SANS Holiday Hack 2019 - Objective 0: Talk to Santa in the Quad

Looks like my submission didn't actually get received by Counter Hack.  I'm ok with that.  I would've only been eligible for a t-shirt anyway, and the chances of getting that are fairly slim.  I completed the whole challenge, but didn't have time to finish writing it up.  I had the objectives in my write-up, but not the terminals.  I'm just happy that I finished it.  If I'd written it up as I went along, I may've had time to finish the write-up even though I completed the last challenge last minute.  I really didn't expect to finish.  Good to know for next year.

This year's challenge was so awesome.  Never thought I could use Machine Learning to bypass a CAPTCHA or reverse engineer encryption software and decrypt a file, but somehow I did!  :)  

For the people who will inevitably comment and say that obviously I didn't get it done before the deadline, I have timestamps in my game showing when the Objectives and Terminals were completed.  Fairly certain Counter Hack has access to those as well.  So you might as well save your breath.  That won't make it to my comments either.  I moderate them.

For those who are discouraged and don't try because of trolls, it doesn't matter whether someone completes the challenge before the deadline or not.  The best advice I can give to you is to try.  You never know what you're capable of until you try.  Anything that you learn in this challenge, no matter how seemingly insignificant to you, is more than you knew before.  All of these little gains in knowledge add up over time.  Remember that, and don't worry about what other people say.

Objective 0 - Talk to Santa In the Quad

You begin in the train station.  Santa happens to be in the train station.

Speaking to Santa-in-the-Train-Station reveals stats from last year’s Kringle Con and other interesting information.

To find "Santa-in-the-Quad", exit North from the train station and walk north until you see Santa-in-the-Quad.  Santa-in-the-Quad is located north of the train station and south of the spinning gift.  Nice to see he travels by Mary Poppins’ umbrella. :)

  
Santa describes the objectives for Holiday Hack 2019.

Oh no!  He's missing turtle doves!