Have fun! This is a birthday celebration for David — enjoy the ride.
AI tools — ask, don't automate. You may ask AI assistants for suggestions or to explain concepts, but don't let them solve challenges autonomously for you. The fun is in figuring it out yourself!
No raw brute forcing. Blindly trying thousands of passwords or inputs is not allowed. Smart scripting is fine — if a challenge gives you feedback or clues, writing a script that uses that information is expected and encouraged.
Be friendly. Don't attack the platform itself, other participants, or shared infrastructure.
Don't destroy anything. If you find a vulnerability that's not part of a challenge, report it — don't exploit it.
Once you have the flag, submit it. Don't share flags with others. The flag format is FLAG{...}.
Hints are available for every challenge. Each hint costs 30% of the challenge score. Use them wisely!
Scoring: your total score is the sum of all challenge scores (after hint penalties). Ties are broken by earliest last solve.
Have fun! (Yes, this is listed twice. It's that important.)