what is this sh*t

What started as a simple experiment to give back to the community has begun to grow into something more. What I’ve built here will remain as an example of what you can do if you try. Be something. Stand for something real. Something good. The rest will just fall into place naturally.

-Shane

Check out our mission if you haven’t seen it yet.

It would also help to see the keyholder’s agenda to get an idea of what has happened.

I built CTFs that challenge the mind (and the status quo). I have serious experience building some good sh*t for some great people. People that are changing the world.

I want to use that to give back, and by creating simple games that touch on real cybersecurity topics and teach real business concepts (whatever way I want to, thank you) I could use what I know to help people get jobs in this industry.

In this, we can close the cybersecurity skills gap that either exists or doesn’t, I don’t care. I’m using right now, do to something for people, right now.

How would you do it?

For me, the answer was to give their games a shot first. I didn’t really know it would end up like this. I saw them build a game, I wanted to try my hand at it. When I enjoyed it, I ended up wanting to build my own. I knew it was hard. I knew it had real concepts built in, and nobody was expecting a VM at the end with real privesc and the whole “key egg” concept. I felt like I was holding fire.

And so I set out to try to build something more out of the same concepts that I thought they; this community; would appreciate; and then somehow bake actual cybersecurity business lessons into that– because I didn’t see any real use in other CTFs, aside from learning how to do another CTF.

So naturally, I built another CTF.

I built some CTFs that started out very easy and then gradually got a lot more difficult; yet no matter what they stuck to the same exact principles the whole way through and did not deviate from the core lessons that drive the mission.

A small group of people responded more than others to the CTFs that were put into The White Circle Discord, starting in late August 2020. The goal was to create a self-governing community of infosec pros that knew how to architect in Azure, and build that out one team at a time. This became a working a proof of concept called the Triassic Trials.

The members of the community that responded positively (and also seemed to enjoy the games) began to build trust with each other

The final challenge of what is now Tier I required that ultimately, the first person who got to the end submit the correct key, which had a number missing from the samples and hints given throughout the challenge.

This (the number 1, by the way) was the “ultimate answer” because a team is only one thing, and the whole idea was to build teams. And even if we built a group of teams, we were still one community. One people. One world. It always ends up being 1.

So let’s acknowledge that and get our sh*t together, people.

NSS Roadmap 2020-2021

Phase I

Build the foundation of the Triassic Trials™ √
Build out a framework of keys and VMs √
Give people what they need to succeed √
Utilize community-driven tools wherever possible √
Award certificates and badges for completing applied skills challenges √
Create a sense of community, inclusion, and accountability √

Phase II

Build the foundation of the Jurassic Jungle™ √
Assign new teams of Keyholders √

NSS Roadmap 2022-2023