So do I, but that didn't stop me from trying anyway.

I got mine, including all the links to download stuff, on the 22nd (US, late at night). I spent the night after doing home work drinking wine going through the materials until 1am.

I never got a trash 80. I did get an Atari 800XL for my 7th birthday.

not sure what name I'll be using yet. probably my regular handle. (rattis)

I haven't seen the email on how to access yet, but did get 2 emails on welcome to the ctf. I also know one of the security rookies that was working on the CTF, he said it's going to be fun.

Way to butter us up.

But yeah, you'll get clues. I'm not a pen-tester. I really only do CTFs to get an idea of some of the attack to make my defense better. Heck the talk I've been giving at Cons this year, came out of the RuCTFe last year.

tturner's got some good points.

Another reason, if you go in to a more research role later (like say malware analysis), you'll now have bad habits to break. You might leak data to people you're looking into and make yourself a target.

There is also always a chance you'll typo something and instead of attacking your vm, attacking another system on your network.  If you have a dedicated network, without internet access not so much a problem. However, if you have boxes on the network that need to stay up...

There was a lot of discussion about the prank one morning (think Sunday) at Derby Con.

prats84, when I quit the hackingdojo (I went back to a university), emails were hit or miss, but talking to him on IRC worked very well.

I have spent a lot of time in colleges and universities, including one of the biggest names out there. Over the years, I had to drop some classes. If I dropped them before they began, I got a refund (if I had paid). The only time I ever got a refund after paying, when I dropped any classes after the start of the term, was the one semester I was ran over by a drunk driver.

I don't think you ever said, how did you first come across said signal. did it just show up?

Are you sure it's even out there, and you're not just looking at a client trying to associate with something?

Those channel numbers make no sense. that's not the wifi range.

If it is hidden there wouldn't be a broadcast beacon. It would need a client trying to connect to it.

I would, if you have the hardware and time, set up your equipment in with airodump running, and writing to a file, let it run for a few days, and then go back through all the data. Again, airodump, with your card set in promiscuous mode will see all the radio waves in use around, you which would include that access point, or it's clients.

When I took the course, I never had a problem. Writing the report is part of the requirements of a course. I never moved out of the shodan class, because I never felt I learned enough to do the requirements to move up. But that was my issue, not a problem with the course.

As for a refund, try that with a University. You sign up for a class, decide you don't like the teacher and drop. If it's past the drop date, you'll get nothing back. The University I'm at, if you wait too long, you get an E for the course.

As for Attrition... be ready to answer lots and lots and lots of questions. if you want an idea of what it's like, check out the Exotic Liability episode, where Chris Nickerson talks about it. They know how to do journalism over there, and know the power of their brand, and try to use it wisely.

I'm signed up too. More interested in learning than winning anything.

If we don't care about winning, maybe we should set up an EH-Net team (we'd probably win anyway ).

I'm running an old Thinkpad T60 (when I say old, it's still branded IBM). I've done some minor tweeks (new processor, and extra memory). It can't do 64-bit, which makes running Pentoo impossible, but is strong enough to run the lab I used for my DerbyCON talk (Host (debian), BT5r2, Ubunut Desktop, and CentOS 5 or 6 server) .

Sweet, I wasn't able to get to the Tor Project from work.

But the ACLU and the EFF have both already been involved in the case of the kid in PA with Mike and Ikes. Yes the laws are gray, but there are also ways around that, if the parents bring up the case, or other. Which the ACLU should know and make recommendations of, not just wash their hands of it.