Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) 2009
Final Round / Award Ceremony Afterthoughts


Overall, CSAW2009 was really exciting and fun :D

We met a LOT of people who are very passionate about security.
To be honest, I expected to see little bit dorky/geeky + dry people there.
But, I gotta say, they were really cool, funny and geeky AT THE SAME TIME :p

Anyways, the event we participated this year was Capture The Flag (CTF).
It was basically only on solving problems, instead of having attack/defense network :)

To illustrate, we had three big categories and one problem for each:

1. Writing a Shellcode - We were given the instruction manual for SuperH processor. For those who don't know where SupherH is used, it's used for Dreamcast. Then, we had to write a shellcode using the instructions for SuperH.
   
2. Reverse Engineering - We were given a virtual image containing Windows XP with two snapshots; before/after infected by a virus. So, we had to figure out what the 'virus' installed onto a computer and reverse engineer it to find out what it's doing. After all, it was a Windows kernel driver communicating over IOCTL.
3. Java Applet - Java Applet was given, and when decompiled, it contained over 700+ class files. And guess what. We had only 2 hrs. So, we haven't had enough time to look closely into this problem.

Since the competition started little late, we didn't have enough time. So, we couldn't fully finish the problems by the time that it was over. We just sent whatever we had. (shellcode + analysis on driver) Yeah. We really thought we lost the competition so badly.

We couldn't believe our ears when we heard that we have won the competition xD

I thank everyone who prepared and participated CSAW 2009.

Here's some pictures I took before/during/after the competition:








After the competition is over, we had a lunch where all the sponsors of CSAW did presentation for recruiting:



Then, we met Tyler's friends in Brooklyn:


And we went to Japanese Ramen Place:



Then, we came back to hotel closer to Airport:
(I know.. we cannot live without computers)



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Next day, we split up: I've went to NYC (since I lived 4 yrs in jersey) and others haven't. So, they decided to have a tour.

I just took this picture while walking the street:


Meanwhile, I went to a cafe and... did my homework.. :(



I met few old friends during the day :)
but didn't have a chance to take pictures, though.

Everyone gathered to Korean Town around 4:00pm, but cuz it was little early for dinner,
we walked around few blocks:



After we had AWESOME Korean food for dinner, we decided to experience some Korean culture ;)
We went to karaoke:
It was the first time I've ever went to karaoke with non-koreans, but I figured that you can have lots of fun whomever you are going with.

Way back to hotel:



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So, here's the plaque we've earned :D