OK, so I have a philosophy and it's 'keep hacking elite' and if we have the skills and they don't, we win! You ever read Sun Tzu, 'The Art of War'? You got to know your enemy better than they know themselves. (Watch: Hacking America: The CryptoLocker virus) Now, as a new member of PPP, Hotz claims his role is to be the comic relief, which must be true, because the previously noisy room has fallen silent so everyone can listen into the jokes he's going to feed me during his 15 minutes of fame. Next, we're introduced to George Hotz, 23, who prefers to tell us his name is "Tom Cr00se." (Several months later we learned that Hotz is the infamous one who cracked the iPhone at 17 and asked to use his real name in this article.) Just this year, PPP has traveled to Moscow, Seoul and New York, and collected prize money of $20,000 to $30,000, which all goes toward future travel for the team. (Read more: Defense networks vulnerable: Expert) "As a team we try to send as many people as possible to Vegas just because it's a fun team trip and not everybody necessarily gets to travel to some of the other competitions," Zhou added. "For instance, we're preparing shell code for a variety of architectures and different platforms since we're not exactly sure what they're going to throw at us this year," says Ricky Zhou, 23, who is in the competition for the third year.ĭespite the rules changing to limit competing teams to only eight people, PPP didn't let that stop them from bringing everyone that is an active member of PPP back home. But I still don't know what that means in terms of computers and coding. (Incidentally, they were the only team to solve all 75.)Īll of the members agree that they must be prepared for absolutely anything. Going to competitions is just a huge learning experience because there's always something new that they throw at you."Īfter solving 75 computer problems created by the CTF organizers, Legitimate Business Syndicate, for qualification rounds over the summer, PPP managed to beat out 897 other teams from around the world to become one of 20 competing in the 2013 CTF. I actually don't know how many we've done. "I just like seeing how things work," he says. Max Serrano, 19, the youngest of the competition group, says he wouldn't call himself a "hacker" necessarily, although some people would. We start posing questions to understand what they anticipate over the next three days and why DefCon's CTF title is so coveted, when the prize is merely material. Needless to say, every scarce outlet in the hotel room is being utilized, leaving us begging for one for our lights for the camera. We walk in to a room full of 20-something college students or recent grads, being careful not to trip over the maze of network cables they've assembled to begin their quest. Tyler texts to say that the entire team has already started prepping for the CTF, which begins tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., and that we can join them in their Rio Hotel room. So I was thrilled when every member of PPP agreed to let CNBC be a fly on the wall for a few days. At DefCon, the self-described "oldest, continuous and one of the largest hacker conventions around," concerns about revealing one's identity are more often the norm rather than the exception. Original plans to follow defending champions Samurai fell through because of some members' privacy concerns. (Read more: Hackers' next target: May be the ball game?) Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
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