fisher792: “You’re doing BuckeyeCTF, right? Do you have a team?” Me: “Can I participate remotely?” fisher792: “Yeah, you can.”
That was it. No fine print, no warning label. Just an easy, friendly exchange. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve asked for a formal contract. Or at least a footnote explaining terms and conditions may apply if you start doing well.
fisher792 and I weren’t strangers. We’d been on friendly terms for a while. Not best mates, but the sort of people who’d swap ideas, send each other tech memes, or chat about coursework between classes. So when he invited me to join, I trusted that it was above board.
And honestly, it felt good. I wasn’t a CTF regular. I just wanted to join for fun, learn something, and be part of the community.
When the competition weekend arrived, everything seemed perfectly ordinary. I showed up, got handed a volunteer lanyard, and helped distribute shirts. I wasn’t in any official organiser channel. I just pitched in because I recognised a few faces and it felt right to help.
I was just another participant. Albeit one with a badge that said organiser and hands full of T-shirts.
Our team had three members: me and two undergraduate students. We competed in the OSU Division, the one meant for current OSU undergrads. We solved challenges, bounced ideas around, and I used AI to assist with some of the problem-solving. Nothing secretive. Just another tool in the mix. Others used it too, though maybe a bit less.
Everything was going smoothly. For two days, it felt like a small success story. Good people, fair competition, a few late nights, and plenty of pizza boxes.
By the end of the second day, our team had climbed to first place in the OSU Division. We weren’t being cocky about it. Just quietly pleased. A few more challenges to go, and we’d probably keep the lead.
Apparently, that was the real problem.
You could say we discovered a new type of vulnerability: not in a web challenge, but in human confidence.
Because on the morning of the final day (the 9th of November), I woke up, checked the scoreboard, and something looked off. Our team wasn’t in the OSU Division anymore. We’d been moved to the Open Division.
No email. No message. No announcement. Just silently shifted.
The OSU Division had a four-member limit. The Open Division had no limit. In one click, we’d gone from leading our category to competing against massive external teams.
fisher792: “Sorry Nick, we were just talking about it and it’s in the rules. I wasn’t as familiar as the others. Both top two teams had a grad student.”
And that was that.
No prior warning, no quick chat, no “hey mate, I might have messed up.” Just a tidy message dropped mid-morning, like a system log entry no one wanted to expand.
I didn’t argue. I didn’t even reply. I simply left the chat.
I wasn’t angry. At least not straight away. Just tired. Disappointed, maybe. I’d thought we were friends. Or at least that I’d earned enough respect to deserve a conversation, not a passive-aggressive rule citation.
Cowardice rarely looks dramatic. It’s rarely loud. It hides behind politeness. Behind “it’s in the rules” and “sorry mate, I didn’t realise.”
It’s the fear of facing someone you might disappoint. The preference for quiet bureaucracy over honest dialogue.
It takes less effort to shift a name on a scoreboard than to type, “Hey, we need to talk about this.”
And yet that’s what makes it sting. I wasn’t thrown out of the event. I was quietly moved aside, in the name of compliance.
Everyone loves fair play. Until fairness gets inconvenient.
Betrayal doesn’t need grand gestures. It can happen through absence. Through silence.
fisher792 didn’t set out to hurt me. I genuinely believe that. But he also didn’t speak up when it mattered.
That’s the cruel bit about betrayal. It doesn’t require intent, just hesitation. The gap between knowing something’s wrong and doing something about it.
I wasn’t asking him to break rules. I was asking for honesty. For a quick, “Hey, this might be awkward, but…”
Instead, I got a message that sounded like someone reading aloud from the rulebook mid-apology.
If he’d said it to my face, I’d have shrugged it off and thanked him for being straight with me. Instead, the silence turned a small mistake into a fracture of trust.
Now, let’s talk about the other quiet discomfort in the room. AI.
I used AI assistance throughout the competition. I wasn’t the only one. But perhaps I used it more efficiently than others.
There was no rule against it. No organiser ever said it was forbidden. Yet I can’t help wondering if that played a part in how things unfolded.
When performance looks machine-assisted, people get uneasy. It challenges the idea of what counts as “genuine skill.” But here’s the truth: tools don’t make results unfair. They make them faster.
If using AI feels like cheating, perhaps the problem isn’t the tool. It’s the refusal to evolve.
The event ended. My team finished the competition quietly in the Open Division.
No one reached out after. No explanation, no apology, no follow-up message saying, “Hey, hope there are no hard feelings.”
Just silence.
And that’s fine, I suppose. Everyone has to live with their choices. But it was a strange thing. Being part of something, wearing the badge, helping out, smiling for photos, and then discovering you didn’t actually belong.
There’s that photo again. Me with fisher792, JM8, and Blake. We all look happy. I wonder if they remember the morning of the ninth as clearly as I do.
I’ve thought a lot about it since.
Not because I’m bitter (the stakes were trivial), but because it’s such a neat little snapshot of how people handle pressure. One small rule, one quiet decision, and suddenly everyone’s acting like it’s a matter of national security.
Maybe that’s the irony. I came to solve puzzles, and instead I became one.
And the solution, as it turns out, is simple. Cowardice, bureaucracy, and the eternal human fear of uncomfortable conversations.
So here it is. My love letter to the organisers.
Thank you for teaching me more about people than any CTF challenge could. Thank you for showing that courage isn’t a flag you capture. It’s a message you send. And thank you for reminding me that honesty, like cryptography, only works if everyone shares the same key.
You made the weekend memorable. You gave me something worth writing about. You turned a technical event into a study of human nature. Part comedy, part tragedy, part quiet farce.
So sincerely, thank you, BuckeyeCTF.
You helped me capture something after all. Not a flag, but a truth. Trust, once lost, is the hardest challenge of all.
Flag: buckeyectf{7ru57_0nc3_l05t_n3v3r_r3c0v3r3d}