Horror Stories

The following section includes some actual horror stories that happened while organizing, developing, creating, supporting and sponsoring CTF’s

Add points to that team

So at one huge universities CTF that took place at a national level, we had the most strange request yet…

The company that hired us, wanted us to add points to one of the teams so that they get better standings on the leader-board.

So this customer went behind our team leaders back, and tried to “bully” the newer members of our team to do it. However, this is something that we NEVER EVER EVER DO and everyone knows this because we have communicated it clearly with the entire team (its even in our contracts)…

I wont go deep into what happened here since it still kind of pains me and i have no proof in my hands other than my word. Lets just say someone lost a position from the leader-board and someone gained, even though it was for the “better” good of the entire nation…

Moral of the story

• Be prepared for some stupid requests…
• Communicate your rules and requirements clearly with your team. Give them the authority on such subjects to be autonomous.
• Don’t ever ever EVER alter the scores, make sure you communicate this with organizers and sponsors.

No Network on opening

On big events that take place on rented space the time limit to prepare is very limited. In most cases we had 24 hours prior to the event opening to set everything up and have it ready for the opening.

Almost in every occasion we had everything up and running fairly quickly so that we could help organize the remaining teams that are working in the same space (carpenters, advertisement companies, electricians and a storm of other crews that work at the same time).

So we finish in a couple of hours since we were given permission to enter the place, which included network cables. We left early to get some rest and be up early the next morning to ensure everything is working and start the welcoming of the players.

During the night a crew from an advertising company went and laied huge metal frames with various sponsor messages and logos… on top of our cables.

The next morning we arrive a lot earlier and see the mess, we test every single connection and its fine. A couple of cables were damaged but we managed to replace the cables before the competition started.

We couldn’t believe our luck… and we were right to do so

What we didn’t realize is that every time a gash of wind blew through the room, the huge metal frames with their posters acted as “sails” moving the entire frame and momentarily disrupting the network connectivity of random players!!! :man_facepalming:

As Murphy had it, every-time someone reported a problem, it was resolved by the time we went there to investigate and didn’t re-appear while there.

However, we treat every report as problem to investigate, and although we couldn’t not confirm the issue our self, we believed that our players are not crazy. So we started paying attention at everything that was happening and when it happened. After 20-30 minutes passed of random fails, a pattern started appearing. Every time a banner was moving that side of the network was going out instantaneously…

This was the closest to a cancellation we’ve ever came and although we could re-wire the room while players were waiting, it was decided by the event organizing company to cancel the day so that we could repair everything and open the next day problems free. Luckily it was a two day event and even though the first day was canceled it turned out to be one of our best CTF’s.

Still to this day I see nightmares of this

Moral of the story

A member of your team should stay at the location at all times. The crew’s that work there some times they just don’t care, they want to be done and get out of there. You need someone to represent your team while the remaining team members are resting.

Since then there is always someone at all times at the area protecting and avoiding similar problems in the future.