Time flies. A week passed in the blink of an eye, and another month has passed with another blink… and here comes the end of 2024.

Capture-the-Flag⌗

I played much less CTFs since the middle of the year.

I often thought that I was sticking to much with Black Bauhinia, and I had intense feeling to join the other teams this year. I played with @thehackerscrew1 and @DeFiHackLabs as a guest player for various CTFs. I did not regret this at all - this opened up some opportunities to collaborate and meet with different people. I am mentally more stable, too.

I collaborated with some great crypto players from @thehackerscrew1 for HITCON CTF quals, and I think this was the best 48-hour period to learn cryptography. I met some of them in real life during their onsite finals in Taipei later this year.

I came across @DeFiHackLabs in the HITCON conference this year, and self-studied blockchain security in their co-learning session. I was fortunately invited by them to participate SCAN CTF finals in 🇰🇷 South Korea. This made me finally met @RBTree_.

On the development side, I worked on Google CTF and HKCERT CTF. In particular, ZKPOK is my new personal favourite. I found @kleptographic’s clip on his attempt to get flag on ZKPOK is very enjoyable to watch1. The collaboration with @0xdeuterium on IDEA is mind-blowing, too. I dare not say that I am a good challenge author, as I plagiarize challenges (as usual). One example is Mask-mask-RSA from HKCERT CTF.

Living in Taiwan⌗

Earlier this year, I planned to adopt a cat. Since I cannot keep pets in Ximen’s apartment, I need to move out to do so. I moved away from the centre of the city to a place nearer to the office. I always worried earthquake in Taiwan. Seeing that there are not much severe earthquakes these two years, I moved to a higher floor in early April. Coincidentally, I experienced a strong earthquake (Richter scale 7.2) few days after I moved in.

There is not much good food around compared to Ximen. However, there is an izakaya (or tavern) that I liked a lot. There are easy-going cats. I often look for their therapy when I am depressed, and I always spend more time playing with them. I am officially the top fan of their cats.

Mi, the cat that played with me all the time.

By the way, I don’t have my own cat yet… After eight months of moving in.

Reunions and travels⌗

Although physically exhausted, I find myself mentally recharged after meeting with friends. I am grateful that some friends came to Taiwan and met me. I also had some trips with my colleagues to various places in 🇹🇼 Taiwan, even to Matsu.

Beihai Tunnel, where we saw "blue tears" (a single-celled organism that emits light).

I visited 🇰🇷 South Korea because of SCAN CTF. It has been 20 years since my last trip in Seoul, and I wished I have more time travelling around. I am looking forward to another round of Korean beef, too. Also, I can finally see Mount Fuji in 🇯🇵 Japan during a trip with my high school friends. Although I have been to Tokyo for a few times, I am amazed to see something new every time.

Resolutions for 2025⌗

  1. Spend time wiser, again. I hope to spend less time on less important things. I often don’t have enough time to play with new stuff that interests me, but I put too much time into minor things.
  2. Be more honest. I usually care too much about what people think, and I became tactful. I shouldn’t feel anxious if it is someone else’s issue.

A year to go.

  1. It could be even better if he uses GCP. ↩︎