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Level 0: Welcome to the Security Labyrinth

You find yourself standing at the entrance of an ancient digital labyrinth, its passages filled with security puzzles waiting to be solved. Legend has it that those who navigate its depths will master the art of seeing through the machine's secrets. The maze is vast and ever-growing, with new chambers appearing over time. But every journey begins with a single step.

Your task is simple: venture into each chamber, solve its puzzle, and uncover what lies within. Each solution will reveal a clue to the location of the next chamber. This is an exploration of security fundamentals—from reverse engineering to web security, from cryptography to binary exploitation, from AI security to Web3. We begin our journey with reverse engineering, where you'll learn to read the language machines speak when humans aren't watching.

⚠️ Please Keep the Mystery Alive:
The labyrinth is still under construction, with new challenges emerging from the depths. To preserve the mystery for future explorers, please do not share writeups or solutions publicly. The joy is in the discovery, and spoilers rob others of that experience.

⚠️ Who Can Play & Reach Out: This challenge series is designed exclusively for:

  • Current Columbia University students (undergraduate, master's, or Ph.D.)
  • Ph.D. applicants who have previously spoken with me and were directed here by me
If you fall into one of these categories, I'd love to hear from you when you solve challenges! If you're exploring from outside these groups, I appreciate your interest in the challenges: however, due to limited time and resources, emails about the challenges from outside these groups will be automatically sent to junk and senders will be blocked by an automated system. Thank you for understanding!

Challenge Overview

Level 0 is designed to introduce you to basic reverse engineering. Your goal is to analyze a compiled binary executable and understand what it does. This challenge will familiarize you with essential reverse engineering tools and techniques.

Don't worry if you're new to this! Everyone starts somewhere! This level is intentionally straightforward to help you get comfortable with the tools.

Your Mission

Download the binary file level_0_flibberwump and analyze it to understand its behavior. What does this program do? Once you figure it out, you'll know where to find the next chamber. You'll need to use reverse engineering tools to examine the binary's internal logic and data.

Getting Started with Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering tools help you understand what compiled programs do without access to their source code. Here are some popular tools you can use:

  • Ghidra - A free and open-source reverse engineering tool developed by the NSA. Great for beginners!
  • IDA Pro - Industry-standard disassembler and debugger (commercial, with a free version available)
  • Binary Ninja - Modern reverse engineering platform with an intuitive interface (commercial, with a free cloud version)
  • angr - A powerful binary analysis framework with decompilation capabilities (free and open-source, Python-based)

Choose one of these tools, open the challenge binary, and start exploring! Look for strings, analyze functions, and trace the program's logic to find the secret.

What to Do After Solving

Once you've understood what the binary does, the path forward will become clear. The program itself will guide you to the next chamber.