Tag Archive for: competition

Google’s annual CTF 2021 competition kicking off next month

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Google is gearing up to host its annual “Capture The Flag” (CTF) competition next month. The 2021 Google CTF will kick off on Saturday, July 17 and will run through July 18, 2021.

CTF competitions comprise a set of computer security puzzles or challenges involving reverse engineering, memory corruption, cryptography, web technologies, and much more. When players solve the puzzles, they get a “flag,” a secret string that can be exchanged for points. The more points a team earns, the higher up it moves in rank.

The 2021 Google CTF competition will run in two parts:

  • an online jeopardy-CTF competition

  • Hackceler8 – an experimental mix between CTF and speedrunning, with the top 16 teams of the Google CTF playing against each other in 4 qualification matches and a final.

The top 3 teams from the jeopardy CTF will earn prizes of USD13,000, USD7,000, and USD3,000, respectively, and the top 16 teams will be invited to the other contest – Hackceler8 – where they will compete for additional prizes.

“Just like last year, the top 16 teams will qualify for our Hackceler8 speed run and the chance to take home a total of $30,301.70 in prize money,” Kristoffer Janke, Information Security Engineer, wrote in a blog post.

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3 Wheeler High Students Of Cobb County School District Named Scholars In National Cyber Scholarship Competition

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May 18, 2021

After a rigorous 48-hour online competition sponsored by The National Cyber Scholarship Foundation (NCSF), three Wheeler High School students were named Scholars in the National Cyber Scholarship Competition (NCSC). Jenna Bond, Archishma Goli, and Christina Nikolova were among the top 540 highest scoring students who met the eligibility criteria for a $2,500 Scholarship to a U.S. college of their choice.

A fourth Wheeler student, Natalie Ajemian, was named a finalist in the competition. The Cobb students are all members of Wheeler’s Girls In Cyber Security Club, which is sponsored by teacher Jennifer Callison-Bliss.

In recognition of their achievement, all four Wheeler students earned an invitation to participate in the Cyber Foundations Academy –a multi-week online program based on the nationally recognized SANS Foundations training course and certification –valued at more than $3,000.

The Wheeler students competed against 5,000 high school students in a cybersecurity competition designed to challenge its participants to solve computer security problems and/or capture and defend computer systems. Only 10% percent of the 50,000 students nationwide who sought to qualify for the NCSC met the requirements.

“The National Cyber Scholarship Competition recognizes high school students who have demonstrated exceptional cybersecurity prowess and who wish to pursue a career in a growing field in critical need of their talent,” noted David Brown, executive director, National Cyber Scholarship Foundation. “The NCSF mission is to identify and develop the next generation of cyber professionals. Each and every student who participated in this competition has the potential to develop their skills and build a successful career in cybersecurity.”

There are several qualification pathways for the National Cyber Scholarship Competition, including CyberStart America, a free online program that helps students discover their interest in cybersecurity and develop their talent and skills. The NCSC offers 600 college scholarships to top-ranking competitors. Additionally, National Cyber Scholars, along with competition 1,000 finalists, are invited to participate in the Cyber Foundations…

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Swather FBLA continues tradition of sending students to national competition » Harvey County Now

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By Jackie Nelson

HESSTON – Hesston High students had a strong year, competing in Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). This year, Hesston is sending nine students to national competition in a variety of categories. National competition will take place in June.

Sponsor Staci Hansen said after last year’s cancellation of the season due to the pandemic, this year’s highlight was, “Getting to compete after not getting to last year and seeing our kids succeed and do well even when things were different.”

This season, Swathers who qualified for nationals will take part in all-online competitions in June, giving Zoom presentations and taking online tests.

The effects and challenges of COVID-19 have lingered, as competitions were moved online. Hansen said areas where Hesston typically excel – presentations in team events – were cancelled this year. She added that students were not able to go compete in person and “do all of the fun things we can do when in person.”

However, the challenges were overcome by collaborating with staff to ensure FBLA competitors had the best experience possible.

“Luckily, we have a great tech director, Phil Unruh, who made sure we had adequate internet to keep us up and running for virtual testing as we spent two full days testing with 41 kids in our gym,” said Hansen.

Other students stepped up to assist FBLA in their competitions, as Katie Gaston and the Audio Visual class, “Helped us with the logistics of getting presentations recorded professionally,” she said.

Hansen said she also wanted to extend a special thanks to Denise Goevert and Garrett Roth for helping run events.”

While working through an unconventional season, Hansen said her students continued to adapt, overcome and succeed. From FBLA veterans to first-time competitors, Hansen said she was impressed with the effort and dedication of Hesston teens.

“Madalyn Dages, a senior, this is her first…

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The Chessboard for the Great Power Competition in the Indo Pacific

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As structural change is happening with China’s ascending growth and Russia’s re-emergence, the scholarly community is worried about the result of such changes. US pre-eminence is now being increasingly challenged in the wider geopolitical structure, as countries like China, Russia and India are busy acquiring advanced military weapons, thus thickening their military might. This has led to power diffusion across the globe. Subsequently, as the relative power of China vis-à-vis the US is expanding, security analysts are predicting an intense security competition between the rising power and the falling giant. People are concerned about what steps the US should take to either contain or accommodate China? Since belligerency is the characteristic of Chinese behavior, US must sort to contain China by maintaining existing power gaps and technological advantages.

But, by and large, US failed to thwart the Chinese rise. The recent Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative highlights the worry caused by Chinese growth and its impact on the overall balance of power within the Western Pacific. The usage of words like “regaining” US advantages in the region reflects a broader opinion that the US has lost its prior superiority, and must focus on “balancing” China’s gains. This is broadly a result of recent changes in US foreign policy where decision-makers think that mere acquiring military “mass” won’t do any good unless some significant edge is not achieved in the “intelligence” domain. The thinking points to the fact that since intelligence is a requirement to achieve target destruction through means of weapons, budgetary investments must prioritize the acquisition of information technology alongside advanced weapons.

Why just gaining military mass is not enough?

Realistically speaking, if the military balance between the two powers is calculated then it seems that the US is much powerful than the Chinese. Since this reckoning is mostly based on absolute numbers of weapons a country possesses, a mere number-to-number analysis might mislead us. A more intelligent approach would be to observe how these weapons (acquired by both countries) behave in…

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