Two stories about programming events in Yekaterinburg

We slightly dilute the winter cold days with warm memories of how Yekaterinburg passed: the final of RuCTF 2012 (information protection competition) and the final of the 38th World Programming Championship “The 2014 ACM ICPC World Finals”.

Lots of pics inside.

All photos and text of the author.

The first event.

“Virtual IT Robbery Event” or how was the RuCTF 2012 final held

From April 19 to April 22, 2012, the final of the All-Russian inter-university information protection competition RuCTF 2012 was held in UrFU (Yekaterinburg).

RuCTF is an all-Russian inter-university information protection competition that has been held since 2008 on the principles of the CTF game: at the beginning of the game, teams receive identical servers with a predefined set of vulnerable services, and the participants' task is to find vulnerabilities, close them and use them to private information (flags) from rivals.

The RuCTF is organized by the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia BN Yeltsin, the Regional Educational and Scientific Center "Intelligent Systems and Information Security", the interregional public organization "Association of Heads of Information Security Services" and the Information and Communication Support Fund technologies.

RuCTF 2012 competitions were held in two stages.

The qualifying round ( RuCTF 2012 Quals ) took place on the Internet from March 16 to March 18 over 48 hours without a break.

Rules for the qualifying stage RuCTF 2012 Quals here .

At the qualifying stage of RuCTF 2012 Quals, teams were asked to solve tasks (tasks), combined in thematic categories. For the successful solution of task teams received points. The difficulty level of the task was directly related to its cost.

In addition to this qualifying stage, teams could reach the final of RuCTF 2012, showing excellent results in other CTF competitions.

The very final of RuCTF 2012 was held from April 19 to April 22 in the city of Yekaterinburg.

The program of the final consisted of several parts:

04/19/2012 - registration of participants, the opening ceremony of RuCTF 2012, technical reports and master classes.
04/20/2012 - a round table with the organizers of the final, a report on robotics, a meeting with the sponsors of the final and a discussion of issues with the jury.
04/21/2012 - the final of RuCTF 2012 (from 9-00 to 20-00).
04/22/2012 - Analysis of the tasks from the jury and awarding of participants.

Most of the data for the participants was available here - on the RuCTF mailing list .

Registration for the finals of RuCTF 2012 and the organization of this event.

The event RuCTF 2012 finals was held as part of the festival “Spring UPI in the Ural Federal”, so the organizers provided for the participants such Ural State University sites as:

Assembly Hall of Ural State University (51, Lenin St., 3rd floor)
Conference Hall, USU, st. Turgeneva, 4, 3 floor
Aud. 611, Ural State University, st. Turgeneva, 4, 6th floor
Parquet, second floor of the main academic building of Ural State University, ul. Mira 19.

And there was enough space for everyone, and in fact there were many participants, observers and invited comrades.

At registration, each team member was given a badge, a set of pens and notepads for records, a mug, a T-shirt and a sea of positive!

Unfortunately, not all teams were able to come to the event in full force or even come to it. But the overall composition as a result of the teams inspired respect.

The list of teams, observers and the composition of the guest team can be found here .

Participating teams:

Bushwhackers Moscow State University Lomonosov;
bitmap Orenburg State University;
[Censored] I. Kant Baltic Federal University;
Leet More National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics;
PeterPEN St. Petersburg State University;
SiBears Tomsk State University;
WildRide Chelyabinsk State University;
HackerMayCry Ural Federal University;
l0rd Ural Federal University;
Koibasta Samara State Aerospace University named after academician SP Queen;
Magic Hat Samara State Technical University.

The final was held in the main academic building of UrFU:

But with a twist - the organizers proposed a new format for the participants - on the floor, which radically changed the drive and increased the intensity of the actions of the team members.

Previously, such events were held in separate auditoriums for each team, and now there is a large space, other teams sit behind their backs, separated by light partitions and all see each other, feeling the heat and the heat of struggle.

Final Rules

During a game, teams may:

use any number of computers and network equipment not higher than the second level of the ISO OSI stack;
make any changes to the servers provided to them, unless it is expressly prohibited by the jury;
change the topology of your network segment.

During the game, teams are prohibited from:

conduct attacks on the jury's computers;
filter traffic of rival teams from jury traffic (for example, by ip-addresses);
generate an unreasonably large amount of traffic (flood);
conduct destructive attacks on the servers of opposing teams (for example, rm –rf /);
perform the above actions on behalf of opposing teams.

Legend of the finale RuCTF 2012

RuCTF 2012. Legend of the final
Text for teams, April 14, 2012

The modern world is a world of money. Money permeates all areas of society. Every person thinks about money, daily, hourly. Each person can be enriched in an instant, and can overstep a side of poverty. Money is everywhere - we buy food for survival, we take loans to satisfy whims, we make investments in the hope of preserving opportunities.

Money has become so natural that nobody no longer understands what it is - money. But still there are those in the world who understand money better than others. They know how to make money and increase their wealth, they easily make multi-million transactions, they don’t notice multi-million losses. This is a corporation. During the day they earn as much money as an ordinary person earns in a lifetime. At times it seems that they are just playing with money.

This year we will play with money. The teams now are financial giants, large holdings that are fighting among themselves in the race for enrichment. No more flags. Now all you have is money, and your task is to make even more money. At any price.

But do not worry, RuCTF is still a computer security competition, and each team will have a familiar server with pre-installed services, each of which will make money. For example, one of the services will issue loans, and another one will accept deposits. Under interest, and for a certain period - all for real. These two services will allow teams to stay afloat, even if they lose absolutely all the money - customers will regularly come to them, keep deposits and take loans.

Glasses

The world of money is unsteady. Today you can be a ruble millionaire, and tomorrow there will be a default. In the world of money, hard currency is needed, and this currency is the points of the organizers. No one cares how many millions of rupees are in your safe or pocket. To rise in the eyes of rivals, you must exchange your money for points. You can do this at any time, but remember that exchange rates do not stand still. You are free to choose what is better - change the Tugrik now, after 5 minutes of yentik or, perhaps, after 20 minutes of candy wrappers.

Money

From a technical point of view, the money involved in the game is a set of bills issued by the Central Bank. Each note is represented as a text string in CSV format and looks like this:

82154800-8337-11E1-8736-16514824019B, 1000, TUG, 10,2012-04-21T11: 00: 00, AD87 ... BOI ==, Money-money

The bill consists of the following fields:

1. the unique identifier of the bill (UUID);
2. the denomination of the note (in this case 1000);
3. currency (in this case, "Tugriks");
4. the unique identifier of the owner of the bill (natural number);
5. date and time of creation of the note in sortable-format;
6. Base64 from an electronic signature made using the CentroBank's private key;
7. optional comment that does not affect the value of the signature.

For any bill, you can easily check whether it is real - the public key of the CentroBank will be available to all participants.

Transactions

Money transactions, regardless of which parties participate in it, are conducted through the Central Bank, owned by the organizers. Before the transaction, one of the parties initiates the transfer of money, referring to the other party. They agree on the amount, currency and transaction identifier.

After that, both parties access the CentroBank API via HTTP in order for it to complete the transaction. The Central Bank imposes a limit on the time difference between the parties' connections - if one of the participants is confused, the transaction may not take place.

After connecting, the sending side in the body of the POST request transfers the bills line by line. The Central Bank selects all of them that are valid, checks that they are all the right currency, sorts them by ascending nominal and takes one bill from the beginning until it collects enough money to complete the transaction. The exchange of banknotes and the delivery of the change is not made, however, all unused valid bills will be returned to the sender in the response body in the event of a successful transaction.

Technically, when conducting a transaction, CentroBank revokes the old bills of the sender, and gives the recipient new ones. Teams will be able to check if the bill has been withdrawn with the help of a special service from the organizers.

Storage

The heart of each team's infrastructure is the Storage service, which keeps all the money belonging to the team safe. All other services of the team receive and deposit money in the Vault. The storehouse, in addition to accepting, storing and issuing banknotes, also has a peculiar idea of saving - if the service starts asking for too much money in a too short period of time and, at the same time, too little money puts it back - it is likely that the store will not like it and it will not give money.

Signature

Another support service is the Signature service. He knows how to accept input data and sign it with the private key of your team. The signature is used to authenticate requests made by the team’s services.

Team Interaction

As always, you can interact with other teams within the rules. For example, you can take a loan from a richer competitor, or make a contribution to the bank of another team. At the same time, we, of course, cannot guarantee that the service of the other team will treat you honestly. Similarly, you can try to fool other people's services. Except for one case.

Credits

In order to avoid credit fraud, the organizers are forced to control the process of issuing loans. Therefore, all transactions related to loans are made not just through CentroBank, but through a special Trustee. With the exception of some details, this service works identical to the Central Bank. In particular, before taking a loan, the client and the service must agree on a transaction identifier.

The party that took the loan may come to the Trusted Person at any time until the expiration date and return the money on the loan. Note that for this, the borrower must remember the identifier of the transaction in which the loan transaction was made.

After the maturity of the loan is due, the issuing party has the right to come to the Trustee and claim their loan with interest back. Regardless of whether the borrower has returned the money to this moment, the Trustee gives the lender money, that is, it implements the credit insurance system.

It would seem that you can take loans and not return - a direct path to wealth. But each team has a Karma.

Karma

Karma reflects the level of customer confidence in the holding. If a team does not offend its customers, its karma gradually grows to the maximum. However, when a team behaves badly, its karma begins to fall. This can occur in the following cases:

A customer came to the service, but could not get the service. Perhaps the service was not available at all.
The service team acted with the client dishonestly. For example, he accepted the contribution, but did not want to return it with interest at the right time.
The team took a loan from another team, however, did not return it in time.

The lower a karma team has, the less often customers will turn to it, and the less money will pass through its services.

Summary

Throughout the game, teams operate with money. They can earn their legal way, as well as steal from other teams.
At any time, teams can exchange notes they know for points at the current rate, while reverse exchange is not possible. The remaining money at the end of the game burns out.
Money is stored centrally and can circulate freely between the services of the team, however, access to a large amount at once from any service can not be obtained.
For the inoperability or fraud of the services of the team penalized by the fall of their karma. The less a karma team has, the less money passes through its services.
No advisories. You can not lose concentration, because the goal - to make money.

API services RuCTF 2012 Final

The real location of the equipment on the floor and the LAN scheme were as follows (there are twisted-pair strings visible):

Where the command router is a VMware image with a pre-installed OS (with all available updates). The router was pre-configured by the development team of the final. Teams can change its settings at your own risk.

On one of the laptops provided to the team, a test image was installed to test the network. It should be started during network testing, it can be stopped during the game. However, in case of problems with the network, the team will have to launch it at the request of the jury. The test image and the vulnerable image must be located on the same physical machine.

The initial set of equipment prepared by the organizers for each team: a switch, two laptops or desktops who lacked, patch cords and a network extender.

And as in reality it turned out with placement on the floor, just lovely:

The fears that there will be “little space” or “it will not be convenient” completely disappeared from all participants when each team deployed its bases in the workplace and began to study the materials issued by the jury and run their test equipment configurations.

The main and challenge prize of this competition was waiting for its new owner on the middle table:

Well, another surprise the organizers prepared for the teams like this - the overall working image of the system was ... screw

How many joyful words were said to the jury, when each team member understood the complexity and non-triviality of this final, because they were prepared for everything, except for such a surprise. Nevertheless, whoever was more prepared in this way, he received more benefits and was the first to pick off fairly good points. But later, everyone came up with this subject as well.

It was interesting to see how many team members on laptop screens in search queries had many questions starting with “like in windows” or the like ... But this is just the seed, because not the image was the main thing, but the services and their rules providing, as well as the ability to find vulnerabilities in them and get treasured points for their correct actions.

Briefly: the teams now are financial giants, large holdings that are fighting among themselves in the race for enrichment. No more flags. Now all you have is money, and your task is to make even more money. At any price.

Each team has a server with pre-installed services, each of which will earn money (one of the services will issue loans, and another one will take deposits). This money is changed to points from the organizers, which are displayed on the scoreboard.

There were five total services - Credits, Deposits, MMM, SafeDepositB and Cloud. At each bots came (their activity and work was controlled by the jury), which put the money or did operations with these services for each team. Depending on their satisfaction and trust in operations, each team had karma, the higher it is, the more and more bots will come to it for services.

Teams had to score the most points by transferring earned, stolen (from bots or other teams) or created with the help of holes in money services. Moreover, there were situations when it was possible to seriously harm another team at the service level, so that the other team did not know that it was working for the enemy.

In general, it was not trivial and very interesting to solve these puzzles for each team.

Each of the teams included both fairly good programmers, both generalists, and quickly trained comrades, as well as specialists in Unix and Windows systems. And all helped each other very tightly and seriously, arranging brainstorming.

About the teams in more detail.

Team [Censored] - I. Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad.
Composition: Alexander Golubkov, Artyom Vorobyov, Maxim Skuratov, Mikhail Yudin, Alexander Nazarov, Evgeny Vasilyev, Sergey Chesnokov, Sergey Valov, Stepan Boychenko, captain - Alexander Puzakov.

A very interesting and friendly team, which was the first to change the situation with glasses on the scoreboard and caused a considerable stir among the other participants, and also the first one scored 1 million points in the final.

Team bitmap - Orenburg State University, Orenburg.
Composition: Kirill Lyashkov, Dmitry Baranov, Arthur Chernov, Alexey Ledovsky,
Pavel Komissarov, Vladimir Matz, Daria Gerusova, Ilya Orlov, Konstantin Shpiniev, captain - Sergey Volkov.

Bushwhackers team - Moscow State University Lomonosov, Moscow.

Composition: Vitaly Antonenko, Kirill Samosadny, Alexander Razdobarov, Maxim Samoilov, Fedor Sakharov, Georgy Noseyevich, Andrei Petukhov, Ivan Zotov, Karim Valiev, captain - Evgeny Prizes.

Team HackerMayCry - Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg.

Composition: Sergey Krasnov, Irina Burdova, Lena Petrova, Maxim Muzafarov, Georgy Koshelev, Pavel Blinov, Egor Kolmogortsev, captain - Sergey Azovskov.

One of the few teams that included girls. It was very interesting to watch them, as they do in the process of completing the final tasks.

Команда Koibasta — Самарский государственный аэрокосмичекий университет имени академика С.П. Королёва, г. Самара.

Состав: Артём Солонщиков, Андрей Атапин, Сергей Бобров, Андрей Иванов, Анатолий Кат, Игорь Меркульев, Роман Кивалин, Алексей Гришин, капитан — Михаил Воронов.

Одна из самых спокойных и ушедших в себя на финале команда, сидели немного отделано от остальных (помимо ширмы их еще отделяло панно с планом развития инфраструктуры УрГУ), но были в своих фирменных футболках. Организаторы мероприятия VSFI (соревнование по организации нормального функционирования информационной структуры предприятия) в рамках одного из дней финала RuCTF 2012.

Команда l0rd — Уральский федеральный университет, г. Екатеринбург.

Состав: Александр Сорокин, Андрей Иванов, Иван Комаров, Руслан Нигматуллин, Илья Пацкалев, Дмитрий Косолобов, Павел Климов, Евгений Шмаков, Григорий Назаров, капитан — Михаил Рубинчик.

Команда Leet More — Национальный исследовательский университет информационных технологий, механики и оптики, г. Санкт-Петербург.

Состав: Александр Миноженко, Константин Пилин, Леонид Афанасьев, Григорий Саблин, Вадим Бардаков, Екатерина Бессонова, Иван Тимшин, Игорь Агиевич, Влад Росков, капитан — Алексей Удовенко.

Команда Magic Hat — Самарский государственный технический университет, г. Самара.

Состав: Александр Моханов, Александр Суслов, Евгений Ермаков, Алексей Фонда, Денис Тихонов, Екатерина Фролова, Сергей Ларченко, Артем Писканов, Михаил Токаренко, капитан — Александр Тляпов.

Одна из самых эпатажных команд, некоторые участники свои фирменные шапки не снимали все время, пока шел финал, также были оснащены фирменными шарфиками с названием команды.

Команда PeterPEN — Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, г. Санкт-Петербург.
Состав: Артур Ханов, Дмитрий Репин, Вадим Евард, Александр Щербаков, Сергей Серебряков, Алексей Малыгин, Павел Свидерский, Сергей Романов, капитан — Антон Овчинников.

Команда SiBears — Томский государственный университет, г. Томск.

Состав: Николай Ткаченко, Дмитрий Алимов, Артем Карпов, Георгий Зайцев, Николай Анисеня, Павел Свиридов, Дмитрий Арбузов, капитан — Дмитрий Стефанцов.

SiBears — обладатели переходящего кубка победителя и победители RuCTF 2011, которым предстояло отстоять титул и кубок в этом финале. Т.е., двойная ответственность и нагрузка у ребят была на плечах.

Команда WildRide — Челябинский государственный университет, г. Челябинск.

Состав: Илья Пехтелев, Дмитрий Шангин, Антон Нургатин, Андрей Григорьев, Михаил Майоров, Илья Маткин, Владимир Горшенин, капитан — Максим Косенко.

Достаточно сильная и амбициозная команда, которая показала высокий уровень и класс своих участников.

Гостевая команда (Guest Team) – участники от других команд, которые смогли приехать на соревнование. У этой команды был большой стол и самый большой состав – 15 человек, в числе который были представители команд SlashDotDash, ufologists, Hack Club, BitOn, Honeypot, GIRAV.

Интересно бы было посмотреть на команду, состоящую только из девушек, но такой не было, зато во многих командах были девушки, которые были очень увлечены игровым заданием.

А вот самая главная команда – это команда оргкомитета и жюри мероприятия в составе: Богдан Мельник, Андрей Хозов, Андрей Гейн, Александр Берсенёв, Константин Плотников, Виктор Самунь, Николай Журавлев, Евгений Крохалев, Илья Зеленчук, Сергей Ионов, Иван Ильин, Александр Цидаев, Дмитрий Корнев, Андрей Малец, Виктор Самунь.

Замечательные и очень упертые ребята, которые с пятницы до утра субботы готовили паркет для команд, а до этого все придумали, написали, проверили и провели на пятерку такое удивительное мероприятие.

А вот еще одна команда, которая в игре непосредственно не принимала участие, но была самой большой (более тридцати человек) и самой заинтересованной в удачном и справедливом проведении финала – это команда наблюдателей:

Участники этой команды болели за своих и за лидеров, делились новостями по твиттеру и соц.сетям, обсуждали происходящие события внимательно и помогали организаторам.

Equipment

Продолжим знакомство с командами с другой стороны – с технической.

Давно не видел столько много ноутбуков, нетбуков, коммутаторов и периферийных устройств в закрытом ограниченном пространстве. Можно назвать только примерное число – порядка 140-150 штук разных компьютерных девайсов (может даже больше), которые стояли на столах в ряд, по периметру, друг на дружке, на кубиках и т.д.

И каждое устройство не зависимо от размера или названия (кстати, большинство были известных брендов) обретали в умелых руках участников команд завидный функционал для победы, будь то поиск описания в гугле, компиляцию кода или поддержку сервисов для получения заветных победных очков.

Кстати, многие девайсы были с наклейками или гравировками с разных хакерских соревнований.

А обычное рабочее место участника команды выглядело вот так, зато все под рукой:

И только один маленький нетбук скучал на полу на третьем этаже, создавая музыкальный фон всего действа.

Кстати, дружелюбность участников команд и их открытость для общения были просто подспорьем в редком общении за перекусом в угловой части помещения финала (а там был организован целый шведско-печенько-конфетно-чайный стол!) или, когда они были не за терминалом, а у больших экранов, главное не мешать за столом было.

Скорборд, экраны, окончание битвы

Скорборд — таблица с текущими результатами по-русски. А вот что она содержала и какую информацию давала командам и наблюдателям разберем ниже. Данные с базы жюри поступали в приложение, которое обрабатывало текущие значения элементов игры по командам и выдавало на большие ТВ- экраны три слайда с переключение в несколько секунд между каждым слайдом:

в виде графика курс валют (доллар, рубль и евро) – чем больше воруют одну валюту, тем меньше был ее курс;
таблицу очков, кармы и работоспособности сервисов каждой команды;
общее игровое время.

Внешний вид скорборда с таблицей очков:

Тут указана позиция команды, количество очков, ее карма, и сервисы, работоспособность которых была в трех категориях – UP (все нормально, работает), MUMBLE (работает, но не стабильно и не штатно), DOWN (не работает).

Участники команд часто пользовались данными именно с экранов больших мониторов, хотя можно было зайти на страничку игры и в браузере смотреть ту же информацию. Но реально было удобно смотреть на стороннем мониторе отображение игрового процесса.

Тем более, можно было поймать взгляд и эмоции участников других команд, попытаться их проанализировать и действовать в более правильном направлении.

Также на скорборде работал чат – можно было послать смс на телефон одного из членов жюри, а он набирал этот текст в видимой области экрана. Но это была такая хулиганская опция больше для наблюдателей.

Под конец соревнований за 30 минут до окончания игрового времени скорборд заморозили и данные о текущих очках и т.п. стали недоступны. А время тикало уже…. Главное было успеть обналичить все деньги и перевести их в очки.

Страсти накалились до предела – максимум сосредоточенности и отдачи. Каждое неверное движение или неправильных выбор действий был бы просто фатален в этот момент. Но многие команды справились, а финальная таблица с итогами оказалась не похожа на замороженную по многим позициям!

Но вот таймер дотикал до нулей и все вздохнули с облегчением, ведь столько сразу тяжести упало с плеч участников. Многие были вымотаны до предела ведь такой сложной игрой с сильными и коварными соперниками.

Организаторы тут тоже подготовили сюрприз – объявление итогов будет только на следующий день – в воскресенье. Вот так – еще одна бессонная ночь для многих то. Но она стоила этого.

Разбор полетов

После трудного и изматывающего финального раунда не все смогли к 11 утра приехать на заключающее мероприятие финала RuCTF 2012, а ведь организаторы приготовили много грамот, подарков, сувениров – ни кто из участников команд не ушел с пустыми руками из зала.

А вот какую награду предстояло получить победителю финала от организаторов уже фестиваля «Весна УПИ в Уральском федеральном».

Но прежде чем начать церемонию награждения, команда жюри финала RuCTF 2012 отчиталась о проделанном работе. Ребята рассказали о том, кто и какие сервисы программировал, и какие дыры или баги в них были изначально реализованы с примерами их активации и использования.

Как оказалось, в каждом из пяти сервисов, с которыми оперировали команды, были специально умышленно оставлены лазейки, найдя которые команды могли преумножать свои деньги (путем выдачи кредитов под отрицательные проценты, например), красть деньги ботов из депозитных ячеек (подобрав пин-коды к этим ячейкам путем перебора этих кодов), вредить другим командам, создавая им помехи в работе сервисов или вообще получить в одном из сервисов админский доступ на изменение его характеристик.

В общем, каждый из сервисов имел от 2 до 5 пасхальных яйца, но команды могли искать другие способы отработать соперников и ботов. И некоторые даже в этом преуспели!

А реагировали они вот так, когда получалось сделать интересный виртуальный финт, например:

Помимо необходимости ломать сервисы, каждая команда могла удвоить свой начальный капитал, путем вскрытия зашифрованного файла из образа, который получала в начале игры. Но тут была промашка небольшая – в жюри забыли активировать вспомогательный сервис, с помощью анализа которого можно было бы выйти на пароль от архива. Так что этот орешек остался не расколот, как и некоторые из первоначальных «дыр» сервисов, догадаться до использования которых не смогла ни одна команда.

В общем, самые внимательные, прозорливые, умеющие писать оригинальные и сложные скрипты и быстро адаптироваться в любой операционной системе с мгновенным пониманием новых для себя языков программирования, как Erlang, владеющие навыками работы в PyCharm и т.д. etc. – это лишь толика описательных характеристик каждого участника этого мероприятия.

Подведение итогов и награждение победителей

Вот и подошло время огласить тех, кто смог выстоять под натиском кибератак и набрать больше всех очков по окончанию времени игры.

Итоговая таблица получилась такая:

Первое место — команда [Censored], Балтийский федеральный университет имени И. Канта.

Второе место — команда SiBears, Томский государственный университет.

Третье место — команда WildRide, Челябинский государственный университет.

Таким образом, тройка призеров финала RuCTF 2012 получила свои кубки:

А организаторы развернули целых подарочный магазин!

Ведь все оказалось просто – заработанные очки переконвертировали в настоящие деньги, а на них можно было сразу же не сходя со сцены выбрать нужные каждому участнику команды подарки! На каждом подарке был свой ценник.

Раскладывание подарков:

И каждая команда по очереди (начиная с первого места) подходила к этой мега куча девайсов и выбирала себе необходимые гаджеты.

Если у команды [Censored] был большой выбор, то у SiBears было поменьше вариантов подарков:

А команде WildRide осталось совсем немного в выборном ассортименте.

Но в итоге все были довольны!

И под финал финала свершился переход главного приза RuCTF от команды победительницы RuCTF 2011 к новому победителю и обладателю этого трофея!

Далее были поздравления и теплые слова от всех капитанов команд и конечно же обещание следующий финал провести еще интереснее и сложнее!

Приятно, когда проходят такие соревнования, ведь видишь, сколько реально упертых, собранных и широкоформатных личностей командно борются за обладание звание самой продвинутой, подкованной и удачливой командой RuCTF 2012 года.

А то, что организаторы создали на мероприятии такую теплую, уютную атмосферу – это вообще выше всех похвал.

Если Вы хотите посмотреть более расширенный комплект фотоматериалов автора по этому мероприятию, то они находятся тут .

The second event.

Finals of the 38th World Programming Championship “The 2014 ACM ICPC World Finals”, Ekaterinburg, June 23-25, 2014

In 2014, the second World Programming Championship was held in Russia (in 2013, the ACM ICPC 2013 final was held in St. Petersburg).

Only in 2014 the final was the largest in the history of the championship in terms of the number of participants.

122 participating teams (more than 1000 participants from 41 countries - programmers, trainers, support groups, championship support services), 300 volunteers of the Ural Federal University (UFU) and another team of volunteers from around the world, 7 best hotels in Yekaterinburg, 39 buses - Shuttles, 2 nearby platforms in the city center in the green zone - Uralochka ДИВС (Uralochka Palace of Sports Sports, hereinafter - DIVS) and Cosmos CCTV (Cosmos Concert Theater, hereinafter - Cosmos CCV), 5 hours to solve a team of 3 people, 1 computer and cal The cooler has 12 very difficult tasks ...

Rules, participants, organizers and volunteers

But let's go back a bit, because 122 teams have gone a long way from victories in local qualifying competitions (300 thousand students took part in them in 2013) and first places in the semifinals in their regions of the world (Europe, Asia, North America, South Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East) before reaching the final. And the quotas were very hard. Many strong teams did not go further than these selections, although, more lucky, clever and new teams opened the road to the final.

In 2014, a record number of finalists reached the regional level: 3,043 participants from 2,286 universities in 94 countries competed in 300 different venues on 6 continents in order to receive one of 122 invitations to the final of the programming championship in Russia in Yekaterinburg.

Here, sport, intelligence and the internal organization of each team have become one. And each of the 122 teams that came to visit in Yekaterinburg, is already a champion.
Here are just the best of the best here and you can designate and congratulate at the end of the event.
On the way to the top place, teams will have to endure five hours of competition, which will require the participants to exert all the intellectual and psychological forces in conditions of stress, high concentration and a desire to defeat themselves.

The official website of the championship in 2014 in Russia.

The World Programming Championship (ICPC - International Collegiate Programming Contest, held annually under the auspices of the “Association for Computing Machinery”, the Association for Computing Machinery - ACM) is held in order to grow more and more advanced generations of programmers who can solve technical problems for more high level.

The ICPC winners of past years from Russia are the developers of VKontakte, Yandex, Mail.ru, etc.

The very first team competition in sports programming under the auspices of the Computer Engineering Association (ACM) was held in the United States, at the University of Texas in the distant 1970. The current format of the World Programming Championship was adopted in 1977, when the first final was held as part of the annual ACM conference on computer science among students.

Since then, the championship competition has been held annually, and since 1989, its main organization has been the University of Baylor (Texas, USA). Also at various times such companies as Apple, AT & T and Microsoft became the sponsors of the competitions, but since 1997 and until now the general sponsor has been IBM. Moreover, the contribution of sponsors is very significant both in technical and software equipment for participants and judges, as well as in social and educational attitudes towards all participants in the championship.

From 1977 to 1989 teams of universities from the USA and Canada mainly participated in the Olympiad, other countries of the world were represented by one European regional group. However, since 1990, thanks to the proliferation of personal computers, new regional groups began to appear each year, and the geography of the competition expanded significantly. And now students from all over the world can rightfully prove their skills and capabilities at all stages of the championship each year.

The organizers of the championship in Yekaterinburg in 2014 are:

Ural Federal University with the support of the City Administration and the Government of the Sverdlovsk Region;
ACM - Computer Association;
IBM is the world's largest technology and information technology company;
SKB Kontur is a federal developer of Internet services, business software and accounting.

Only due to clear coordination and good relations between all the organizers (the number of employees and volunteers involved in organizing the final was about a thousand people, if not more) a high professional level of the World Programming Championship in Yekaterinburg was achieved.

Each finalist team and its coach were provided with hotel rooms, travel to the competition venues, free three meals a day and a rich cultural program (yes! In their badges, the finalists could visit museums, cultural centers and many wonderful sights in Yekaterinburg), also worked for almost a whole week free high-speed wi-fi Internet for each participant of the World Programming Championship in the ICPC Zone (hotels, DIVS, CCP "Cosmos").

Opening

For the first time outside the United States, the ACM-ICPC Programming World Championship finals were held in 1999 in the Netherlands, and then in different years, universities in Canada, China, Japan, the Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, and Russia took the championship (twice already).

So, the Global Programming Championship, the 2014 ACM ICPC World Finals Ekaterinburg, Russia took place from 06.23.14-26.06.14.

In fact, the event began on June 20 with the arrival of volunteers, a service group of organizers who began to deploy the technical systems of the final and follow the final preparations at the venues.

The venues were fenced, appropriate security was installed everywhere, so that the participants felt completely protected (although they also moved freely around the city and began to orient themselves well in the center in a day or two).
DIVS (Palace of Sports) took on the final itself, and at Cosmos Cinema (cinema and concert theater) participants dined, spent their free time, and the opening and closing ceremonies of the World Programming Championship final took place there:

Preparation on Saturday and Sunday - these are sleepless days and nights with the organizers:

On Saturday and Sunday, participants of the final arrived and arrived in Yekaterinburg from all over the world. Not without curiosities, for example, the airline Aeroflot lost the luggage of its passengers, including the finalists. But this trouble did not reduce the heat of struggle to any of the participants. Moreover, the organizers tried as quickly as possible to solve all the questions and problems that appeared to the finalists.

But everything was in English, do not forget, as the official language of the competition!

And then it was Monday, June 23, when all participants were delivered in the morning by bus to the CCP "Cosmos". Moreover, the police escort of each train of shuttles was also very well organized. Another three days in dense urban traffic 39 shuttles drove competitors around the city. There were even special minibuses that carried the participants (at their request) between DIVS and KKT Kosmos, although there is only 300 meters distance between the sites.

Monday, one hour before the opening ceremony:

People gather in a large hall for the opening ceremony.

Director's console and CCP Cosmos hall:

Opening Ceremony in Uralsk:

During the opening ceremony, the finalists listened to the welcoming speeches of all-all organizers, watched videos about the championship and venue, the performance of the Ural Youth Symphony Orchestra, and musicians.

The opening ended with the announcement of the start of the championship by the executive director of the championship, Bill Poucher.

“You are the stars of the universe called ICPC 2014! I congratulate all the finalists, as well as those thanks to whom the championship became possible. All of us gathered Yekaterinburg, a city on the border of East and West, Asia and Europe. But this does not mean at all that borders exist between us. Today we are united by the desire to show our character, willpower, thought power, hone programming skills, deepen knowledge. The future is ours, the 22nd century is ours! ”Declared Bill Poucher.

On Tuesday, June 24, a rehearsal for the final competition was held at the Uralochka DIVS, after which the participants practiced arbitrary practical exercises, tuned in to the final and were just a little distracted while walking around the city. It was very interesting to see so many foreign programmers in the center!

The final. Rules, struggle and results

Wednesday June 25th Nine o'clock in the morning, participants already in DIVSe are waiting for the start of the final.
So far, teams are photographed around the Champions Cup for good luck.

Prefinal excitement and just waiting to start:

For fans there are separate PCs with live streaming and information about the final:

The location of the teams on the stage of DIVS arena:

List of commands by numbers

Final 2014 teams (numbering in alphabetical order and according to the arrangement in the hall):

1. Alexandria University - Faculty of Engineering.
2. American University of Beirut.
3. Amrita University.
4. Anil Neerukonda Institute of Technology and Sciences.
5. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
6. Beijing Institute of Technology.
7. Beijing Normal University.
8. Belarusian State University.
9. Bina Nusantara University.
10. Cairo University - Faculty of Computers and Information.
11. Carnegie Mellon University.
12. Comenius University.
13. Delft University of Technology.
14. Delhi Technological University.
15. Escuela Superior De Computo Instituto Politecnico Nacional.
16. ETH Zurich.
17. FPT University.
18. Fudan University.
19. Fuzhou University.
20. German University in Cairo.
21. Ho Chi Minh City University of Science.
22. Hunan University.
23. Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay.
24. Indian Institute of Technology - Indore.
25. Indian Institute of Technology - Madras.
26. Indian Institute of Technology - Roorkee.
27. Instituto Militar de Engenharia.
28. Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo.
29. International Institute of Information Technology - Hyderabad.
30. International IT University.
31. Iowa State University.
32. Izhevsk State Technical University.
33. Jagiellonian University in Krakow.
34. Jilin University.
35. Kaunas University of Technology.
36. Korea University.
37. Kyoto University.
38. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
39. Michigan Technological University.
40. Moscow Institute of Physics & Technology.
41. Moscow State University.
42. Moscow State University - Tashkent.
43. National Research University Higher School of Economics.
44. National Sun-Yat-Sen University.
45. National Taiwan University.
46. National University of Science and Technology "MISiS".
47. National University of Singapore.
48. Nazarbayev University.
49. New York University.
50. Northwestern University.
51. Novosibirsk State University.
52. Odessa National Mechnikov University.
53. Peking University.
54. Petrozavodsk State University.
55. Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru.
56. Princess Sumaya University for Technology.
57. Renmin University of China.
58. Saratov State University.
59. Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.
60. Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
61. Sharif University of Technology.
62. South China Agricultural University.
63. South China University of Technology.
64. St. Petersburg National Research University of IT, Mechanics and Optics.
65. St. Petersburg State University.
66. Stanford University.
67. SungKyunKwan University.
68. Taras Shevchenko Kiev National University.
69. Taurida VI Vernadsky National University.
70. The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
71. The University of Texas at Brownsville.
72. The University of Tokyo.
73. The University of Waikato.
74. Tishreen University.
75. Tokyo Institute of Technology.
76. Tsinghua University.
77. Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes.
78. Universidad Catolica San Pablo.
79. Universidad de Buenos Aires - FCEN.
80. Universidad de Chile.
81. Universidad de Oriente - Sede Antonio Maceo.
82. Universidad Nacional de Colombia - Bogota.
83. Universidad Panamericana Campus Bonaterra.
84. Universidad Tecnologica de Pereira.
85. Universidade de Sao Paulo.
86. Universidade de Sao Paulo - Campus de Sao Carlos.
87. Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
88. Universidade Federal de Campina Grande.
89. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.
90. Universitaet des Saarlandes.
91. Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya.
92. University of Bucharest.
93. University of California at Berkeley.
94. University of California Irvine.
95. University of Cambridge.
96. University of Cape Town.
97. University of Central Florida.
98. University of Chicago.
99. University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
100. University of Indonesia.
101. University of Latvia.
102. University of Lethbridge.
103. University of Maryland.
104. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
105. University of New South Wales.
106 .University of Sciences DPR Korea.
107. University of Southern California.
108. University of Toronto.
109. University of Tsukuba.
110. University of Virginia.
111. University of Warsaw.
112. University of Wisconsin - Madison.
113. University of Wroclaw.
114. University of Zagreb.
115. Ural Federal University.
116. VN Karazin Kharkiv National University.
117. Vanderbilt University.
118. Vinnytsia National Technical University.
119. Virginia Tech.
120. Zhejiang University.
121. Zhejiang University of Technology.
122. Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) University.

40 minutes before the start of the competition ... Arena is waiting for its heroes!

It's simple - each team consists of three participants. By the way, there are very few girls among the participants, you can count on the fingers of one hand (I didn’t count more than three in the hall during the competition, although you can see in the list of participants that there should be a little more).

At the table, each team of equipment (provided by the organizers) has a computer and a calculator. The team takes its place without any wearable equipment, documents and electronic \ paper media. Assignments are issued on the spot, opened by all teams at the same time and the tournament begins to address them.

Touch a laptop (to move it from its place, open, insert flash drives into it, etc.) and carry out any actions with it is strictly prohibited, how to help and communicate with other teams, coach, guests from the stands. All these bans were closely watched by the judges, who walked in large numbers between the tables, rows of tables and watched so that none of the rules for holding the final were violated!

Just in case, the organizers prepared two spare tables for the participants, if their current equipment had problems during the final. These tables remained unclaimed until the end of the finals, but the equipment on them was constantly in combat expectation.

Workplace of each team:

They will sit tight, but there is room for thought anyway!

What can be officially used (in addition to the head and hands):

Everything is very well organized by the organizers and recorded:

The teams, half an hour before the start, enter the arena, touch the champions cup for good luck and take their seats at the tables to the thunderous applause of the organizers and spectators:

There is no limit to surprise and simple emotions, although on Tuesday, the day before, there was already a test run of the final for the teams:

Time is ticking and there is already a bit left before the start of the competition (start at local time at 10-00 (8-00 Moscow time) and 5 hours after the battle ...):

The organizers announce the start of the final and the participants open the task packages:

Spectators, fans, coaches, friends and associates of team members closely monitor the competitions, the organizers also give them tasks and many go deep into their study:

The tasks in the amount of 12 pieces were very ... actual and complex. More than half, no one even decided in the end!

When I read them myself, I didn’t understand everything, and when I looked at how the participants on the court did it, he simply marveled at their restraint and calmness.

Tasks can be found here .
Download for viewing and reading in pdf here .

2014 ACM-ICPC World Finals Tasks (assignments):
Problem 1. A. “Baggage” - nobody decided!

Problem 2. B. “Buffed Buffet” - 11 teams decided, the St. team decided the first on the second attempt. Petersburg State University.

Task 3. C. “Crane Balancing” - 55 teams were decided, the first was decided by the team of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Task 4. D. “Game Strategy” - 96 teams decided, the first was decided by the team of Moscow State University.

Problem 5. E. “Maze Reduction” - 16 teams decided, the University of Warsaw team was the first to decide.

Problem 6. F. “Messenger” - 1 team decided on the eighth attempt, the team of Moscow State University.

Problem 7. G. “Metal Processing Plant” - 3 teams decided, the SungKyunKwan University team was the first to decide on the ninth attempt.

Problem 8. H. "Pachinko" - no one decided!

Task 9. I. “Sensor Network” - 10 teams decided, the first to be solved at the second attempt was the team of Iowa State University.

Problem 10. J. “Skiing” - nobody decided!

Problem 11. K. "Surveillance" - 66 teams decided, the first to decide on the second attempt was the team at Tsinghua University.

Problem 12. L. “Wire Crossing” - nobody decided!

The solution of each task is a program written and submitted to the judges (code in C / C ++ or Java), which successfully passed a series of tests on the judges' server. The team that wins the most tasks correctly in the final wins, and in the case of equality in decision making, the team that spent less time on it than the rivals. For each decision, a certain time is awarded in minutes, for an incorrect decision, penalty minutes are also awarded.

Moreover, each team has its own tactics and strategy, invented and debugged by the coach over the years of working with the team.

For example, among the three participants there is usually one very good mathematician and two strong programmers. A mathematician reads assignments, isolates those for which there are solutions at once or may appear further, and programmers convert his decisions from sketches of textual and graphic materials in a notebook into machine code and send them to the judges for verification. While one programmer is working with a computer, the second is already throwing code on the next solution of the problem. Then they change.

If the judges decide the problem without comment, then the next task is taken up. If a notification comes from the judges that the decision is wrong, then you need to look for inaccuracies in the code and in the calculations or solve another problem, and come back to this later.

Many complex tasks were sent to the judges several times after correcting the code. And even 8-9 times to redo the decision had to teams and it was normal because of the complexity of the tasks, as it turned out! But for each new attempt to send a decision there were penalties as well.

The participants in the final were watched online by many cameras and official judges of the championship at the site:

The first team at the 17th minute solved the first task! Balls with a reward (the first solution and the solution of the problem) are brought to their table by the organizers.

Balls of different colors were hung further to all the teams that solved a particular task, both the first and in fact. The spectators could, by the color of the balls, understand exactly which task the teams decided and the general situation in the hall. As a result, a lot of balls remained to be hung out, the tasks were really good and impregnable.

Проходят часы, команды решают задачи, получают шары-признания, нервы накалены, хотя немного сглаживает ситуацию легкий обед, который предоставляли организаторы за каждый стол участникам:

За час до конца соревнований электронное табло с текущим счетом было заморожено. И там уже была интересная информация (бурно обсуждаемая почти три часа после заморозки еще по всему миру) о лидерах:

Но в конце пятого часа актуальность этой информации была под большим вопросом, так как команды начали проявлять усиленную активность и некоторые из них сумели обойти своих более именитых соперников!

Ведь задачи были очень сложные (из 12 только 7 и меньше правильно решили лучшие команды):

Потом еще два часа после окончания соревнования организаторы не объявляли результаты, так как на церемонии закрытия финала чемпионата все результаты должны официально быть подготовлены, перепроверены, чтобы ошибок не было и претензий ни у кого не возникало.

А вот уже на церемонии закрытия все почести и лавры победителям и призерам достались по полной!

Список победителей чемпионата мира по программированию ACM ICPC 2014:

Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, (золотая медаль, чемпион мира);
Московский государственный университет, (золотая медаль, 2-ое место);
Пекинский университет, (золотая медаль, 3-е место);
Национальный университет Тайваня, (золотая медаль, 4-ое место);
Варшавский университет, (серебряная медаль, 5-ое место);
Шанхайский транспортный университет, (серебряная медаль, 6-ое место);
Токийский университет, (серебряная медаль, 7-ое место);
Загребский университет, (серебряная медаль, 8-ое место);
Санкт-Петербургский национальный исследовательский университет информационных технологий, механики и оптики (ИТМО), (бронзовая медаль, 9-ое место);
Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики», (бронзовая медаль, 10-ое место);
Университет Циньхуа, (бронзовая медаль, 11-ое место);
Университет им. Коменского, (бронзовая медаль, 12-ое место).

Лидеры по регионам (можно понять уровень участников):

Europe — St. Petersburg State University, 1 место;
Asia — Peking University, 3 место;
North America — New York University, 13 место;
South Pacific — University of New South Wales, 22 место;
Latin America — Instituto Militar de Engenharia, 26 место;
Africa and the Middle East — Alexandria University — Faculty of Engineering, 66 место.

Команда УрФУ заняла почетное 60 место.

Команда-победитель СПбГУ в составе Егора Суворова, Дмитрия Егорова и Павла Кунявского выполнила 7 из 12 задач за 5 часов. Так же стоит обязательно упомянуть Андрея Лопатина, тренера команды!

Это фото я сделал за сорок минут до начала финала, ребята из Питера были уже готовы к сражению на все 200 процентов!

«ACM-ICPC – это прекрасная возможность для студентов со всего мира собраться вместе и обменяться ценным опытом, – говорит доктор Билл Паучер (Bill Poucher), профессор Университета Бэйлора (Baylor University) и исполнительный директор чемпионата ACM-ICPC. – Я рад наблюдать за тем, как молодые люди используют знания, полученные в процессе соревнования, для дальнейшего развития по выбранному академическому и карьерному пути как члены Ассоциации Вычислительной Техники (ACM)».

Помимо участия в чемпионате, студенты получили возможность познакомиться с последними разработками лаборатории IBM Research & Development Labs и пообщаться с ведущими международными экспертами в области информационных технологий, а также принять участие в экскурсиях по Екатеринбургу.

Команда Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета решила семь задач за пять часов, продемонстрировав исключительный уровень профессиональных навыков и умение оперативно решать сложнейшие задачи. Чемпионы по программированию вернутся домой с наградой «Самый умный приз» (The World's Smartest Trophy), а также с призами и предложениями стажировок или работы в IBM и других лидирующих компаний ИТ-индустрии. Who would doubt that!

Следующий финал чемпионата мира по программированию состялся в Марокко в 2015 году, но это уже совсем другая история!

Reference Information:

Команды, занявшие первые четыре места, получают золотые медали. Занявшие места с пятого по восьмое награждаются серебряными медалями. Команды, занявшие места с девятого по двенадцатое, получат бронзовые медали.

Команда, занявшая первое место, объявляется чемпионом и получает Кубок чемпиона мира и вознаграждение в размере $12 000. Каждая из трех других команд, завоевавших золотые медали, получит по $6 000. Команды, ставшие серебряными медалистами, получат вознаграждение в размере $3 000. Награда бронзовых призеров – $1 500.

Россию представляли команды из высших учебных заведений: МГУ, УрФУ, МФТИ, ВШЭ, МИСиС, СПбГУ, СПбГУ ИТМО, Ижевский технический университет, Новосибирский, Петрозаводский и Саратовский госуниверситеты.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/437834/

Two stories about programming events in Yekaterinburg

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