# IEEE Signal Intelligence Challenge -- Recap and Preview **URL:** \ **Category:** GNU Radio\ **Created:** [December 12, 2014, 9:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ieee-signal-intelligence-challenge-recap-and-preview/233427 "2014-12-12T09:32:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![addis\_a](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@addis\_a](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/addis_a)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 9:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ieee-signal-intelligence-challenge-recap-and-preview/233427/1 "2014-12-12T09:32:18Z")
Everyone, in 2014, the IEEE Student Branch Karlsruhe organized a signal intelligence challenge for students. I had promised to send a recap to this list, but completely forgotten about it – however, this does mean that I can already advertise next year’s contest. Unlike the 2014 contest, which was organized solely by the Karlsruhe team, the 2015 contest will be organized in cooperation with people from Darmstadt, which will make it more accessible to a larger number of students. So, if any of what you’re about to read sounds interesting, look out for the 2015 announcement! The prize ceremony will be held again at Karlsruhe’s GPN (a smaller cousin of the annual CCC congress). The (German) website for this contest is still online at [http://www-ieee.etec.uni-karlsruhe.de/?page\_id=147](http://www-ieee.etec.uni-karlsruhe.de/?page_id=147). A video of the prize ceremony, including a presentation by myself about the contest and some pictures by the winners can be found here: [http://bl0rg.net/~florolf/gpn14/5837.mp4](http://bl0rg.net/~florolf/gpn14/5837.mp4) (In German, again). To recap, at the beginning of 2014 we announced a contest that would consist of teams having to detect, demodulate and decode wireless signals, transmitted in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. The organizing committee consisted of researchers from CEL (my old homestead) and the cryptology lab from ITI, which gave us a lot of ideas in creating wireless signals. In total, there were 10 puzzles to solve, each being rewarded with 10 points or less (partial solutions gave partial points; the correct identification of a frequency carrying one of our signals already was awarded with 1 point, if such a frequency was even statable). We also awarded bonus points for special efforts, clever tactics etc. The winning team came ahead with 52 points. As a hint, all of the clear texts had somehow to do with “Star Wars”. This meant, for example, that if the signal contained GPS coordinates, the puzzle wasn’t solved, but that it would be worth checking out those GPS coordinates. Altogether, we thought it was a great success, even though only a small number of students participated (which will hopefully change in coming years). Students were highly motivated to try out their DSP knowledge in the real world, and like it or not, they certainly learned something 🙂 Also, a lot of these students were new to GNU Radio etc., but didn’t seem to struggle with its usage. I’m happy to discuss anything other than the actual signals here, if there’s any more questions on this! Cheers, Martin ---
**Author:** ![pytlik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/779978/32.png) [@pytlik](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/pytlik)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2015, 3:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ieee-signal-intelligence-challenge-recap-and-preview/233427/2 "2015-01-07T15:52:19Z")
As a follow-up, the IEEE Germany Section newsletter has a short article on the challenge: [http://www.ieee.de/uploads/media/ign122014.pdf](http://www.ieee.de/uploads/media/ign122014.pdf) Cheers, M