This has historically been a pretty fun challenge to do. Earlier levels are quite easy, but later levels can be quite challenging and require specialized skills (e.g. reverse engineering, binary exploitation, cryptography). There’s a decent focus on “realism” which makes the challenge series more interesting than a typical CTF. If you’re eligible to participate I’d highly recommend checking it out.<p>P.S. if you do well, the NSA sends you swag; I have a couple of very nice signed letters and NSA medals that look great in my office :)
After 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?<p>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 obviously not the same as those of a modern day hacker.
> Anyone with an email address from a recognized U.S. school or university may participate in the challenge.<p>Aww, that's not so fun :( Was kind of curious to participate, but seems it's US + students only. Kind of makes sense that it's US only I guess, but why only students?
I completed the 2022 version of this and received some nice NSA memorabilia. It is a fun challenge, but it is pretty difficult to complete it all. Looking back at 2022, it looks like maybe 100 people completed the entire challenge.
I got this error while trying to register. Does anyone know a simple way to bypass this ?<p>"Sorry, that email domain is not recognized. -- An email address from a recognized U.S. school or university is required. If your school's domain is not recognized, please request it to be allowed by clicking HERE"
there's a good list of resources and lectures if you're curious to learn more:<p><a href="https://nsa-codebreaker.org/resources" rel="nofollow">https://nsa-codebreaker.org/resources</a>
Is it cheating to use commonplace AI? NSA are a practical bunch, they probably dont much care how one solves the problems, but AI could change the nature of such tests. The rules say no getting help from persons, which leaves the AI door open imho.<p>(Fysa, there is a reasonable chance that someone involved in this competition is following this topic. HN is known in the more nerdy corners of the int/defense world.)