Justice without power is meaningless. Power without justice is tyranny

 

Life doesn't guarantee that hard work will be rewarded, that the deserving will win, or that wrongdoing will have consequences. Too often, the outcome depends less on what's right than on who holds the power.

The computer world is no exception.

A lone developer can spend years building something genuinely useful, only to be overshadowed by a well-funded company deploying thousands of AI agents and repackaging familiar ideas. Innovation and recognition don't always go to the same person.

Competitive programming and hacking face their own version of this struggle. On Codeforces, LeetCode, and AtCoder, what does a submission prove when AI can produce the solution? In CTFs, from Hack The Box, TryHackMe, and WeChall to DEF CON CTF, how do we distinguish human skill from machine capability?

Organizers are already experimenting with answers. DEF CON CTF has drawn boundaries around autonomous AI participation, while NorthSec has announced separate regular and AI CTF scoreboards for 2027.

AI-assisted solving isn't automatically cheating. The real issue is whether the rules are clear and enforced fairly. When someone can reportedly shrug off a suspension by switching accounts, what exactly is the sanction supposed to achieve?

A leaderboard can remain online long after it loses its credibility.

I've spent enough time in this world to know that skill and influence are different currencies. The best work doesn't always get the recognition. Breaking the rules doesn't always bring consequences.

AI is changing the game, but the old imbalance remains: those with more money, infrastructure, and control often get to decide what counts as success.

Perhaps the machines aren't creating a new human weakness. They're making an old one harder to hide.

Humanity has seen this game before. Only the tools have changed.

Down the Tubes - Solved!!!

It haunted me for 21 years. A challenge so hard that even the most powerful AI/LLMs couldn't solve it.

And tonight, it's solved! 🔥🔥🔥

"Down the Tubes" on TheBlackSheep.

If you're old enough, to be called "uncle" by the new uber admin on WeChall - @rayaseiren, maybe you'll know this chall.

A chall created by BaRa, who was well known for his creative and unconventional stegano challenges. It was the only stegano chall on TBS that I couldn't solve for 21 years.

With the recent advances in AI, I have been able to solve many challs I couldn't solve or didn't have the patience to solve before. But Down the Tubes was so different.

I tried throwing the most powerful AI/LLMs I could at it: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok... Burned a ridiculous amount of tokens 🔥. Still nothing.

It was so crazy that I started wondering if it would keep haunting me for many more years. Or could be forever.

Then recently, an old buddy solved it. And he admitted something interesting: He couldn't fully understand how it worked.

So I stopped asking the machines. I went back to the challenge.

No AI. No LLM.

Just me, the clues, and 21 years of accumulated stubbornness.

And finally...

Solved!!!! 🏴‍☠️🔥🔥

The solution itself is just a string of characters. But after 21 years, it feels like something much bigger.

Some challenges test your technical skills. Some test your patience.

And some become part of your history.

"Down the Tubes" was one of those.

It haunted me for 21 years.

Tonight, the ghost is finally gone!!!

A Compass Without North

I stopped asking the stars for directions.

They have their own reasons for being silent.

The old paths are crowded with footprints,
so I have become interested in the places where there are none.

A wanderer learns, eventually, that not every horizon is meant to be reached.

Some are only there to remind you
that the world is larger than the name you gave it.

I carry little now.

A question without a language.
A compass with no needle.
A map whose final page was torn out long ago.

If you meet me somewhere between the known and the forgotten,
do not ask where I came from.

I may no longer remember.

Do not ask where I am going.

I may finally understand the question.

There is an old saying:

The one who seeks the road has already missed the path.

I never understood it.

Perhaps that is why I kept walking.

The greatest gift AI gives us may also be its greatest temptation

 

Remember when solving a difficult problem could consume an entire weekend?

It didn't matter whether it was a CTF challenge, a stubborn bug, or a piece of code that refused to work.

Hours disappeared into documentation, failed experiments, wrong assumptions, and countless dead ends.

Progress was often invisible.

Then, almost without warning, everything clicked.

Looking back, I realize the answer was never the most valuable part of the experience.

The journey was.

Today, the landscape feels different.

Whether it's solving CTFs, writing code, debugging applications, or learning a new technology, more and more people are turning to AI before they've had a chance to wrestle with the problem themselves.

The cybersecurity community is already feeling the impact.

Communities like WeChall are exploring ways to discourage automated bots, while competitions such as DEF CON CTF have introduced rules restricting autonomous AI systems.

But these conversations aren't really about CTFs.

They're about something much bigger.

I use AI every day, and I wouldn't want to work without it.

It has become one of the most valuable tools in my workflow.

It helps me research faster, challenge my assumptions, uncover alternative approaches, and connect ideas I might have otherwise missed.

Used well, AI doesn't replace curiosity. It amplifies it.

But every powerful tool carries a temptation.

Not the temptation to learn faster.

The temptation to stop learning altogether.

There is a quiet difference between using AI as a guide and using it as a substitute.

One still asks you to think critically, question the answer, and understand *why* it works.

The other gives you the destination without requiring the journey.

You may finish the task.

But you don't become the person who could have finished it without AI.

Perhaps this is the real challenge of the AI era.

The risk isn't that machines are becoming more intelligent.

The risk is that we become less willing to struggle, less patient with uncertainty, and less interested in mastering our craft because the answer is always one prompt away.

The greatest lesson I've learned from years of solving difficult problems is that the solution is rarely the greatest reward.

The person you become while searching for it is.

As AI becomes part of every technical workflow, how do we ensure it expands our abilities instead of quietly replacing them?

The Most Expensive Search

 

There is an unwritten rule that seems to govern modern life: If something is valuable, it must be somewhere else.

A better city.
A better company.
A better mentor.
A better book.
A better technology.
A better version of ourselves.

So we search.

The search becomes so familiar that we rarely question it. We assume every missing answer exists outside our current horizon, waiting for one more degree, one more promotion, one more framework, one more conversation.

Perhaps that assumption explains more than we realize.

---

Working in technology has taught me something unexpected.

The systems that appear the most complicated are rarely the ones that are the hardest to understand.

The difficult part is seeing what has been visible from the beginning.

An experienced engineer can stare at thousands of lines of code and immediately notice the one function that matters.

A security researcher can spend days investigating a network only to discover that the critical weakness was documented in plain sight.

The information was never hidden.

Only its significance was.

This pattern repeats itself far beyond technology.

---

We often mistake accumulation for progress.

More information.
More tools.
More certifications.
More opinions.

There is nothing wrong with collecting knowledge.

Knowledge expands possibilities.

But clarity does something different.

It removes what is unnecessary.

The difference is subtle.

Knowledge increases complexity.

Wisdom reduces it.

---

Perhaps this is why genuinely exceptional people often appear unusually calm.

They do not possess every answer.

They simply recognize which questions deserve attention.

Their advantage is not speed.

It is perception.

While everyone else is searching for another path, they quietly notice the one that has always existed.

---

There is another pattern that fascinates me.

People spend years searching for someone who will transform their lives.

A mentor.

A partner.

A collaborator.

A friend.

Someone extraordinary.

The search becomes so consuming that they overlook the remarkable people already within reach.

Not because those people are invisible.

Because familiarity makes us stop looking.

We assume that what matters must arrive dramatically, from somewhere distant.

Reality is usually less theatrical.

Some of the most important relationships begin long before we recognize their importance.

---

The same principle applies to ourselves.

Many people believe they are one achievement away from becoming who they were meant to be.

They chase identities as if identity were a destination.

But character is not discovered at the finish line.

It is revealed through every decision made before reaching it.

The strength we admire is often built long before anyone notices it.

The courage we seek is usually exercised in silence.

---

The irony is almost poetic.

We spend years searching for answers that require deeper observation rather than greater distance.

Searching for opportunities while overlooking possibilities.

Searching for extraordinary people while overlooking extraordinary presence.

Searching for ourselves as though we were missing.

Perhaps the longest journey any of us will ever take is not across countries, careers, or disciplines.

It is the distance between looking...

...and finally seeing.

And sometimes, when that moment arrives, we realize that the answer was never waiting at the end of the road.

It was already within us.

And the person we needed had been walking beside us for far longer than we ever imagined.

https://quangntenemy.substack.com/p/the-most-expensive-search

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