The Hacking Contest

 Robert Wilkins was an introverted yet brilliant computer engineering student in college. He kept to himself most of the time and rarely interacted with his peers, but he had a knack for problem-solving and was able to quickly grasp complex concepts. In spite of his reserved demeanor, Robert was highly respected by professors and fellow students alike for his intelligence and knowledge.

One day, Robert was having lunch in the college canteen when he was approached by a fellow student named Ahmed. He had a charismatic personality and an outgoing demeanor that made it easy to strike up conversations with people. He asked Robert if he would like to join him at his table for lunch, which Robert accepted gratefully. As they talked over their meal, they found out that they had much in common and quickly became friends. They shared stories of their lives and interests, laughed together at jokes, and discussed ideas on various topics ranging from computer engineering to philosophy. It didn't take long before these two opposites formed a strong bond of friendship.

A few days after they first met, Robert and Ahmed had become close friends. They talked often about their plans and dreams for the future, sharing ideas on how to make them a reality. On one such occasion, Ahmed asked Robert if he would like to make some extra money in his free time. Initially surprised by the question, Robert was intrigued and wanted to know more details of what kind of job it was. Ahmed hinted that it involved helping a company make their website more secure. Intrigued by this offer, Robert expressed his interest in learning more about this opportunity.

Ahmed told Robert about the special job. He said that there was a company running a website security campaign and the winner would get $2000.

Robert looked at Ahmed skeptically. "What exactly do you mean by 'website security campaign'? What does it involve?"

Ahmed smiled. "The company has set up a challenge for all of us. It's basically a hacking contest, and the person who can successfully hack into their server will get two thousand dollars as the prize money."

"What is the name of this company?" Robert asked.

"They do not wish to reveal their name. They have created a website called hackathon.win. You can check it out. Honestly, if I was as talented as you are, I would not let go such an opportunity to make two grands", Ahmed replied.

That day upon returning home Robert felt intrigued by this opportunity. A little extra pocket money wouldn't hurt. So, he decided to check it out. The website hackathon.win had an unprofessional look to it, with rudimentary graphics and a somewhat shabby design. The code underpinning the site was not of the highest quality either, with some grammatical errors scattered throughout the text. The content on the page was also sparse, with very little information about the challenge itself or the company. There was a call to action for a new user to register and start the challenge and the prize money of $2000 displayed in large fonts. Ideally, Robert would not have bothered to register on such website, but on this occasion, he trusted Ahmed's judgment more than his own.

After Robert registered on the website, he got more information about the challenge. He had to try to break into the company's servers and find out all of their customers' money details. It seemed like a lot of work, but if he could do it, he would get $2000! Robert was excited to try and win the money. He spent the next week working on trying to hack into the company's server. At first, he tried, but he couldn't get past all of the security checks. This was a frustrating period, but he did not give up hope and continued making adjustments to his approach.

One day, Robert was able to get past all the security checks. He couldn't believe it! He was so happy that he finished the challenge. Robert was very excited when he realized he could win $2000. He thought about all the things he could do with this money. He could buy new clothes, go on a trip, or even save it for something bigger in the future. Robert felt quite proud of himself that despite the initial struggle he did not give up and continued working on the challenge and finally completed it.

Robert still had one more step to take. He had to send the banking details of all customers to an email address. That was supposed to be the proof that he had completed the hack successfully. But Robert found that email address somewhat suspicious. It had a free domain name. Basically, anyone could create an email with that domain name. This made Robert think. Even if this company did not want to reveal its name, surely, they would not encourage people to share their customer's private details over an unsecured free domain. They would put some security in place to ensure the safety of their data even after it was hacked as part of this challenge. For the first time he began questioning if this was even a legitimate contest. Had he been coerced into actually hacking a company's server and steal private information. These thoughts made him feel very uncomfortable. He was not sure what he should do.

Robert had an idea. He realized that if he could track the owner of the email address where he was supposed to send the hacked information, his doubts would be alleviated. He got down to work on this secondary hacking project. Since this was a public domain email, he knew it was not going to be very difficult to crack its password. He knew a few techniques of cracking passwords and after only a few hours he was able to get access of that email. He was shocked to see the name of its owner. There on the screen it said - Welcome, Ahmed Qureshi! It was Ahmed who would have received all the hacked information if Robert had not found this email address suspicious and tried to find out its owner.

But what did all this mean? Did Ahmed set up the phony website and then informed Robert about a contest that clearly did not exist? It all seemed too far-fetched to be true. But everything pointed towards Ahmed. This realization made Robert feel completely betrayed that he had been tricked into hacking an organization's database. He couldn't believe that his best friend would do something so malicious and deceptive. He felt foolish for blindly following Ahmed's cues without ever questioning what was really going on. He had trusted Ahmed implicitly, never suspecting that he would play such a dirty trick.

Robert was in a dilemma. On one hand he wanted to inform the police authorities so that they could take the necessary action against Ahmed for such a devious crime. He also contemplated confronting Ahmed directly, but quickly discarded that thought as he realized he would not be able to defend himself if Ahmed attacked him physically. On the other hand, he also felt conflicted about involving himself in this issue because he had already been an accomplice by taking part in the illegal activity and didn't want to draw any negative attention to himself. Was the best option to simply stay silent and pretend that nothing happened? He could simply pretend that he was not able to hack the database.

In the end, Robert decided to seek help from the police. After carefully weighing his options and realizing that someone else could still complete the hacking job even if he chose to forget about this incident, he knew it was best for him to make sure justice is served for Ahmed’s malicious act. He made a difficult decision, one that ensured that his friendship with Ahmed would be broken forever. But then again Ahmed probably never truly considered him a friend to begin with.

The police conducted an extensive investigation and put together enough evidence to prove that the website Ahmed used to lure people into hacking the database was indeed created by him. They discovered that Robert was not the only person who had been put to the work of hacking the database. Other people had been tricked in a similar manner. But Robert was the only one who had successfully managed to hack it. In the end, the executives of the company whose database had been targeted by Ahmed, decided to reward Robert with $2000. They were thankful to him for not compromising their data despite hacking it, and more importantly his hack had helped them identify the flaws in their own security system. For Robert, it was a lesson to not take people at face value and pay attention to even words of kindness from a friend.