By Patrick Baron
NORMAL – In this game of capture the flag, students will be searching for hidden flags (messages) in their computers, rather than finding a literal flag.
Partnering with State Farm, Illinois State University’s School of Information Technology is holding a friendly competition to complete challenges such as cracking a password and finding information in network traffic. Assitant Director of the School of IT Glen Sagers provided a clear definition of what the competitors will be searching for in the game.
“A capture the flage event generically is for students to go in and look for information on a computer file or computer system and they find a flag, which is just a preset message,” Sagers explained.
However, Sagers also explained how some of the challenges presented in the game will be more difficult than others.
“It’s just a matter of figuring out that this is written in binary instead of decimal notation or something like that,” Sagers said. “Up through something very, very challenging, where we suspect at most one or two of our students will be able to get it.”
The game began on Friday and will continue through Wednesday. Following the competition there will be an awards ceremony in Stevenson Hall at ISU Friday afternoon.
Patrick Baron can be reached at pbaron@cumulus.com.
