[Ground-station] Hack-a-Sat call for participation

[Michelle Thompson]

Greetings all!

I've put out the call for participation for the Hack-a-Sat competition in
the past, and would like to bring you all up to date on the developments
and opportunities that have developed since.

The website is here: https://www.hackasat.com/

Hack-a-Sat is an activity that was scheduled to happen at the in-person
DEFCON event.

As of today, yes, it's true. DEFCON has been cancelled.

Those of you that have volunteered at Ham Radio Village in the past are
familiar with the event. For those of you that are not, it's a long-running
hacking and cybersecurity event that has enthusiastically adopted
everything RF and amateur radio.

The United States Air Force, in conjunction with the Defense Digital
Service, organized this year’s Space Security Challenge, called Hack-A-Sat.
This challenge asks hackers from around the world to focus their skills and
creativity on solving cybersecurity challenges on space systems. This
competition is going to be held! It's now a virtual event.

Security in the amateur radio sense of the word is fundamentally different
from commercial and military applications. We have an advantage here,
mainly due to the enormous leverage we have due to our context being
completely different from what the Air Force and commercial interests
assume. This is, essentially, a diversity advantage.

If you want to participate on an experienced Capture The Flag (CTF) team,
then I am here to extend an invitation. Anyone that reads through the rules
and can afford to spend some time during the event is invited to apply to
join Vaporsec. This is a team that has a majority of information security
professionals. There are some satellite industry people, some amateur
involvement, and I'd like to make sure that anyone interested in competing
from the list gets a chance to join a competitive team.

The benefits to amateur radio are primarily technical, with policy and
security a close second. The Air Force has some agendas here in terms of
improving satellite security. Exposure to the challenges alone is a an
excellent opportunity to learn more about modern satellite technology...
and what a significant player in space wants to find out more about. Don't
assume that that the challenges in the competition are going to be "too
hard". What is trivial for one viewpoint is unsolvable for another.

I'll be writing about the event and what we learned when it is over, so
this sort of knowledge will not be secret. However, there is no replacement
for participation, and you could very well have the practical knowledge,
gained from operating real satellites, that wins the competition. As you
can see from the website, there is some real money involved and
opportunities for technical writing.

Let me know at w5nyv at arrl.net if you would like to talk more about joining
a CTF team for this really neat and unique event.

Know someone that you think should participate? Please forward to them.

-Michelle W5NYV
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