Random notes & poorly written Go code to solve https://www.serverheist.com/ (SH), but mostly to learn Go.

Yeah I know I haven't even gotten halfway through AoC 2021. I'll get there. Someday.

#Challenge 1: login

Unlike AoC which starts off with several trivial warm-up exercises, SH hits you with a meaty puzzle already. I don't mind that, but the ergonormics in SH leave a lot to be desired:

• It doesn't seem to remember my progress, so when I came back to the site this morning, I had to do everything again (email validation, login, enter correct password).

• This is extra annoying because the password list is randomly generated every time, and the site hijacks both ctrl+c and right click, so I had to copy the xhr response from the network inspector instead. Maybe it's intentional so I realize the repeated failing requests to some serverheist-hacker.tk server. Or maybe automating the tedious steps is part of the challenge as well. Idk, it starts to feel a bit too much like actual work for me. Well I'll be damned, it actually is a hint to help me find the malware process.

#Challenge 2: thecoup

Fine.

#Challenge 3: blackhat

ps didn't show anything that seems to be related to the repeated serverheist-hacker.tk requests.

How the hell am I supposed to submit my code? vi/vim/nano/emacs didn't work.

Update 1: Ah shit ps -aux didn't work but ps aux did. Should have tried tabbing in the first place!

#Done... or am I?

So after fixing the python script & killing the malware process, they let me sudo restart the machine.

But then I still have no idea what this clue's about:

When the firewall is all set up, dial this number to know what to do next: 777337777827778

Weird.

#In conclusion

Kinda rough around the edges but I liked it.

But then unlike AoC, this is python-centric and not very useful for language learning practice. (but hey they never said it was)