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Powers of Tau Operational writeup
=================================
Round: 6
Date: 2017-11-16
Name: Hudson Jameson and Steven Schroeder
Location: Texas, USA

Challenge (blake2b, sha256):
116e0dd095f9f30a144b147cb94dfd6b72e20aa7b85c305f8f4328a2850619c8beed1ca004050c496db39880b36b492b99b406cae88d4df23f60206b3d46a928
46a9e9d54524499390b4a78a06ce7dc3042b2188d82b1b91973f14988113a3ce

Response (blake2b):
eb401178f61a1cd6a18c744bf2ed13f83923bfae425f4fd4ad582661b442a8a47fd1ff3edef8e6c8124d2952a9625cf445d273f642af3b656dbfd9cb57bc0b4d

Preparation steps
=================
[Imgur gallary of photos/video: https://imgur.com/a/2rUDz]
- - Built a docker image based on Andrew Miller's Dockerfile from: https://hub.docker.com/r/socrates1024/powersoftau/~/dockerfile/.
- - Extracted the "compute" binary from the docker container.
- - Transferred the "compute" binary file and the challenge file to a brand new 8GB USB drive.
- - Burned an Ubuntu 16.04.02 live cd to a blank DVD.
- - Removed the hard drive and wireless card from an old Toshiba laptop I bought in 2009 [Specs: 4GB RAM + Intel Core 2 Duo (2.20 GHz), URL: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114719].
- - Removed the RAM sticks from the laptop for 10 minutes.
- - Built a faraday cage with a box, Gorilla tape, and aluminum foil.
- - Placed the laptop in the Faraday cage and booted into Ubuntu.
- - Inserted the USB drive and ran the "compute" binary file with the "challenge" file as input.

Sidechannel defenses
====================
- - The laptop we used was bought in 2009.
- - We disconnected the hard disk and wireless card.
- - We removed the RAM and re-inserted it after 10 minutes before the process.
- - The faraday cage was placed in a bathroom that is in the middle of the house, has no windows, and is at least 15 feet from any type of electronics.
- - We destroyed the RAM, USB drive, and CPU using a drill and hammer [Images/Video: https://imgur.com/a/2rUDz].

Postprocessing
==============
- - The computation took roughly 45 minutes to complete.
- - After compute finished its operation, we took a photo of the blake2b hashes of the resulting response [Image: https://i.imgur.com/50vTNDf.jpg].
- - We uploaded the "response" file and shared the blake2b hash via image and shared the hash with Sean and others in the MPC chat channel.
- - We destroyed the RAM, USB drive, and laptop using a drill and hammer [Images/Video: https://imgur.com/a/2rUDz].
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