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.)
