New Member Orientation

How do I get started?

We have switched from IRC, to Matrix/Riot, phone users may commence rejoicing. Information about our primary chat service can be found here: https://steffey.github.io/riot/

Please ask us any questions you may have. We're more than happy to help when we get a moment!

To make the most of your time We advise you to hit some Milestones

Get a Linux distro running on your primary machine. Dual boot, or primary recommended. (But a Virtual Machine is better than nothing.) The newest long term support version of Ubuntu is the current distro of choice of many students and members.
Write a bot for our chat service.
Participate in a CTF.
Contribute a new page to the wiki.
Participate in a hackathon
Get hired somewhere awesome.

Cyber Security

Check out these links for an idea of what to expect from ctfs and something to get you started thinking about cyber security. Update: 2015: We're working on creating a more cohesive lab.

pico - Wide range of ctf areas covered at a beginner level, which unlock progressively harder levels.
overthewire - Beginner to advanced. Start with "Bandit" challenges. Great for learning linux.
Pentester Bootcamp - focused on hacking webservers / using exploits. You can access these internally on the DDWRT network by visiting the respective hostname. EG: Get on ddwrt, go to web100. A pd

What else should I do?

Talk to each other, and help those who need help.

Keep in mind, that we're all students and volunteers. I need you to tell me how to help you, if there are resources that aren't any good, or aren't making sense, you have to tell us so we can make things better or nothing is going to change and we both lose.

Its our goal to build an environment that helps you to grow. We'll get you up and running, but we need your help and feedback to make sure everyone is getting the most out of the club.

Closing remarks? Cclub is dynamic and history has shown that we make more than we document. There are a ton of services / resources / and opportunities which are hidden or nonobvious. The club has been around for almost 40 years now, so you can count that much has already been done. Click around the homepage and the wiki and best of all ask veteran members "does x exist?" and you'll be amazed with what we actually do / have already done.

Read through the wiki, and our blog aggregator, Planet Yakko to get an idea of what our other members have been up to.

Make something else! Get us excited about a project that you're interested and we'll come together and make it happen.