Friday, October 30, 2009

Griefing the DARPA Network Challenge













Watch the skies.


Anonymous said...

Baloon validity is relatively easy to do with public key cryptography. Just post a public key for the contest and at each baloon sign the lat/lon coordinates with the key. This increases the barrier to entry for participants because they'll have to be savvy enough to know how to verify the signature. But putting that validation system in place might be enough to dissuade most potential griefers.

Dirty Name said...

Griefing? No.

Spoofing to slow down the competition? Absolutely. It was the first thought that popped into my mind when I heard about the contest.

No public key will prevent a good counterfeiter from reporting dozens of fake balloon sites, to include geo-tagged photos of the fake balloons.

This is definitely going to be an interesting contest.

Joelogon said...

Anon: We'll see -- the instructions to date indicate that it's the lat/longs that count, not any validator.

Dirty Name: Definitely the possiblity of EVE-style infiltration shenanigans. Each team will need to come up with its own regimen for verification, and those less cautious of who they allow to participate might get bitten.

John Fenley said... will be setup to take balloon location submissions and paypal $3000 to the first email address associated with a correct balloon location, if we win the $40k.

unikaj said...

Winning this contest depends on going as meta as possible. The most open, public, many-tentacled group is going to come out on top.

Looking forward to seeing how the public group fares in this...

Tom Brady said...


We're trying to do that on Facebook and on our website:



XenonOfArcticus said...

Everyone is trying to get the word out. My team, DeciNena, will win because we have the coolest name. We're also offering to share a smaller prize amount with team members who don't find a balloon, as long as they demonstrate they're out working for us on B-Day.

Rob said...

Hey man, I met you at a Fark party a while back, cool to come across you while looking for info on the DARPA challenge.

Joelogon said...

Rob -- heya, yeah, I just saw the Fark Network Challenge thread went green earlier today. I don't envy the person/people who will try to coordinate it.

Mickey Ristroph said...

There is an iPhone app and everything for this:

ispyaredballoon said...

We've got a strong team and plan on giving all the prize money to charity (Red Cross). If you would like to help, report your sitings to
or facebook

Anonymous said...

Instead of trusting that a team will actually pull through for you, why not win the prize for yourself: - the site is completely transparent and shows all balloon locations. The catch? You have to pick the winning combination of balloons!