Game of Zones: Challenge

Last year, the Cosmos Network hosted the first-ever adversarial testnet to prepare network operators for the launch of the first-ever BFT network. This year, the team that brought you Game of Stakes is back again with Game of Zones: on May 1, 2020, we’re kicking off another series of adversarial testnet challenges designed to prepare the Cosmos ecosystem for the upcoming launch of the IBC module.

Registration is closed.

Submit your node information

Please make a pull request to this repository with a new entry in the contestant_info folder.

Each pull request should include a title with Phase 1 and the team name that you registered with.

{
  "chain_id":"XXX",
  "node addr":"tcp://X.X.X.X:26657"
}

Code of Conduct

The Game of Zones team is dedicated to providing an inclusive and harrassment free experience for contributors. Please visit Code of Conduct for more information.

The Challenge

Game of Zones will launch on May 1, 2020, and will comprise three separate, week-long stages with different Capture-the-Flag style objectives. In addition to completing these objectives, your team will need to keep a persistent connection alive by sending at least 1 packet per connection at least every 60 minutes to be eligible to win.

Weekly Challenge Rewards:

1st Week: The goal is uptime. Teams will be evaluate on their ability to keep a connection with an abnormally short trust period active.

In addition to the weekly challenges, there will also be a handful of opportunities to win additional prizes based on your overall competition performance.

Cumulative Contest Challenge Rewards will be given for:

Sending the most packets of any GoZ participant via the IBC module.
Developing the most novel custom zones designed to be part of the network.
Generating tokens used in novel ways via the IBC module.
Implementing the most innovative or deceptive state machine rewards.
Spreading the most Game of Zones spirit by with the best memes, GiFs, and overall most entertaining social media posts.

The Rules of Engagement

The goal of running an adversarial testnet challenge is to stress test the protocol-level of the Cosmos network and the IBC module. As the community and network operators become acquainted with the IBC module and setting up zones, the code will be pushed to its limit (and perhaps beyond!), as a way to observe its performance before it is released as production-ready software.

Throughout the competition, we expect to see validators running their own zones and attempting to attack other zones through spamming or exploiting configurations. We also expect to see non-traditional configurations of core protocols and software that might provide specific advantages to our network operators. Additionally, we hope to observe numerous multi-hop transactions, proposer priority attacks, double spending attacks, unnoticed equivocations, and other confusion attacks that attempt to disrupt communication and operations between zones and relayers.

During the course of the game, it is forbidden to exploit security vulnerabilities in attempt to win the challenge. Participants who exploit software vulnerabilities in the IBC module or Cosmos Network will be disqualified. Participants who use social engineering or malware to attack fellow competitors will also be disqualified from the challenge. If you find a software vulnerability during the competition, please report it to security@cosmosnetwork.dev — once IBC is added to the bug bounty program, all security bugs reported will be eligible for a bonus reward.

The Reward

As a reward for their efforts, competitors could receive prizes from a pool of 100,000 ATOM. At the close of the challenge, we expect to distribute rewards to:

At least 3 weekly challenge winners,
At least 5 cumulative competition challenge winners,
All eligible teams that successfully complete each phase of the competition.

Competitors will be able to track their performance and progress on a scoreboard that will launch at the beginning of the competition. Rewards and reward amounts will be announced to all participants during Closing Ceremonies for Game of Zones. In order to receive rewards, winners will be asked to provide information during a KYC process in order to receive a payout in ATOM.

Eligibility

All members of the Cosmos Community are eligible and encouraged to participate in Game of Zones, but not all participants are eligible to receive rewards from the prize pool.

Employees and contractors of the Interchain Foundation, Interchain Berlin, and Iqlusion can compete and win in Game of Zones as part of a team, but they cannot be rewarded with ATOM for their participation in the contest.
Participants who exploit software vulnerabilities in the IBC module or Cosmos Network, who use social engineering attacks to exploit competitors, or who use malware to attack others will be disqualified from receiving any contest rewards.
Challenge participants who violate the rules of engagement set forth in the contest scope or who violate the Code of Conduct for Game of Zones may be deemed ineligible for reward.

How to Register

To register for Game of Zones, a member of your team will need to submit an application here that includes a team name, the names of individuals competing with you, and a chain ID for your zone. Sign up now !

Important Dates

Save these important competition dates on your calendar:

Registration for Game of Zones closes on April 25, 2020 at 11:59pm PST.
Game of Zones will launch on Friday, May 1, 2020.
The Official GoZ Opening Ceremonies Live Stream will be held on Friday, May 1, 2020.
- Week 1 Challenge Announcement: Friday, April 24, 2020
  - Week 2 Challenge Announcement: Friday, May 1, 2020
  - Week 3 Challenge Announcement: Friday, May 8, 2020
Game of Zones will close on Friday, May 22nd, 2020.
The Official GoZ Closing Ceremonies Live Stream will be held on Thursday, May 28th, 2020.

These dates will be updated to provide official times when registration closes. Wherever possible, we will strive to find times that are convenient for participants distributed across diverse time zones.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about the competition, or just want to say hi, the only way to get a response is to email gameofzones@cosmosnetwork.dev . The Game of Zones team will create a FAQ based on questions that we receive, and regularly update it throughout the course of the competition.

To get the latest Game of Zones release candidate software and track progress for launch, follow @cosmosdevs on Github.

To receive the latest updates about Game of Zones, follow @cosmosdevs on Twitter.

To report violations of the Code of Conduct, please send an email to conduct@cosmosnetwork.dev .

hendrikhofstadt / GameOfZones