challenge sites offer challenges based on a single domain, be it mathematics, programming or hacking. Sites in this category include <a href="http://www.caesum.com/game/">Electrica</a> and <a href="http://projecteuler.net/">Project Euler</a>. Others offer a mixture of domains, from logic to programming to hacking to cryptology to stenography.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2) The need to register<br /><br /></span>Most challenge sites require you to sign up, but some, such as <a href="http://www.deathball.net/notpron/">notpron</a>, don't. The former has the advantage of identifying the solvers persistently so that when they return weeks or months later, they are still recognised.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3) Challenge presentation<br /><br /></span>The challenge is presented on a web page and is usually accompanied by an input field for solution submission. Typically the same challenge is presented to the solvers with a single, unchanging solution (though this solution may be periodically changed to foil cheating). However, it's also possible for the same challenge to be presented but with different inputs to make the solution unique for everybody.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4) Method of solving<br /><br /></span>There are two types:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">a) Static</span><br />The challenge is presented and the solver can take any amount of time to solve it. He then submits the solution via an input field and gets a feedback instantaneously.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">b) Dynamic</span><br />The challenge changes with every access and has to be "understood" and solved by a script. Usually there's a time limit on solution submission, like within 2 seconds. Challenges of this nature are harder to "cheat".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">5) Hall of Fame or Ranking<br /><br /></span>Most, if not all, challenge sites implement a Hall of Fame (HOF) page to give the solvers an idea of how they are fairing relative to the others. Typically, the HOF lists the solvers and their challenge completion statistics in a hierarchical manner. It helps to inject a competitive element and is a source of motivation to the solvers.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6) Private Message<br /><br /></span>At some point during their stay, solvers will need to communicate with fellow solvers privately. Sometimes, it's just for getting to know the other person, while at other times, and perhaps more commonly, it's to seek "enlightenment" on a challenge. While not strictly necessary, it is nevertheless a popular feature amongst challenge sites.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7) Forum<br /><br /></span>The forum brings all the solvers together and is usually the first place to look for hints or to seek clarifications on a challenge. It's also the place to chill, to post congratulatory messages, or to whine about a challenge.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8) Challenge rendering<br /><br /></span>This is the meat of a challenge site. It is where the challenges are presented. There are different flavours:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">a) Strictly linear<br /></span>In this scheme, the challenges are accessible one at a time and in order of difficulty, from easy to difficult. You solve the current challenge and move on to the next (presumably) harder challenge. The old Cyberarmy, which enjoyed a phenomenal success during its peak, was implemented in this way. Others, such as <a href="http://www.mod-x.co.uk/">Mod-x</a>, are also modelled after this scheme.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">b) Scatter or non-linear<br /></span>In a scatter scheme, all the challenges are accessible to the solver, without any restriction on the order of solving. You can solve the easy challenges or the harder ones at any point in time. This is quite a popular model to present the challenges. <a href="http://www.hackquest.de/">Hackquest</a> and <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/">TheBlackSheep</a>, to name but a few, are modelled after this scheme.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">c) A Hybrid<br /></span>As the name suggests, this scheme is a cross-breed of the strictly linear scheme and the scatter scheme. For this scheme to work, the challenges are organised into levels, with a fixed or variable number of challenges at each level. It is linear in the sense that the solver needs to complete all or a certain number of challenges in a level to progress to the higher level. It is scatter in the sense that, in each level, the solver can freely attempt the challenges in any order. <a href="http://www.slyfx.com/">Slyfx</a> and <a href="http://www.rankk.org/">Rankk</a> use the hybrid scheme.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">9) Profile</span><br /><br />Most challenge sites have a profile feature. This page displays the solver's personal information, such as country, age, hobbies and so forth, along with challenge completion statistics. It is like the solver's resume, if you like, acting as an informational link between the solver and the outside world.Sphinxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15140877100561872814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-66435839692423056532008-02-18T06:53:00.003+00:002008-02-18T07:29:03.383+00:00WeChall goes betaFinally! The WeChall project has entered the beta stage, all thanks to Kender who generously provided the host and domain. Now you can have a quick glance of the project at <a href="http://www.wechall.net/">http://www.wechall.net</a>.<br /><br />As I probably have mentioned in the previous posts, the main purpose of WeChall is to provide a universal challenger tracker. There you can create an account, link it to other challenger accounts on other sites, see how you are ranked among the top challengers around the world, and of course discover cool new challenge sites.<br /><br />For now we have successfully linked to 3 of the most popular challenge sites: TheBlackSheep, <a href="http://www.hackquest.de/">HackQuest</a> and <a href="http://www.rankk.org/">Rankk</a>. Linking to the fourth challenge site, Net-Force, will be done soon. And we are always looking forward to expand our network. If you are a challenge site owner and want to join the WeChall network, <a href="http://www.wechall.net/join.php">follow this guide</a> and contact either me or Gizmore :)<br /><br />The project is still at an early stage, and we encourage challengers to sign up, link to their challenger accounts and help improve the site. At the moment we are working to create a cool and unique design for the site. If you have any idea or would like to contribute, feel free to contact us :)quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-23259141722485163582008-02-14T15:24:00.000+00:002008-02-14T15:25:44.710+00:00Project EulerHey guys,<br /><br />As I mentioned Project Euler in the last post, I guess it's now time to write something about it :P<br /><br />Project Euler is a site mainly focused on Maths. There you can find a series of Math-related problems, most of which require some Maths knowledge and programming skills. All problems have been designed so that after some research and analysis, you can optimize your program to get the solution in less than one minute.<br /><br />With new problems added weekly, Project Euler now has more than 180 problems and has attracted more than 19000 mathematics enthusiasts from all over the world.<br /><br /><a href="http://projecteuler.net">Have a taste of Project Euler!</a>quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-61658051094419780882008-01-13T12:38:00.000+00:002008-01-25T01:18:22.203+00:00The rhican rampageYeah, that's surely the right word for the recent challenge site pwnzor incidents. Within just a few months, rhican was able to find exploits in almost all big challenge sites, where security had been taken into consideration by the site administrators.<br /><br />Everything started with the soft-hyphen bug that rhican found on <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2777">Electrica</a> and <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2779">HackQuest</a>. Then rhican mysteriously found a way to pwnzor flamecruiser's account at HackQuest. Next he found an <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2858">XSS bug on rankk</a>. Then again he mysteriously found a way to <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2884">eavesdrop the conversation between Inferno and alt3rn4tiv3 at TBS</a>. It was kinda cool back then, when things like that were thought to be impossible.<br /><br />The topic became hot once again in late 2007 when rhican published an <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2930">SQL injection on Electrica</a>, which put every account in danger of being compromised. Things became chaos when rhican posted whiteboy's challenger password to the public, and even gave noobs free access to all the solutions. That put an end to the site - after a long period when noobs rushed their ways to the top, today the database was inaccessible, not sure if it was taken down for maintenance by Caesum or pwnzored by a noob.<br /><br />And the rhican pwnage doesn't seem to have come to an end. A few days ago, <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2954">yet another SQL injection</a> was found and published by rhican. This time the victim was slyfx. Everyone in the challenger world was driven to the same feeling: all challenge sites are insecure, and will be pwned by rhican someday. Now the question is, what will be rhican's next target? I myself would be excited to see he pwning <a href="http://www.hackits.de/">hackits.de</a> or <a href="http://www.hackthissite.org/">hackthissite.org</a>, the sites with many script kiddies thinking of themselves as 1337-h4x0r5.<br /><br />Now if you are feeling sorry for those challenge sites and wondering what's the world going to become, I'll let you in for some good news. You know, nothing in life is entirely good nor bad. Thanks to hacking, bugs have been fixed to make life better. A brand new challenge site is being developed by whiteboy and probably will be popular soon. And whiteboy is taking every consideration to make sure it's rhican-proof :) I'll be one of the beta testers, so be sure to tune in on for the next chapter :)<br /><br />Update: TBS, or rather altn3rn4tiv3, <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2963">fell victim to rhican again</a>. This time using an old CSRF bug that hasn't been fixed for years, rhican was able to borrow alt3rn4tiv3's hands to wipe away the biggest spam topic on TBS - "Let's count... The number topic" by BaRa. I'd say it's an achievement to get rid of this big waste of time and space :)quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-62308168154680596992008-01-06T09:33:00.000+00:002018-09-19T20:00:47.525+01:00Vulnerabilities in challenge sitesMany challenge sites are about internet security, and probably that's the most interesting part of them. Beginners refer to them as hacker games, and think that by joining them you'll become a very 1337 h4x0r. And of course the sites should be very secure, and the admins must be experts in computer security. Well, that is not always true.<br />
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Security is a complicated subject. Although the theory is relatively easy to grab, in practice, it is almost impossible to achieve absolute security. Many techniques, frameworks and tools have been created to make security easier to achieve, but as challenge sites have been around since the 90s, most of them are still developed on old systems and do not employ the latest (and heavyweight) technology needed to build a secure system. And no matter how much you try, it is still very easy to make human mistakes that will lead to disasters.<br />
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Today I will give a brief review of vulnerabilities in challenge sites I have played, some of which are minor, some of which are serious which lead to total pwnage of the whole site.<br />
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The oldest vulnerability I know of was at <a href="http://3564020356.org/">Ma's Reversing</a>. Being developed on an old technology, it used url rewriting for session tracking. The session id was included in the url as a GET variable. Normally this is only a serious problem in case of shared computers, as the session id is exposed in the browser history. But the site was also using an external visitor tracker, <a href="http://extremetracking.com/">ExtremeTracking</a>, which logged the http referer header of the visitor. The session id was exposed to public, and Harlequin successfully used this to get access to another user's account.<br />
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Another challenge site that suffered from insecurity was <a href="http://www.hackquest.de/">HackQuest</a>. In 2004, a hacker pwnzored skyflash's account by exploiting a bug in phpbb. And last year multiple XSS vulnerabilities were found and exploited in the wild (I myself was able to collect some cookies too :P). Not to mention the soft-hyphen bug found by rhican.<br />
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<a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/">TheBlackSheep</a>, one of the most popular sites, was not that secure either. In 2004 when the forum search feature was introduced, Erik got many PMs reporting about SQL injection bugs (one of which was mine :P). And recently, rhican found a way to read PMs between Inferno and alt3rn4tiv3 (how he did it is still a mystery :P). And there's an XSS bug in one of the challenges that put everyone in danger too.<br />
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But things could have gone worse than that. <a href="http://www.caesum.com/game/index.php">Electrica</a>, a challenge site by Caesum, was vulnerable to SQL injection, although the owner had tried his best to filter everything. rhican has totally infiltrated the site, hijacked some famous accounts, and even published the injection that gives away the solutions to all the challenges. The worst thing a site owner could have experienced in his whole life.<br />
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Want more? I myself have found some XSS bugs at <a href="http://www.spy-games.net/">spy-games</a>, <a href="http://www.dareyourmind.net/">DareYourMind</a>, and even <a href="http://projecteuler.net/">project Euler</a>. Another XSS bug at <a href="http://www.rankk.org/">rankk</a> was found and reported by rhican. And just a few days after I joined <a href="http://www.hellboundhackers.org/">HellBoundHackers</a> my account got deleted by a hacker who even pwnzored the whole database.<br />
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So what's the lesson? Do not reuse the same password for multiple accounts - every security researcher would want to say that, but it's easier said than done. Anyway, just choose a software that you find the most suitable with, and if none suits your needs, invent a solution for yourself :P<br />
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And before I forget to mention, you should have a look at this cool challenge site for a quick laugh: <a href="http://www.pardio.net/">pardio.net</a>. Probably that's the worst challenge site ever. There you can find every noob vulnerability, which could even give you the FTP password. I and cryptodoggy infiltrated this site a few years ago, but the site owner hasn't discovered until now, and hasn't even changed the password either :Dquangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-57945561364784741302007-12-15T02:54:00.000+00:002007-12-15T06:46:26.754+00:00The future of challenging and authentication?Guys, do you play at too many challenge sites <a href="http://www.freewebs.com/quangntenemy/#challenge">like me</a>?<br /><br />If so, possibly you have encountered the same problem. Although I know the risk of using the same password for many accounts, as a human, I still can't overcome it. And as a result I had to change dozens of passwords last month when someone hacked <a href="http://www.hellboundhackers.org/">HellBound Hackers</a> and stole the password database, although I was pretty sure that it would take years for him to crack my password.<br /><br />There are many <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_manager">password-manager software</a> out there that try to give a solution to this problem, but they are insecure and inconvenient. You will still have to bring some data file from them with you to be able to log in from another computer. Even <a href="http://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html">the implementation by Bruce Schneier the security guru</a> still can't solve this problem completely.<br /><br />Another solution to this problem is using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_password_manager">online password managers</a>. But as Internet security is bad these days, and privacy is just an enchanted word, I don't trust those so much.<br /><br />Yesterday I stumbled upon <a href="http://openid.net/get/">OpenID</a>, yet another solution for easy authentication. The idea is that you can use the same OpenID to authenticate on multiple websites. Being gradually supported by some big organizations, I guess OpenID will become popular for social networks soon. But surely it still lacks some trivial features for challenging.<br /><br />So, which additional features do we need for OpenChallengerID? An universal user profile and ranking system. They are being developed under a new project that I, Gizmore and Inferno are working on. The project was original named WeChall, then changed to Challengers, but it's still not the official codename yet. And the project is still at the early stage of development. If you have any idea/suggestion feel free to contact us.quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-68207464778039318182007-12-13T10:42:00.000+00:002007-12-15T03:00:42.276+00:00ElectricaJust solved 2 challs at Electrica and advanced to Veteran Trooper, so I thought I should write something about it.<br /><br />Electrica the Puzzle Challenge is a cool challenge site by Caesum, one of the best challengers out there. It is located at <a href="http://www.caesum.com/">http://www.caesum.com</a>.<br /><br />At Electrica you can solve puzzles on cryptography, steganography, maths, programming, executables, misc, and sokoban too :) The puzzles are organized quite well. You start with easy puzzles, and when you solve enough of them you get access to the harder ones. There is enough information to get you started, and at the site you can even find a cool challengers handbook written by Caesum, which covers basic knowledge and techniques for challenge solving.<br /><br />Give it a try, guys!quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-80483031199734561142007-12-07T13:01:00.000+00:002007-12-07T13:23:45.048+00:00HackQuestHey guys,<br /><br />The challenge site of today is HackQuest at <a href="http://www.hackquest.de">http://www.hackquest.de</a>. It is pretty much similar to TBS, with challenges divided into various categories: applet, crackit, crypto, exploit, flash, javascript, linux, logic, programming, special and stegano. Atm there are almost 100 challenges.<br /><br />The major challenges at HackQuest are quite easy, but still there are some tough ones. The hardest one so far is "The invation II", which is solved only by <a href="http://www.hackquest.de/user.php?op=userinfo&uname=anto">Anto</a>, although there's a £20 prize for the first solver.<br /><br />There's surely more to tell about HackQuest, but probably my friend flamecruiser will want to provide more information :Pquangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-77120116829359697402007-11-26T01:20:00.000+00:002007-11-26T06:30:53.377+00:00Smash The Stack!Hey guys,<br /><br />Today I'll show you a cool challenge site, or rather, a real wargame - <a href="http://www.smashthestack.org/">SmashTheStack</a> (StS). It was keeping me busy the whole yesterday.<br /><br />StS is all about Linux cracking/reversing/exploit - a skillset that I surely lack. At the moment they are hosting 5 games, 2 of which are active: <a href="http://io.smashthestack.org/">io</a> and <a href="http://apfel.smashthestack.org/">apfel</a>. Each game is a real system all set up for cracking. You start with a shell account with the lowest access level and by cracking/exploiting the insecure linux applications you can gain access to the next level. Kinda cool huh?<br /><br />At the moment I, rhican, silkut and ch0wch0w are playing the games, but none has reached the top so far. So maybe you should join the race with us ;)<br /><br />Need any tool to start the game? Here is a list of programs I used: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strace">strace</a>, <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/manual/html_chapter/binutils_4.html">objdump</a>, <a href="http://www.backerstreet.com/rec/rec.htm">rec</a>, and of course <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/">gdb</a>. Read some articles about them and you'll get everything done.<br /><br /><a href="http://insecure.org/stf/smashstack.html">Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit</a> by Aleph One is an excellent article to get you started too - I highly believe that the site name originated from that article, but don't quote me on that :Pquangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-31936773079668019152007-11-24T01:46:00.000+00:002007-11-24T02:05:08.283+00:00platonic defectionI have a silly confession to make: I'm affectionate about <a href="http://images.ciao.com/inl/images/products/normal/256/product-342256.jpg">my hard drive</a>. I know she's not much of a looker and she gets pretty noisy at times, but she has something very unique. Inceptionally she was as run-of-the-mill and no more poignant than your average toaster. Yet having cultivated and nourished her over the years with bits of stuff I care about I've developed a special fondness of my magnetic friend. A compilation of stuff that matters, she is my soul on a platter. Nearly a decade of handpicked odds and ends, business mixed with pleasure, a curious blend of things to be treasured.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/0CF54430C197F98C86256EDE00634385/$file/7k250.jpg">A nudie pic of my hard drive</a><br /><br />Call me one bit short of a nibble, but didn't Anne Frank even name her diary "Kitty"? Nobody seems to raise brows about that. What makes diaries so special? If you remove the binder, it's basically just thick toiletpaper for people with loose bowels so the diarrhea doesn't seep through. And what about people naming their cars? Lets see a car accelerate from 0 to 7200 RPM in only a few seconds! Not to even mention the marines encouraging rookies to bond with their rifle. At least my platter doesn't cause brainsplatter!<br /><br />If you ask me, there's nothing wrong with a little plate-onic affection. Sadly, I first had to lose her before I learned how much I appreciated her. As Plato so delicately put it: "Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?". One day she just lost her drive. Her tiny little head got stuck and rigor mortis set in. Her once so frolicsome spinning noises were no more. Only that awful <a href="http://www.hitachigst.com/hddt/knowtree.nsf/cffe836ed7c12018862565b000530c74/4b1a62a50f405d0d86256756006e340c?OpenDocument">tick of death</a> (head damage 1) setting my teeth on edge. Complete <a href="http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-ticking-hard-disk-head-problem.htm">platonic defection</a>.<br /><br />The outlook was as grim as the skies over Moscow the day Joseph Stalin became member of the Communist Party, but I made a vow that I would bring my hard drive back to life even if it meant I would have to cross the Styx to find her. Hours on end I scryed the internet until finally I found <a href="http://www.hddrecovery.com.au/downloads/200ways.pdf">this book of shadows</a> from several pagan IT professionals.<br />I gathered the necessary instruments, plugged her in, and gently started tapping her along the edges with my Screwdriving Wand of the Goddess while invoking the Guardians of the Watchtowers of the corresponding corners, but it was futile. All she did was mock me with her evil voodoo tick.<br /><br />This called for desperate measures. I still felt her presence, but apparently there was still too much resistance for her to come back to life. So I placed her in the freezer since cold temperatures reduce resistance. After about half an hour I tried again, and after a few minutes I noticed her tick of death gradually started changing. First her arm started moving a little. Finally she was spinning again with her head held high, long enough for me to transfer <a href="http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm">her essence</a> to my new drive.<br /><br />PS. If your data is mission critical, go to a proper data recovery agency. These methods can seriously disharmonize the universe and should only be used out of sheer desperation and after carefully reading <a href="http://www.hddrecovery.com.au/downloads/200ways.pdf">this document</a>.lokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06765836453189795004noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-44476989228141536592007-11-14T08:17:00.000+00:002007-11-14T09:29:15.009+00:00Steganabara explainedHey guys,<br /><br />Finally I defeated my laziness and created a project page for Steganabara. You can access it from<a href="http://www.freewebs.com/quangntenemy/steganabara/index.html"> here</a>.<br /><br />Also included an explanation of the key features: Bit Mask Filter, Color Map Filter, Color Explorer, Histogram and Color Table.<br /><br />And now a demonstration of the Bit Mask Filter, applying on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:StenographyOriginal.png">StenographyOriginal.png</a>, from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography">wikipedia page about steganography</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXFouabI4LRyymr1gWUXysl2rPeLXIa4D-HxM3tMR-h_tPXjefRlNXvCKJbglBe2O6WdiZ6pmiUYun5L8Vq-fojC1urYWPhaqpvpwdD4VYFVVrFffjgW-8D1I_L6KtUkaQHGusBT3EhPY/s1600-h/original1.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXFouabI4LRyymr1gWUXysl2rPeLXIa4D-HxM3tMR-h_tPXjefRlNXvCKJbglBe2O6WdiZ6pmiUYun5L8Vq-fojC1urYWPhaqpvpwdD4VYFVVrFffjgW-8D1I_L6KtUkaQHGusBT3EhPY/s400/original1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132610475336437810" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgruVzsSzqzF9cmelSta0QbCusRE8wVPi0Owz0Xb375h7TabT9JZ06GgC2DcxKP5ZODRoxrEF325qVvOs90MJ0AfGTlF7AQtl2drLDNcK54e_H_GmQqdecwuGM_ZgKm5s7wMLNn2Iz4zCk/s1600-h/original2.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgruVzsSzqzF9cmelSta0QbCusRE8wVPi0Owz0Xb375h7TabT9JZ06GgC2DcxKP5ZODRoxrEF325qVvOs90MJ0AfGTlF7AQtl2drLDNcK54e_H_GmQqdecwuGM_ZgKm5s7wMLNn2Iz4zCk/s400/original2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132610475336437826" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp65njZ4L62rXkWl9JIATiYQZUPUXQ1Pz90cvZBfWOoL_zaCkJtEmX_3k6JcjAhRVdIWZijF7ufrfmwpVB1kXaDr0oykr68BJYgDmJ_ic709eyU63ejvvr41njNkcDv26fCD704Uh1-Ew/s1600-h/original3.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp65njZ4L62rXkWl9JIATiYQZUPUXQ1Pz90cvZBfWOoL_zaCkJtEmX_3k6JcjAhRVdIWZijF7ufrfmwpVB1kXaDr0oykr68BJYgDmJ_ic709eyU63ejvvr41njNkcDv26fCD704Uh1-Ew/s400/original3.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132610475336437842" border="0" /></a>quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-15165373795667899782007-11-12T01:08:00.000+00:002007-11-12T02:00:35.083+00:00TheBlacksheepAs theAnswer introduced rankk last week, I feel it's time to introduce my favourite challenge site, possibly the best one out there: TheBlackSheep at <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net">http://www.bright-shadows.net</a>. Most members refer to it using the shortened name: TBS.<br /><br />At TBS, challengers can compete in almost all major computer-related fields: javascript, exploit, cryptography, steganography, crackits, programming, flash, java applets, logic and information gathering. Also there's a "special" section, consisting of challenges that require a special skillset. And challenges that are completely a waste of time are taken to /dev/null.<br /><br />With 300+ challenges and counting, TBS is surely the biggest challenge site. You can find almost all aspects of the computer world there, from the first and simplest crypto system - Caesar, to the modern and ultimately strong one - RSA, from text steganos, to image and sound ones, from simple php exploits, to XSS and SQL injection, from Windows cracking, to cracking other systems, like Linux, C64, and Texas Instrument :P And of course, the applet challenges there are the most challenging, but yet very interesting and educational :)<br /><br />If, for any reason, you missed such a great site, register a new account there and start playing before it's too late! Beginner? No worry, you can learn many things along the way, from the challenges, and the <a href="http://www.bright-shadows.net/tutorials/tutorials.php">great tutorials</a> both written by TBS members and linked from other security websites.quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-8704292265413721572007-11-05T13:17:00.000+00:002007-11-26T01:18:03.651+00:00rankk.orgHey,<br /><br />another challenge site I've been playing at recently. The design, the "story", most challenges (and solutions :D) are related to egypt or pyramids. I think it's actually a restart of a challenge site called "pyramid".<br />It contains 160 challenges, including logic, javascript, programming, exploit, stegano and crypto of course.<br />There are 9 levels in total, to complete the n-th level you need to solve 10-n levels which results in a pyramid like ladder you need to climb.<br /><br />The current rankk master is quangntenemy, by the way.<span style="font-family:courier new;"></span><br /><br />Check out <a href="http://www.rankk.org/">rankk.org</a>!<br /><br />Greetings, ozehka!<br /><br />Update by quangntenemy: you might want to read <a href="http://rankk.blogspot.com/2007/10/interview-with-quangntenemy.html">my rankk interview</a> too :DUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-11375965261483550762007-11-04T07:00:00.000+00:002007-11-05T01:23:25.872+00:00Mod-xHey guys,<br /><br />Today's hot challenge site is Mod-x at <a href="http://www.mod-x.co.uk/">http://www.mod-x.co.uk</a>. Unlike other challenge sites, Mod-x has a unique story line behind it. You are one of the Mod-x agents, the elite team fighting against the evil forces in the cyberspace.<br /><br />Most tasks involve reversing, code breaking and penetrating other systems. Although the game is fictional, you need real skills in order to complete the tasks and move forward.<br /><br />Beside the main game, Mod-x also hosts 2 other games: the omega project and disavowed.net. They are also quite interesting.<br /><br />Give it a try and see how far you can go!quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-78865884310412968282007-10-29T06:54:00.000+00:002007-11-05T01:22:48.991+00:00Ma's ReversingHey guys,<br /><br />Today I'm gonna show you a really cool challenge site - Ma's Reversing at <a href="http://www.3564020356.org/">http://www.3564020356.org</a>.<br /><br />This is one of the very first challenge sites on the Internet. There are a total of 28 riddles and you have to solve them sequentially. After solving the riddle you can see the solutions to it and discuss about it in the next riddle forum.<br /><br />The riddles cover many aspects of the computer world, from steganography, cryptography, to reversing. While solving the riddles, you feel like being drowned into the long history of computing. And there's always something to learn from them.<br /><br />The site owner, Malatia, has been inactive for quite a while. But thanks to the educative and challenging riddles, the site is still alive :)<br /><br />The site is available for free, but only to those who <a href="http://3564020356.org/deserve.htm">deserve it</a>. Everyone needs to pass a qualifying riddle in order to become a member. But don't worry, just put some effort into it and the sesame will open for you :)quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-26883556567753778932007-10-26T13:59:00.000+01:002007-10-26T14:32:31.385+01:00slyfxHey guys,<br /><br />Today I would like to introduce an old but really nice challenge site: slyfx at <a href="http://www.slyfx.com">http://www.slyfx.com</a>.<br /><br />Like many challenge sites at the time, slyfx has 10 levels, from easy to hard. There are 3 challenges per level, and you have to solve 2 of them to advance to the next level. The challenges, which vary from logic, programming, reversing and exploiting, will give you a nice tour in the world of computers.<br /><br />Unfortunately, just like Arcanum, with the limited number of challenges, slyfx is only good as an introduction to wargaming.quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-72215773985240440902007-10-26T13:34:00.000+01:002007-10-26T13:47:06.642+01:00Bits and BytesBits and Bytes,<br />a very basic tutorial with introduction to steganography.<br /><br />First you should know that this information here is kept very basic and not very accurate. If you find some horrible mistakes please leave a comment. I tried to use easy vocabularies because this post is targetted on beginners.<br /><br />I. A computer is like a big calculator.<br />The only thing it can do is calculate numbers, which are stored in binary format.<br />The binary format, numbers represented in base 2, are used because you can easily represent the two possible binary digits (0 and 1) with electric power (voltage on or voltage off). Everything what your computer does is just computing lots of these binary numbers, and send or recieve those numbers to/from other components. Your monitor for example shows colors, that represent certain numbers and your keyboard sends some numbers to your computer when you press a key.<br /><br />A computer can only compute a small range of bits at once, which depends on the processor (usually 32 or 64 bits today).<br />Also it can address its memory only in byte steps (byte aligned).<br />A group of 8 bits is called a byte and can hold 256(2^8) different numbers (from 0 to 255).<br /><br />In the beginning of computers there was the need for a codetable that converts numbers to letters.<br />This codetable is called <A HREF='http://asciitable.com'> ASCII-Table </A>.<br />It uses 8 bits (1 byte) to represent one character.<br />An example: You can see that the number 65 represents an 'A'.<br />65 in binary is 01000001. (Try out the windows calculater and use the scientific view, you can convert numbers from binary to decimal beside other things with it)<br /><br />- - - - - - - - - - <br /><br />II. As you migth know, steganography is the art of hiding a message.<br />For example using invisible ink and write with that ink between the normal lines.<br /><br />In the age of computers there are lots of ways to hide data inside other data,<br />but lets focus on very basic stuff; Bits and Bytes.<br /><br />In computer age you can even hide letters due hiding its bits.<br />Ill "hide" the string ABC in some garbage data applying this rule:<br />Alernately take one bit of the message and one bit of the garbage.<br />like: M = Message; G = Garbage<br />MGMGMGMGMGMG....<br /><br />ABC: 01000001 01000010 01000011<br />Garbage: 11110000 11110000 11110000<br />Mixed up: 011101010000001001110101000010000111010100001010<br /> MGMGMGMGMGMGMGMG.....<br /><br />You can easily decode this by using only every second bit, starting with the first.<br /><br />You could also use your own codetable to represent letters, like A = 1, B = 2 and so on, what will need less bits than ascii.<br />Also its possible to just not use the highest bit (which is always 0 in standard ascii), or even not use the leading '01', cause all letters start with a binary '01'.Gizmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00241735733152802091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-84019163804473515132007-10-26T13:04:00.000+01:002007-10-26T13:35:27.846+01:00SteganabaraHey!<br /><br />most of you will know me by the nick 'theAnswer'.<br /><br />In my first post I want to present to you a great tool called Steganabara that helps you to solve steganos (to be exact: visual image steganos). It was coded by my dear friend quangntenemy in Java. Some of the functions it contains:<br /><br /><ul><li>Color Explorer (Red-, Green-, Blue- and Alpha-channel)</li><li>Histogram</li><li>Color Table (with frequencies)</li><li>Bit Mask Filter</li><li>Filter by Color Map<br /></li></ul><br />It doesn't show you the solution for a challenge instantly (sometimes it does :)), it's more an analysis tool.<br /><br />The current official version is 1.0.8 and you can get it at quangntenemy's site:<br /><a href="http://www.freewebs.com/quangntenemy/">http://www.freewebs.com/quangntenemy/</a><br /><br />Try it out!<br /><br />ozehkaUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-22969588734106358482007-10-25T14:28:00.001+01:002008-04-27T16:39:34.409+01:00ArcanumHey guys,<br /><br />I would like to introduce Arcanum, one of the very first challenge sites I played.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The site was located at <a href="http://www.arcanum.co.nz/"><span class="siteURL">http://www.arcanum.co.nz</span></a>, but unfortunately it is now down since the domain expired. The Arcanum enthusiasts are still idling on #arcanum at irc.idlemonkeys.net. flamecruiser is trying to revive it so maybe one day it will be back again :)<br /><br />Arcanum tests your skills in 4 different categories: logic, programming, encryption and unknown. There are 6 levels of difficulty. You have to pass all challenges at a level to advance to the next one.<br /><br />When I joined Arcanum, as a beginner, the challenges were really interesting and educational. With basic computer knowledge and a little bit of research, I was able to solve all the challenges and ended up in rank #147.<br /><br />The only bad thing about Arcanum was that there were not many challenges, and they weren't too hard. A challenger like me probably would only stay until he has solved all the challs and move onto the next one.<br /><br />Update: Thanks to Whiteboy the site is up again at <a href="http://arcanum.fxfi.net/">http://arcanum.fxfi.net/.</a> Check it out!<br /></div>quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4658932202754461218.post-61103828764948070942007-10-25T13:39:00.000+01:002007-10-26T03:12:30.519+01:00WelcomeHey guys,<br /><br />If you are a challenger, you have come to the right place ;)<br /><br />This blog is dedicated to computer-based challenges, aka wargames, hacker games, etc.<br /><br />Here you will find:<br /><ul><li>A comprehensive list of all the cool challenge sites, together with detailed reviews about them.</li><li>Links to online resources, tutorials, and tools.</li><li>Tips, tricks and tutorials from the top challengers.</li></ul>Please feel free to share your ideas and knowledge. And if you want to be part of the WeChall team, you know where to find me ;)<br /><br />Happy challenging!quangntenemyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06889040235572873334noreply@blogger.com0