Last Updated: October 2025
Tags: scoring, leaderboard, fairness, transparency, audit, rules, integrity
🧭 Overview
After every CTF event, all challenge data — including scores, times, completions, and replays — is exported directly from the training platform.
This export becomes the single source of truth for calculating official results.
Our internal scoring system or "CTF Scorer" processes that data automatically using a standardized, rule-based system.
This ensures that every participant is scored consistently, fairly, and without manual bias.
🧠 How Does The Scoring System Work?
The system applies all official CTF Scoring Rules to ensure fairness and accuracy.
It automatically:
Excludes points from cancelled or incomplete runs.
Includes only runs that end within the official event window.
Keeps each team’s highest valid score per challenge.
Adds up all time spent on each challenge (even across multiple launches).
Ranks teams using the official tie-breaker order:
Total Score (higher is better)
Total Time (lower is better)
TBD (If necessary, additional tie-breakers will be determined based on your event's rules)
🛡️ Preventing Unfair Advantage
The scoring system is designed to detect and prevent artificial score manipulation.
Some users attempt to “game the system” by relaunching the same challenge multiple times — completing it once, then replaying it to achieve a faster time.
To keep things fair:
The scorer adds all time spent across every attempt of the same challenge.
This prevents users from gaining an unfair advantage by submitting a shorter second run.
It ensures that every team’s total time accurately reflects their true effort and activity, not just their fastest attempt.
This rule rewards focus and efficiency over repeated restarts.
✅ Built-In Accuracy and Quality Control
Our scoring process includes dual-path verification and parity checks — meaning it calculates results twice using separate internal methods and compares both outputs for perfect alignment.
If a mismatch is found, the system generates a QC difference report for review.
If everything matches, it creates a QC proof file (CTF_QC_OK.md) confirming that all data and results are accurate and consistent.
This automated check removes human error and guarantees data integrity.
🔒 Ensuring Fairness and Transparency
Available upon request, results can be packaged into an Audit Bundle that includes:
The original raw data
The filtered and normalized dataset
The final leaderboard
Challenge-by-challenge summaries
Operational metrics and QC proof
This process ensures every event result is verifiable, repeatable, and tamper-proof — giving instructors and participants full confidence in the fairness, accuracy, and integrity of the leaderboard.
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