CDDC 2015

Hey how's it going? Just writing to keep this in my memory. Gotta keep it fresh ya know?

Subway, eat fr(gets shot)

Anyway. I went for the Cyber Defenders Discovery Camp during June holidays this year. It was before my MYCTs and my friends and I were initially hesitant to join but in the end I kept everything inside and(gets shot)

In the end I thought that 3 days of my holidays should be alright for me and I told Han Jin to sign me up. (my MYCTs were so screwed eventually, I doubt 3 days would've saved me) It was good to learn something related to Internet security as I could possibly look into that as a career prospect in the future. Also, Norton sucks. I need to make my own Antivirus.

When we went for the briefing at the DSTA place, I realised Wei Bin joined the competition also. We both did not know about each other's decision beforehand and it was a shocker to me. He had joined in solo and was matched with some other guys from VJ (I think) while I came with my Programming bros DevTeam5 Han Jin, Zachary, Bryan and yours truly. (Minton was not interested lol probably mugging)

The whole briefing got me nervous because the organisers clearly stated that "There will be no rules in the competition". Wait, I can destroy everyone elses' computers? I wished that was the case. It would be a spectacle. I was still unsure of how "lawless" this whole affair was going to be and was plotting many things to get the upper hand.

After that, to get the upper hand, the ever so eager Bryan and Han Jin, the guy who just have questions I will never think in light years about, went to ask the guy from CDDC some questions. I was interested to know more as well, but I was also uptight about our buffet lunch being finished by the rest of the horde. We went out after half an hour and finished as much food as was left. Wei Bin and I made an alliance, along with the banter that was flung around.

Oh, did I mention the training was in Expo, SUTD's campus? Why...

Fast forward to training day 1, I came in rather late. (As usual from me ha) Rushing to the room, this girl who looked like she was inside the competition as well, asked me where to go. I told her the venue but I myself did not know the directions. In the end, she guided me on where to go. Thanks a lot girl!!!

The place was big but the area we were using was compact. 4 columns of tables with 5 computers on the table, about 8 or so rows. Shit was going down. I found my comrades and started listening intently. Everyone else seemed like they were there to win that $4000 grand prize.

Well, almost everyone. This Indian girl in front of me was scrolling through Facebook, messaging someone, doing everything BUT listen to the instructor. Every once in a while, I will look into her computer screen to see what banter was going on. Her teammates must feel so angry to have a wretched teammate. They seem resignated to their fate, even though I can sense their expertise in cyber security. In fact, 90% of these people who came were probably experts in programming and cyber security, one look and you know it. I don't like to stereotype, but their actions and their faces show it all. I felt quite pessimistic about my chances at these point, but the girl in front of me gave me hope. (ayy lmao) Bryan was very optimistic and kept pushing me on  though. I was glad he did.

What did I learn from that day?..

This is a genuine question. I forgot what I learnt. Everything was foreign and I was lost at that time. I couldn't believe we were going up against people who knew their shit. It was like playing against Silver people when you are Level 1 in League. Later did I discover Han Jin was actually Challenger. OLOLOL

Something to love about CDDC was the generous spread of food that they gave. 2 Tea breaks and lunch were covered from about 9 - 6. It was a great feast considering the other food that I ate from other competitions. When it was almost time for the break, everyone rushed to be the first in line and it was quite obvious to see why. Later, when time became tight for everyone, we turned to eating at our workstations and doing work. I guess this is what programmers do in reality. Prepping for the real thing man.

Hmm.. I would like to describe more about my 2 days of training but I can't really remember the content. Something something SYN Scan, buffer overflow, BadBlue gets sent to all your friends computer, um... yeah. Enlightening but information overflow. (get that reference?)

1 thing that I did that probably saved us quite a lot of time was that I diligently followed the instructions to set up the firewall to our server (Our server was a computer without an OS I think. I didn't know you can make servers like that. Goes to show how much of a pleb I was) even though Han Jin was doing his own firewall on his Mac like a pro. In the end, he wasn't able to use the firewall using his computer. Guess who's firewall was used?

JOHN CENAAAAA jk it was mine. Zachary and Bryan were busy trying to find as many exploits as they can online, so they didn't follow the firewall teachings at all. I felt really useful. YAyayyaya. You'll see why later.

Well, after ham sandwiches and stress induced rage, it was the competition day. Going in, I wasn't expecting much, just to get a decent result and learn some things was good enough for me. When I arrived, Bryan sent me out to get the information sheets. Being Kiasu was really effective as other teams also thought the same way and I stood in line for 10 mins.

Got the info boys! I rushed back and gave everyone tasks to do. The garbage was Greek to me. Scan port 821941 and get their IP and use calculus on the molar gas constant using.. OH FFFSSSSS. I struggled to get as many answers as I could and then submitted as many stuff as we could. We had to submit these first group of answers before getting out next set. The scoring worked by a task score where we do these stuff to earn points and also a defence score where other teams can decrease by making our services offline. The game masters will check periodically and if our server is down, they will deduct marks.

The rage continued as the tasks that came became challenging and frustrating. Oh, the team behind us was also quite suspicious. We had a war plan drawn out because of their sketchiness during the training days. You can tell this was really a serious competition because we were so paranoid and had so many defences put up in place to counter them.

As the day progressed, I became quite tired of trying to scan 65000 ports because I had no idea how to use the filters to narrow my scans and just left my computer running while I manned the firewall of the server. I constantly asked Han Jin whether our server was alright and which IP addresses were targeting us. Zachary and Bryan meanwhile tried to attack others, I don't think they were successful because another team had made everyone's server down. Was it Fuchun or HCI? I couldn't remember.

Something that kept me excited though was our group's name being consistently in the top few of the leaderboards.


CXTREME REBORN.  To be precise, cXtreme Reborn`); DROP TABLE Teams; --

But someone else was already called Drop table. It was the formatting for like drop down lists I think. Well well well.. someone beat us in our own turf!

Anyway, when we were around the top 3 places, we had hope and continued to press on. In the end, we became first when the other teams had a decreased defence score. Guess who attacked them? Not us rofl but the pro attackers team. We climbed up to first and stayed there. Up till the last minutes, we prayed for our server to hold on and when time was up, we rejoiced and shouted.

Bro, we are rich.

We won the first prize worth $4000 and the Best Defenders Award (for having the best defence) worth $500. Guess what, my puny firewall actually withstood the attacks.

Plot twist, it was not actually the firewall. Han Jin later had a chat with our friendly neighbourhood hackers who said that our team was the only one not taken down by them because of Han Jin updating our server the night before to a new version. Guess what folks, update your software. There is a reason why I do it every time.

You know what was the irony? Apparently, I think Zack and Bryan took down their server using the same exploit. Oh, the banter. Mr Lee also came to see us claim our prizes! After that, a whole mob of reporters came. It was crazy, I had never thought this event was on such a big scale. CNA, Lianhe Wanbao, you name it. Bryan and Zachary stepped up to take the English interviews, Han Jin took a Mandarin one. I was hesitant to take both in the fear of screwing up. LOL I just said no and walked away when the Chinese reporter asked me whether I could speak fluent Mandarin. Shawn2scared.

In the end, I was a frozen spectator as the interview from CNA took place. It was a surreal experience, from you being that guy watching the interviews at home at the screen, to you actually looking at the camera and talking. I didnt give my comment neither to newspaper reporters. I guess I felt exhausted and stunned at the fact that we won. It just was unbelievable to me a few days back. Except for Han Jin, who is the master of any computer arts, the rest of us had no experience beforehand! I guess you can said Han Jin carried us all. But couldn't that be the case for other teams, which potentially can have 4 carries? It was mindblowing.

After the whole hullabahoo, we went to eat at Changi City Point, Texas Chicken. Such a relaxed atmosphere after the early stress. Actually, we stressed about whether to eat Texas Chicken or Nandos. Ha. The stress never ends.

We split the money up equally amongst the 4 of us. After a few weeks, we went up to receive awards during morning assembly. I feel like I may have contributed the least out of all of us, and I thus I felt eternally grateful to my team mates. They were the ones to spur me on, to get me out of my mire and the companions in my lifelong journey of learning.

Thanks, Han Jin, Bryan, Zachary. May DevTeam5 live forever.

(PS: Yong Xun saw my face on TV in a coffee shop.. Boys, we are famous.)

A bit about myself

You're reading my blog now. You should know who I am, right?

Or so you think... Muahaha.

For the sake of keeping my memory fresh, let me introduce myself.

I'll try to not post anything that can be used against me, Internet is a scary place man.

Hello, I'm Shawn.

Nicknames : Shawny, Shawnylimey, Shawnprawn, Shawnyyyyyyyy, Nwahs, Shawnbread, Nwahsmil,

Unwanted nicknames : Sean

I am going 18 tomorrow. I like mapo tofu and cheese. Nasi lemak, fried rice, satay, rojak, that malay potato thing, soya bean are all great stuff. I hate that green slimey vegetable that gives disgusting juices. To a lesser extent, brinjals,

I listened to Linkin Park since primary school and am still a big fan of them. I secretly try to rap like Mike Shinoda, and I feel like I can be a rapper with more practice. (like 1000 years) Also a fan of Girls' Generation, especially Choi SooYoung. It's really a strange thing, because sometimes when I look at photos of her (without bangs) my heart just stops for a moment. It's like I fall in love again and again. If I can find another girl like that in real life I think I can just be her slave forever. I like electronic, rock, classics, and have a biased view against pop songs (keke). Old songs by the Bee Gees are just great stuff. My mother played them when I was younger on our big ass radio player thing and thus I got to know them.

I am lazy. I think I have stale breath, which is not the same as bad breath I hope. My throat gets infected very easily when I eat heaty food. I have a weak body. Trying to push myself to exercise but refer to weakness No.1 and then you realise why I am like this. My tongue spits fire to people, sometimes on accident. I never mean it when it happens. Never.

I think I am actually good hearted. Alright, alright, stop the laughing. I commonly refer to myself as Evil.Shawn because I feel like I'm nasty as &!@& and my tongue is forked. But, I do feel like I am good-natured and when there's a problem, if I can help you, I will help you. I am also a strategic planner. I tend to think a lot, thus I always map out situations in the future and think about them. I also am witty. Alright this is beginning to sound narcissistic. But it's a funny feeling that I have. When I talk to people, if the subject clicks with me, I can turn anything into a joke, anything into an insult, anything into something else. I just have to be in the mood and in the correct scenario. I wonder if I can become a host if I honed these skills. I find it enjoyable and relaxing when this happens. Banter is fun.

I love to play football. I'm not the best at it, and my parents aren't fond of it as it caused me to injure my arm twice. But it's my passion and if my friends are playing I'll try to join in. I look up to Buffon who is the most expensive goalkeeper in history and made countless insane stops. However, I usually play as a defender. In fact, Chiellini is my trainer. Loljk, I am Chiellini.


I have had at least 2 crushes, 1 which was really, really major. But I was a stupid dumb ass niqqa bodoh bitch nub and I kind of screwed it up, looking back I felt like I was drunk then. This adds to my regrets pile +1. Interestingly to note, during this time I felt like I was really happy. Maybe love has such a strong effect on people. I can say that my first crush propelled me to get a medal in the cross country. LOL after that year I had no motivation to run fast.

I think I have too high expectations of my future girlfriend, partially because my mum makes every other woman in the world pale in comparison, Thanks to her, I think my girlfriend will be a robot. She will be the most well loved robot though.

I generally prefer girls with long straight hair. I would like their eyes are big but sharp (as in physically its big but it shows sharpness in their eyes), and a great smile. I think I will look at their face first rather than their body. Ah, such a shallow person I am. Of course, her insides must be at least as gold as mine. If she doesn't respect my family, out she goes. She's gotta be good with her money, sincere, humourous and playful. I will sacrifice my MH acc for the perfect girl to be mine. Seems legit.

I like to play games. Oh no, gg!! FPS games like Blackshot, MMORPG like Maplestory constituted my childhood. Now, I play TF2, League of garbage and I still play Maple! Ha! Gayyyy!!! Childish!!! You don't even lift weights you faggot!!

Oh, I'm scrawny. Not as bad as last time, but still being 1.77m and thin as bamboo makes you feel like one. I like to run though. Hope I can improve my appetite and gain more mass though. Currently around 60kg I believe.

Shit, this post is getting worse and worse. My writing skills have deteriorated. GP.. noO!!!

Evidently, you can infer that I am rather insane and random. It's what makes me unique I guess. It's hard to make friends like this too because I always have the urge to add something random LOL. Such is my life man. Like potatoes.

I'm an INFP. I think you can infer more about me through that too.

Bet you didn't know some of these facts :
-I weighed 25kg in lower primary
-I was 1.2m then.
-I have eczema.
-I was a little bitch when I was younger.
-I was garbage then
-I have only used the letter I to start this list
-Combo breaker
-I am afraid of girls crying
-I am even more afraid of them getting angry.
-I cry quite easily. Sensitive New Age Guy yo. Or just pussy. lol
-I am a sucker for cute stuff.
-I think I will become a slave to my girlfriend.
-I still hope that I marry Choi Sooyoung Mark II.
-I can't think of anything else.

Hope you learnt a bit more about me. I'm not the type to open to anyone. But I'm stupidly opening up to the world here. Lol. I'm 18 already.

Cheers to my life, a toast to my growing up, a toast to my learning, my experiences. A toast to my toaster. 18 years wasn't easy, here's to the future.

1 day before I turn 18

It's been a long time ain't it? Just checking in here to keep things fresh and alive...

(swats flies away)

Alright tomorrow is my 18th birthday, and I actually wanted to write a post about bermudas but nah shit will be stirred up and I think I would instead write something more general.

18 years after I'm born and here I am, typing this after a game of Team Fortress 2. I cracked my knuckles and shake my hands (sounds weird) a bit. It's time to cut into the main topic for today.

What is life?

WOAHHH!! SHAWN GETTIN' DEEP IN THE NIGHT YOOOOOO

Ahem. After going through so many life experiences, I feel like I have many things to say about my life, and yet nothing to say too.

Many times, I find myself having flashbacks of embarrassing moments or moments of regret in which I wish I had made a different decision. This causes me to feel some sadness in me, even though I know that it is in the past and I can't do anything about it.

I read somewhere about trying to overcome this negativity, and some article said "Try to remember an embarrassing moment of your friend." It may be easy to think of some prominent examples, but trying to think of more is increasingly difficult. Thus, it can be said that since you can't remember embarrassing moments of others, it is unlikely that others can remember embarrassing moments of you. Well, that comforts me a bit.

Still, this negativity happens to me quite often, while I rarely think of good memories. The holidays, hanging out with Xuan last time in his house, my primary school antics, even more secondary school antics, it's all just bits and pieces of things that make me smile. My poor memory also makes such memories become fuzzy and distorted, such a dampener man.

In the 18 years, I felt that I grew through every action I made. I feel quite fortunate to have embarrassed myself at this age when I'm young and stupid as compared to when I grow older. Imagine myself holding in my shit when giving a meeting. Damn. It's gonna be such an awful situation. So, I had that experience when I was young and stupid!! LOL at least now I know what I should do.

They say that when you're young you should do as many things as you want as you have the time and energy to do so. How much of things that I would like to do have I done? I guess I had lead a rather fulfilled life. I could have had tread a different path, had a different attitude, and ended up in a worse situation that I'm in now. I'm grateful that I am here, right now. Thanks to my family, my pillars of strength. Thanks to myself for being such an evil genius.


I find that the learning aspect of life is the most important. And that includes not just book knowledge, but soft skills, hard skills, medium skills too. It's enjoyable when you learn something (of course preferably not the hard way) and I think that's what keeps life interesting. If you have lost the drive to learn, life becomes the same routine. That's what I think saps the life of adults. If only they have more energy and time to try something new, they will definitely have a different outlook on life.

Damn, I feel like this post is really a bit strange. It doesn't have my essence in it. But I'll still post this. Let's have another post on a more personal level.

New Year!

Hey I haven't updated this for a while. I shall make this a quick one, as I felt like I had to record down what happened on New Year's Eve.

<<<<<<<<<<< So rewind! <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

I had never went out to celebrate on New Year's Day before. So going out with my friends to wreck shit up would be nice for a change. Initially, Daniel had came up with a plan in which I thought it would be rather nice and quiet (it seems rather nice and quiet) but it ended up way differently.

We first met up in Bedok, Kai Hon, Daniel, Yan Bo , Jing An and I. Wait, before that, Yan Bo actually went to the wrong platform in Ang Mo Kio. I just had to note that down man.

Anyway, Daniel apparently forgot how to go to East Coast Park. And he said he knew the way before that. Well then...

I wanted to use my route which I took to VS last time, or the one where we end up in Marine Parade and have to walk 9999km but Daniel eventually found the holy grail and we took that bus, damn I forgot the number. That bus holds the key to future ECP outings.

So after we reached there, we rented bicycles and realised there was an offer, buy 1 hour get another free! HUAT AH!

So we cycled towards Changi Village. A few weeks earlier, Daniel and I had planned the route while on the MRT. According to a .pdf file on the Internet, the route to Changi Village from ECP was apparently "a straight line" so it was considered easy to reach there.

Let's rewind back a bit too. The plan actually consisted of us going night cycling and celebrating the countdown after that. But guess what, my mama actually said it was dangerous. Bruh...

I thought the pitfall to our plan was me returning late but I never thought that cycling was dangerous. Alright, I admit you can get injuries from it. But if we do not cycle on the road, the worst would probably be scrapes and bruises. Furthermore, we are cycling on a park connector, according to Daniel. So there would be lights to illuminate the way. Hey, that's a sound argument!

But logic won't work on my mother. Hate to say it, but when it's a no it's a no. Then it will escalate to her being pissed and me being (slightly less) pissed and then she's gonna grumble about everything related to me. I shall practise this on my child in the future. Shawn "Evil" Lim.

It resulted in cycling being in the afternoon. Alright, let's head back now.

The park was rather crowded. I think. I've not been to ECP for recreation since.. ever. So I don't really know the human traffic around here. The guys were quite insistent on blasting music while we cycle. Well, fair enough. But then they started stopping quite frequently just to change song and it became annoying, because I was afraid to leave them behind and then suddenly get swallowed by swarms of humans. Not to mention the cycling path was narrow at times and it caused rage and more strain on my thighs. Or quads. Quartz. Ya know what I mean.

Daniel initially estimated the journey to be about 45 mins. Well, on the map, it does look reasonable to me. But the journey felt like eternity. Yan Bo was crying on the journey because of the madness. My thighs and quadratics were crying. Add on mosquitoes, damn this is more like a workout than recreation!

Halfway through, Kai Hon had to leave. He was watching the countdown with his family in Bishan Park. After that day I heard that it was pretty good there and they broke a Guinness World Record for balloon stuff on their head. Hey, free balloons!! We celebrated with Jing An's selfie stick before we parted.

More cycling. And cycling. And I saw a chicken on the path. And more cycling.

Changi Village seemed to be moving by itself away from us.

We went alongside the coast and was greeted by splashes of seawater. I had a taste of it and it would be safe that I would rather go thirsty than drink that. Many people were fishing there too! Wonder if there were even any fishes. (and here comes a shark!)

We made it! HUAT AH! (small text now) Avoiding the crowd, we managed to stumble our way around the crowd to.. Changi Village? Well, I had expected like a large hawker centre kind of setting, but it turns out that Daniel lead us to a coffe shop that he ate with his classmates. Well, is this Changi Village? I don't really know too lollololol.

Ate ikan bilis fried rice. And coffee pau. Oh shit. We had to return the bicycles.

That means a return journey.

But wait! We had actually chanced upon another outlet of the bicycle shop that rented us the bikes! So we just had to return it there! This deserves yet another HUAT AH!!

We had some spare time so we decided to cycle a few rounds around the park first. At this time, it was already dark so ehehehehe~~

We lost track of time and fortunately made it back to return the bicycles. Ok, time to go back to Vivocity. Jing An and Daniel wanted to buy clothes. Well, sure. IF WE WEREN'T STUCK IN SOME HELL HOLE ULU DAMN PLACE. Jk. Took a taxi after some walking.

So Daniel the fashionista started to advise me on fashion and whatnot. I felt sense in his words, but I feel like I'm restricted by cost. These things cost $30!! I would love to upgrade myself, but I think I lack the coordination to make myself look good. Maybe I just feel too comfortable in a shirt and shorts, such that I feel like it's ok to wear it to "town". I do want a long sleeve shirt though.

Guess once I become self sufficient I'll get some cool looking clothes.

Surprise! Jing An's friends Darren and Adabelle had came too. And my anti social side had to show up. Fortunately Yan Bo was there to join me. Comrade!!

We took the MRT to Clarke Quay, and when we headed out it was just a sea of people outside. Why the hell are there so many people? Do you want to celebrate your New Year with sweaty people or something?

We arrived at our destination after some navigation through the crowd, only to find more crowds there. The venue had a stage and an allocated area for people to view it, and we were forced to view it from the side. With the constant pushing and shoving from people around me, this was far from the celebration I had thought initially. Finally, we left the crowd to somewhere I don't know. And then our ACJC comrades found some seniors or people from the same batch, I don't know. But they were 18 so... And they were dressed fashionably many levels ahead of me.

After being dragged around to find a bar, we found a space and the other ordered cocktails. Feeling that it was rather expensive (no I'm not a cheapskate, I just have the feeling like this area would have rip offs, like that $3 mineral water in Marina Bay kinda thing), I passed. Yan Bo shared with me his mudslide cocktail. By the way, it was pretty good. (Yan Pro, you the real MVP)

The 3 girls started off the drinking games and it was rather amusing to me, as it was my first time and this was a rather strange experience. Drawing a card, we had to do things according the number drawn and it usually involved drinking.

Happy New Year! Totally random but it suddenly felt insignificant because we were too engrossed in playing.

After about 10 sips, my stomach started to burn as the alcohol took its effect. Keeping an eye on my phone, I reminded myself to leave as soon as I can as I did not want to miss the last bus back. It was kinda hard to spoil the mood though and as 12.20 struck I had to go. I wanted to continue playing though. Had to bid myself goodbye and say I'm a pussy before that.

Alright. How to go to the MRT? LLOLOLOLOL

Manage to find my way after using Ingress. Ingress saves lives yo.

Caught a 265 at AMK Hub with pockets of people returning home. The rest of the guys posted photos of them there with their cocktails. Next time, I shall get one myself!

It was a good experience. I'll never go out on New Year's Day any more. Drinking? I'm up for that! Crowds? Oh hell naw....

It's 14 days past New Years' but I still have to go according to tradition and say HUAT AH!! ROAD TO 90 RANK POINTS!!

J2 is here, I've been troubled by many things also. Maybe when I have the time I'll talk a bit more. See you in a bit.