@Skunkfoot said:
@opt1kz I like that you’re trying to start this discussion. The point isn’t to complain or bash anyone or their creations, it’s to highlight the issue and (hopefully) come up with a solution, and I think this thread, if used properly, could help us brainstorm as a community.
Thanks for the response. And yes, exactly.
@Skunkfoot said:
A little Devil’s advocate here, for the sake of progressing this topic to a point where we can agree on a solution:
A large part of the problem is that we haven’t really had that before. People want to create machines because it’s a learning experience for them and they think it will be fun, or because they think they have interesting and unique ideas, etc. Unfortunately, we’ve never had an HTB poll about what we would actually want to see in a box.
Yeah, and we certainly don’t want to discourage those people. They shouldn’t have to worry about being yelled at by the community and be afraid of sharing their creations. My initial post might’ve been a little harsh in that regard, perhaps. I don’t know. That’s why I didn’t name specific authors/machines, though. We need to have a discussion, not a flame war.
@Skunkfoot said:
Since creators are basically guessing at what people want, or aren’t even thinking about what other people want simply because the thought never really crossed their minds, some people are bound to be disappointed in some of the products they create. Yes, we’re here learning for free, but these people are also creating our learning materials for free. The people who take time out of their day to learn and create these machines for us aren’t perfect, so naturally, sometimes they’re just going to miss the mark, and I think that’s okay.
No argument from me on that point.
@Skunkfoot said:
I think a large part of this too is that a lot of creators are perhaps on the less-experienced side. There’s nothing wrong with this, I think creating a machine is probably a really useful learning experience. Unfortunately, the end result might not be as well-refined as some might like.
Indeed, which brings me back to the point of not wanting to discourage people. Especially if they’re newer and just trying to learn and get involved in the community.
I honestly hope that that doesn’t end up becoming a side effect of this thread.
@Skunkfoot said:
But I digress. What it really comes down to is this: If we’re not offering up a solution, then we’re just complaining.
Well, that’s the whole point of this thread; brainstorming solutions. My initial idea for a solution was to make a thread telling people to tone down the CTF stuff and get a discussion started about it, so here we are.
@Skunkfoot said:
I think if more experienced people, such as yourself, would create the machines, the overall product would be better and people would generally be happier. Also, maybe we should have a site-wide poll run by the admins. I know personally, I’d really love to see more exploit development and custom scripting stuff in machines (but maybe I’m biased because those are weaknesses of mine that I want to improve on). I think we can all agree that we generally would like to avoid click-and-run exploits, msf modules, and vulnerabilities that require me to search for some really obscure tool to be able to exploit.
On that note, after I posted this thread I immediately started brainstorming my own box. I didn’t think it’d be very fair to ■■■■■ about the state of things without trying to somehow fix it myself, as you pointed out. I can’t say that it will be ready any time soon, but it’s in the works, at least.
@Skunkfoot said:
I’d also like to say that I agree with pretty much everything you said. This isn’t meant to bash you or anyone else for their opinions, it’s meant to continue a discussion that I think is going to be incredibly valuable for our community, so I hope it doesn’t come across as too accusatory.
Nah, it didn’t come across as accusatory at all. Even if it had, that’s just part of discussing/debating topics that people are passionate about. No worries.