Oooh! Glittering Prizes!

Are there prizes for this year's OpenCTF?

yes

Can I walk home with some of these fabulous prizes

quite possibly!

But I'm not a 133t hax0r pwning all the n00bs.

I know.

What are some of the awesome prizes I can win.

Many generous benefactors have donated prizes to this year's competition

Ok. How Do I win?

There are two categories of winners: point-based, and writeup-based.

All prizes will be distributed to winning teams at the appropriate closing ceremony on Sunday, August 12. If you believe your team may be eligible for prizes, but are unable to attend, please let us know before the end of the contest today, and we will attempt to accommodate on a case-by-case basis.

Writeups must be made publicly available, and announced to us, no later than Sunday, August 12 at 12:00 PM.

Point-based

1. The top-scoring team, with at least 3 publicly-posted writeups, will win 1st place. To qualify for 1st place prizes, your team must provide at least 3 moderate-quality writeups.
2. The 2nd-highest score, with at least 2 publicly-posted writeups, will win 2nd place. To qualify for 2nd place prizes, your team must provide at least 1 moderate-quality writeups.
3. The 3rd-highest score, with at least 1 publicly-posted writeups, will win 3rd place. To qualify for 3rd place prizes, your team must provide at least 1 moderate-quality writeup.

Writeup-based

• Any team is eligible to win writeup-based prizes, regardless of score.
• If your team scored only a single 10-point challenge, and you have an incredible writeup for that challenge, it just might win prizes.
• A team's entire set of public writeups for OpenCTF 26 will be considered when judging this category.
• The set will be judged both on quality of individual writeups, and total quantity of writeups, with a preference towards quality.
• The top 3 choices will be judged solely at our discretion.
• All decisions are final, unless sufficiently bribed.

What are the requirements for writeups?

• They need to be publicly readable, somewhere on the internet. CTFTime.org is a great place to put them.
• We need to be aware of these writeups. If they're on CTFTime.org, we'll see them. If you post them elsewhere, please tell us on twitter, @open_ctf.
• They need to explain how you solved a challenge, ideally in a way that educates other people.

Why do we care so much about writeups?

We feel it's important for experienced teams to give back to the community, and raise the general level of knowledge accessible to the next generation of hackers.

For newer teams, one of the best ways to cement knowledge gained is to distill it and share it with others.