CTF team

Wiki ▸ InfoSec ▸ CTF team

⚑ We put the "ethical" in "ethical hacking." ⚑

Anarcho-Tech NYC hosts a semi-private, eponymous Capture The Flag team open to collective members who are interested in practicing cybersecurity skills. We have also partnered with Tech Learning Collective to offer unofficial cybersecurity training (on a volunteer/ad-hoc basis) during some CTFs. Our own semi-private team is registered on CTFTime.org and coordinates wargames in a private room on Gitter (this link will report "Not found" if you are not already invited to join or not logged in to your Gitter account). We are focused on skill sharing, education, and autonomy, not necessarily winning competitions.

🔰 This is a strictly beginner-friendly team. While there are members of various skill levels, this team is expressly designed to be a valuable team to join if you have never before participated in CTF competitions. Team organizers are strict about maintaining an expressly educational environment, while de-emphasizing competition and score-keeping, and actively promoting cooperation and knowledge sharing.

More advanced members are expected to act as mentors, trainers, tutors, and compassionate educators. Advanced/experienced team members who are uninterested in being patient educators are encouraged to create their own CTF teams elsewhere. Advanced players who undermine educational opportunities of less-experienced team members, or who prioritize competition above education, will be forcibly removed from the team in order to maintain a beginner-friendly atmosphere.

For more information, please read about our Social rules.

Volunteer CTF mentoring

We have partnered with Tech Learning Collective, one of the best and most politically-engaged cybersecurity educational groups that exist today, to offer unofficial cybersecurity training (on a volunteer/ad-hoc basis) during some CTFs that our members compete in. There is no fee to join. Simply enter our general chat Lobby and/or Tech Learning Collective's community chat channel during a CTF and say hello.

Anarcho-Tech NYC CTF Team

1. How to join
2. Step-by-step instructions
3. How to add members
4. Adding members to the GitHub CTF team
5. Adding members to the Gitter private chat room
6. Adding members to the CTFTime team listing

How to join

To join the team, you must request an invitation from an existing @AnarchoTechNYC/ctf team member or organizer, preferably via our main Signal thread. If you are not already chatting with us on our main Signal thread, you can contact team members privately or, if you must, via email. Current CTF team members who are organizing games include:

• fabacab

📝 Please add your name to this list if you are already a CTF team member and you want to help shepherd new members or take point on representing our team during events.

You are also encouraged to register a free account on CTFTime.org. Once registered, join our team (and/or join any other team of your choosing) by visiting our team's profile page and click the "I'm in the team" button.

Step-by-step instructions

Follow these steps to request an invitation to our team. First, make sure you have access to the accounts you will need to participate. All accounts are free (decline any up-sells).

1. Create a GitHub account (if you do not already have one), or log in to GitHub (with your existing account). Read Signing up for a new GitHub account.
2. Create a Gitter chat account by going to Gitter.im and logging in with your GitHub account. This will automatically associate your GitHub account with a Gitter account.
3. Create a CTFTime.org account by going to CTFTime.org and logging in with your GitHub account. This will automatically associate your GitHub account with a CTFTime account.
4. Contact an existing @AnarchoTechNYC/CTF team member and tell them what your GitHub username is. If you do not personally know an existing team member, you should come to one of our in-person meetings or events, or post on our issue board requesting more information. The existing team member will then perform the steps outlined in How to add members. Afterwards, you will be able to join us for the next game. :)

How to add members

Existing CTF team members can add new members. There are three resources that a team member should be granted access to in order to fully participate. These are:

• The @AnarchoTechNYC/ctf team on GitHub.
• The AnarchoTechNYC CTF Gitter private chat room.
• The AnarchoTechNYC CTFTime.org team listing.

Adding members to the GitHub CTF team

Read GitHub's help article, Adding organization members to a team.

Adding members to the Gitter private chat room

1. Open the AnarchoTechNYC CTF chat room on Gitter using a desktop/laptop Web browser or mobile app.
2. Click the "Room settings" button, revealing the room settings menu:
   
3. Click Add people to this room from the Room settings menu. The Add people to this room dialogue will open.
4. Type the GitHub username of the owner-member you want to add to the room to reveal a list of matching usernames.
5. Click the username of the user you want to add.

Adding members to the CTFTime team listing

1. Open our team's management page on CTFTime.org.
2. Scroll down to the "Team membership requests" section. This should be a list of GitHub usernames.
3. Compare the list of users requesting membership with the list of @AnarchoTechNYC/ctf team members. For each username in the list…
4. …if you recognize a user by their GitHub username in the list of pending requests, enable the checkbox next to their name. (Leave any names you do not recognize unmarked.)
5. Click the Confirm button.

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See also: InfoSec, Mr. Robot's Netflix 'n' Hack, 🕸️ CTF repository.