CCDC Midwest Regionals Review
Since Akron was notified Thursday at 12pm (Have to leave Akron at 4:30pm to make it to Chicago at a reasonable time), most of the team members had work duties and did not take time off. The Firewall Admin Amanda was the only Akron person who could leave on short notice.
Teams that participated were:
DePaul University IL (1st)
IndianaTech IN (3rd)
Purdue University IN
Baker College Flint MI
Pine Technical & Community College MN (4th)
St. Cloud State University MN
Baldwin Wallace University OH (2nd)
University of Akron OH (6th)
University of Wisconsin-Stout WI
Missing 1st Place Kentucky NKU and Southeast Missouri
Personal Writeup:
I've been doing CCDC for 4 years now. Akron is my third team. I planned to retire this year. I wanted to retire at Regionals. I wanted Regionals to be my "United States of Smash". I wanted to go out like All Might. Well.. Akron went out like a silent candle during Wildcards. It was a bad ending after 4 years (and I've been involved with Akron since September). All the 2nd Place State teams were competing at a high level where one mistake could be the end. Akron submitted 100% of the injects and had 88% serivce uptime. That's pretty good, but two other teams were up there too. Purdue and Pine Tech beat us. On a cool note, the Wildcard teams did amazing at Regionals. We all placed middle of the pack. I couldn't avenge Akron as Pine Tech and Purdue beat us again.
I took PTO for Regionals before the Wildcard competition. I kept the dates, even when we lost. When I got the news on Thursday at 12pm, I was already at home on PTO. I used my best clothes for interviews/WFH and no way I was doing laundry that day. I had to get an oil change, cash for toll roads, contact team members, obtain documents, pay for a hotel, and packing to worry about.
I arrived in Chicago at 10pm CST. I wrote 3 pages worth of Firewall rules for Friday. We were given 3 network topologies to defend, 25 boxes total. My strategy was to play Frogger. I changed default passwords and set up host-based FW rules. I used a stopwatch and my goal was 2-5 minutes on each box. I didn't have enough time to implement specific PaloAlto security policies, but I could do overarching general items like DDoS and Security Profiles. I hid behind iptables and set up Windows Firewall rules on homebase (box I get to PA on). I have 0 inbound and 3 outbound (HTTPS, HTTP, DNS) for Windows 8. I turned off Network Profiles on all network interfaces beside Management. I allowed only 1 IP for management.
I burned out Saturday at 2pm with all the injects. I couldn't keep the pace going! I completed 26 injects and kept services up. Here is how I ended:
The injects were very hard this year. Some injects if you did them, it destroyed your box. Some injects were like 4-6hours long. When I saw those I was like 'nah', I got 5 other injects to pick from. The first Pi inject gave instructions that didn't work.. and I solved it on Day 2 to get Pi-DNS back up. I believe Akron would have placed top 3 with all 8 members on the team. We would have fought for 100% completion.
During CCDC I also had an interview coding project for my favorite company. My panel was on Wednesday. I coded a huge part of it Tuesday and Wednesday. I felt like I still had enough time to finish and get to a place where I'd be proud. I had to sacrifice Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and some of Sunday. I left 4am CST Sunday to get home to Ohio sooner so I could work on my project. The fact that I could do both (CCDC and project) in the same week is amazing. I kept a positive attitude and knew I was going to finish. I had to.
I have one year of eligibility remaining. I haven't retired yet. I'll decide by September if I do CCDC again. I'm moving to Chicago. I could create/join a team in Illinois, continue with Akron, or retire. I could quit now with a good ending. Unsure what I will do.
University of Akron 2019-2020 Season Team:
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