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How to Register

The contest has ended.

Registration Overview

To register and be eligible to win, a team must submit a PGP public key, prove that it can receive encrypted mail, choose a team name, and declare whether it is competing as a Pro team.

  1. Import the contest submission and contact PGP keys.
  2. Send your team public key in a signed and encrypted message.
  3. Decrypt and answer the confirmation challenge.
  4. Choose a valid team name.
  5. Declare Pro-team status if applicable.

Contest PGP Keys

There are two contest-related keys:

  • sub-2026@contest.korelogic.com, the submission autoresponder key used for registration and cracks, available here.
  • defcon-2026-contest@korelogic.com, the human contact key used when something needs staff attention, available here.

Submitting Your PGP Key

You may use an existing PGP key or create a new one. A dedicated contest key is recommended so teammates can automate submissions without weakening an unrelated personal or organizational key.

The key used for the contest must have exactly one UID email address, and your team must be able to receive encrypted mail at that address. 

$ gpg -a -o my-key.pub.asc --export DEADC0D3
$ gpg -a -o keysub-email.asc -r sub-2026@contest.korelogic.com \
        -se my-key.pub.asc
$ mail -s "Registration" sub-2026@contest.korelogic.com < \
        keysub-email.asc

Inline PGP is recommended; PGP'd attachments in regular emails, or RFC3156 combined PGP/MIME (like ProtonMail) should also work.

Confirmation Challenge

After KoreLogic receives your key, the autoresponder should send an encrypted challenge to the email address in that key. Decrypt it, then send back the requested challenge line in a signed and encrypted message. 

$ gpg -a -o response-email.asc -r sub-2026@contest.korelogic.com -se
[paste the challenge line, including the Chal: prefix]
^D
$ mail -s "Challenge Response" sub-2026@contest.korelogic.com < \
        response-email.asc

Team Names

Team names are display labels for stats and announcements. Your primary identifier remains your PGP Key ID.

Team names should match this pattern:

^[A-Za-z0-9][-._A-Za-z0-9 ]{2,38}[A-Za-z0-9]$

Register a team name by including a line like this in your encrypted registration payload: 

Team: your_team_name

Pro Teams

Once your key is registered, send a signed message to the human contest contact address if you want to compete as a Pro team. Pro winners are expected to provide a post-event methodology writeup.