Paper at CSET'15: Experiences with using ARG elements in security education

Our experiences on using narrative-driven alternate reality security games for first-year CS students will be appearing at the 2015 USENIX Workshop on Cyber Security Experimentation and Test (CSET15).

For a while now, we've been interested in security education with creative and engaging narratives, paired with rabbit-hole/puzzle-like structures. We wrote a grant about it and we've been trying out structure and puzzles since then.

Most recently, we got a chance to use some of these exercises described in our paper at EPIC 2015. Below, at the Cal Poly Cyber Lab, we are running through a scaffolded puzzle built around a …

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[d0x3d!] at EPIC 2015

We had an awesome time playing [d0x3d!] at CalPoly SLO's EPIC 2015 program with campers each week (Grade 7-9, Grades 10-11, Grade 12). Bright students, really engaged, having fun with a broad range of STEM topics! It was a pleasure getting to talk, play board games, and listen to what they thought about the data they value in their lives.

EPIC 2015 Session 1 (Wed) EPIC 2015 Session 1 (Wed)

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Hands-on non-digital CS puzzles

We had a chance to bring several CS Unplugged -inspired puzzles to a local middle school and try them out with the 5th, 6th and 7th grade. It was really great to see kids engaged with deciphering wheels, towers of hanoi, balance puzzles, parity, 3-colorability and lots of other neat algorithms you can explore with your hands.

In the balance puzzle ("the busy miner") students had to find the counterfeight silver nugget (aka the light nugget) among seven nuggest, in the least number of weighings. I made the nuggets out of foil and Unifix cubes. A few clever students claimed …

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