33 Days of Certified Vibe Hacker by Hacker Sidekick -README

Hello there!

My name is Sofia and in this series of posts I will provide step by step guidance on how to solve the Certified Vibe Hacker Workshop by Hacker Sidekick. It is a Capture The Flag style activity. Over the next 33 days I will go through each challenge using Hacker Sidekick Integrated Hacking Environment (IHE) as support, and share the research and findings along the way.

Why am I doing this?

The purpose of this series is to learn and provide material to the community that other beginners may find useful. I also want to showcase how to use Hacker Sidekick AI as a tool while still doing the actual learning yourself.

Another reason I have wanted to do this is because I have been and keep hearing online, and at live events, that my generation of 2026 BS in Computer Science graduates doesn’t know how to code or do anything really without AI.

Claude was down last week and I am sure a lot of people started panicking and blankly staring at the status page of Anthropic.

By a lot of people I am talking about myself, and I wish I was joking. Once we begin to over rely on AI for basic functions, what happens when it is unavailable or less widely accessible? That same day Scott Hanselman was speaking at the Chicago Cloud Computing meetup and was calling out this same thing. One quote stayed with me and that was “Do you know you can use airplane mode when you are not flying? Turn it on and code.” My generation is able to ‘skip’ and press ‘play forward x10’ on a lot of crucial learning moments and pitfalls that come with experience. A good resource to check out is this video by JetBrains named “What AI does to the minds of novice coders,” and there is also real research from credible institutions on the term coined as “Cognitive Debt.”

TO BE CLEAR I am not against AI. I support AI technology and want to explore better, more mindful ways of using AI, less brainrot (:

My CTF Journey

I have participated in a few CTFs and AI has taken some of the joy of trying or having the mere illusion or possibility that you might win on your own merit. Knowing that the majority of the contestants are using AI, and so am I, only adds more pressure and makes the clock go by faster. As someone who knows little about it I have been using AI against my own learning.

You see, when you are competing against time and the powerful OpenClaw agents that some genius with real skills and grit deployed… is solving all the challenges in parallel you are already defeated and inevitably turn into a slower copycat of scrappier quality. Unfortunately, just pasting logs or files into an AI and getting a solution back does not mean you actually know how to solve that kind of problem. The test is simple; could you solve it again, alone, without that help? In a time crunch the honest answer is no because during the competition finding the flag matters more than learning or understanding how you got there.

The Rules

So, the following 33 days are my effort to enjoy the journey and not the destination of CTFs. I want to slow down and dive into each challenge to understand what is going on behind the scenes. Without a clock running or an automated script outpacing me in the background.

The rules I am setting for myself are simple:

• Use Hacker Sidekick when I am genuinely stuck and my own effort reaches 0%.

• Use it for questions and explanations, not full solutions.

• I know that Hacker Sidekick can solve every challenge instantly. That is not the point. The point is to see how far I can get with Hacker Sidekick beside me and my own brain in charge.

Rights & Disclosure

All rights to the Certified Vibe Hacker Workshop belong to Hacker Sidekick. What I am sharing here is my own framework and process for approaching each challenge. I will not reveal the flag itself or its exact location.

Everything written in these posts is written by me, in my own words, without AI generating or drafting the text.

Any comments or concerns let me know at sofia@sofiabatala.com and check out my portfolio…

What’s Next?

Follow along for a new step by step writeup each day. Below are the 33 days along with the categories, explanations, and sections I will be working through.

I will keep this list updated as the weeks go on.

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Bibliography:

Log Analysis:

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/log-analysis

What Is Log Analysis Benefits and Uses in Cybersecurity | Huntress

nistspecialpublication800–92.pdf

Web App Testing:

https://owasp.org/www-project-web-security-testing-guide/stable/4-Web_Application_Security_Testing/00-Introduction_and_Objectives/README

Web Application Pentests & The Basics | by Mike Smith | Medium

What is Cyber Reconnaissance?

Static Code Analysis:

What is Static Code Analysis? | JetBrains Qodana

Static Code Analysis | OWASP Foundation

Static Code Analysis: Top 7 Methods, Pros/Cons and Best Practices

Jet Brains and MIT study:

[2506.08872] Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTUh0OO6Kmo