The challenge is announced 3 days before just to answer all the queries so that people can get to work on the day it starts.
1. How you describe the task is not in any case clearly and therefore a bit confusing.
The first reactions in form of posts already shows it.
2. I have strong legal concerns about this "promotional campaign" especially regarding my 1. point.
People may try to hack the wrong infrastructure despite the fact if the try itself is legal or not in their country.
In germany for example I doubt that it is possible to take part without breaking the law.
If someone now probably tries to hack Amazon then and gets jailed because of taking part in your contest you are probably also responsible for that.
I guess you don't own an own datacenter. Is the datacenter informed about this?
-> I don't feel this contest is very well prepared at the moment and I would not start it under these circumstances.
First, this is completely legal and there is no threat to anyone hacking as Amazon will not go after them, its the company who has rented the server goes after people who hack. In this case, we are the company.
Secondly, I made it very clear on how to communicate with the server
To communicate with the server and check if its running or not, send an email to
[email protected] with Subject 'Transfer'. The server will send you an email back with a transaction hash for an instant transaction in the amount of 0.0001 BTC to mrm4AN6uAExNgXbRtqVL5tA4RmVxR2QtMa.
This is the only way to communicate and try to find the IP which is the first step. After this, its upto you. Doing a DOS attack does not make sense as you need to get into the server and its not like we are trying to prevent you that you need to block our access. Also, all ports are closed other than the ports that the app opens and closes automatically. Just to help everyone out, that port range is 32768-61000.
If you wish to try without using our server, I would advise you to setup your own server and I will provide a simple Jar that can talk to gmail. You can do this in your own house and then send us instructions on how to hack and if it works, you win.
Also, there are a couple of firewalls in place before the server, we will test your method with the firewalls and without your firewalls and award you full amount if you break with the firewalls. If your instruction leads to a hack without the firewalls, we will award you $1000. If you anyone wants to try it this way, let me know and I will reveal the server configuration after the part 1 is over.
Questions?
