Are you attending DEF CON 22 or will you be in Las Vegas from Aug. 7-9? Do you hate robocalls from "Rachel at Cardholder Services" and her countless robot clones and minions? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions or know someone who might, please keep reading!
The FTC is excited to release the official rules for Zapping Rachel, its first challenge to the hacker community, with $17,000 in total cash prizes. Contestants will help zap Rachel and her fellow robocallers by creating a next-generation robocall honeypot. A robocall honeypot is an information system designed to attract robocallers, which can help researchers and investigators understand and combat illegal calls.
The Zapping Rachel contest has three phases. Contestants may participate in one, two, or all three phases.
- CREATOR - The first phase is a honeypot building contest. Contestants will build honeypots that can identify inaccurate information in the calls they receive, such as spoofed caller IDs. The honeypots should also catalog calls and identify those that are likely robocalls. Deadline: 12:00 p.m. PDT, Aug. 8, 2014.
- ATTACKER - The second phase is a honeypot circumvention challenge. Contestants will develop methods to prevent honeypots from collecting accurate data about calls they place to the honeypot – essentially disabling the honeypot from fulfilling its purpose. Deadline: 12:00 p.m. PDT, Aug. 9, 2014.
- DETECTIVE - The third phase is a data analysis challenge. Contestants will review data from an existing honeypot provided at DEF CON 22 and develop algorithms to predict which calls are likely to be robocalls. Deadline: 7:00 p.m. PDT, Aug. 9, 2014.
For more information, visit the official contest website at www.ftc.gov/ZapRachel. Also check out our after-hours Twitter chat on Thursday night. We'll answer questions about the contest as well as the technological issues with illegal robocalls. Follow @FTC and tweet your questions with #DEFCON22.
The FTC receives more than one million consumer complaints about robocalls every year. Most of these complaints are against Rachel at Cardholder Services or one of her robotic minions — Anne from Account Services, Bob from Home Security, or Jenny from Bahama Cruise Vacations. The pitches vary but the punch line is always the same: "Press One to Learn More!" Of course, the problem of telephone spam is more than a mere annoyance, as fraudsters do succeed in pilfering private information — and money — from innocent people. At the same time, the related menace of telephone Denial of Service attacks is on the rise.
Rachel and her ilk are nothing but scam-artists who hide behind a pre-recorded message and sophisticated technology. And while the messages may often sound familiar, there have been many clones of Rachels across the U.S. and around the world. That's why law enforcement alone isn't enough to solve the problem, and the FTC is investing in technical solutions that can help a growing community of experts do battle with robocallers. We hope to see you at DEF CON. If you can't make it, please help us by spreading the word to your smartest hacker friends.
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