Research Problems in Machine Learning and Security

Dear Students,

The third and final wave of this semester is now live! 🚀

You can connect to the new challenges using:
* ssh fugu@pine
* ssh cinder@pine

This is the final stretch of the semester and your last chance to climb the scoreboard at pine-aisec.org and raid-international.org, collect points, and put your skills to the test. Remember that there will also be a small prize for the best-performing team at the end of the semester 👀

We have also published feedback for the Wave 1 reports on CISPA CMS. Please take some time to review the feedback and take this into account when preparing the reports for Wave 2. As a reminder, the Wave 2 reports are due next Wednesday at 14:00. Additional information about the grading scheme and report expectations can be found in the slides from our session yesterday.

Good luck, have fun, and happy hacking!
The PINE Team

Dear Students,

As you may already know, the university's course evaluation is currently running. We briefly discussed it during today's session, but if you could not attend (or have not filled it out yet), we would greatly appreciate your feedback!

The evaluation is anonymous and helps us improve future editions of the course. We would be especially interested in hearing what worked well, what did not work so well, and what we can do better next time!

You can find the evaluation here:
https://qualis.uni-saarland.de/eva/?l=12221&p=rromfu

Of course, you are also always welcome to use the feedback feature in CISPA CMS if you would like to share more direct feedback, suggestions, or ideas throughout the semester.

Thank you for taking the time to help us improve the course!

Cheers,
The PINE Team

Dear Students,

Wave 2 is slowly coming to an end, so now is a great time to make a final push, improve your solutions, and collect a few more points before the challenges close 🚀

We would also like to remind you that our next PINE meeting will take place on Thursday, June 18, at 14:15 in room C0.01. During the session, we would again like to hear about your approaches, ideas, and solutions to the challenges.

If you would like to give a presentation, please make sure to register beforehand using the following link:
https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/84f32bd35213948e5b05370e6f01cdd7-1716116

As a reminder, every student is required to give one presentation as part of the course deliverables. If you have not presented yet, this is a great opportunity to do so.

Good luck, have fun, and happy hacking!

The PINE Team

Dear Students,

As some of you noticed, we ran into a server issue that temporarily affected access to the PINE servers. The good news: everything should be back up and running now 🚀

If you still encounter any problems connecting to the challenges or submitting solutions, please let us know in the forum or via email and we'll have a look.

Of course, we are aware that the downtime may have disrupted your progress. Don't worry - we will take this into account when grading the wave and nobody will be penalized because of issues on our side.

Now it's time to get back to hacking and climbing the scoreboard 📈

Good luck, have fun, and happy hacking!

The PINE Team

Dear Students,

You can now access the UdS GPU cluster to work on the challenges more efficiently.
We have provided an individual username and password for each student on CMS. Please check the "GPU Cluster Credentials" in your Personal Status on CMS to find your cluster credentials.
To learn how to use the university cluster, please refer to the following resources:

• General cluster information: https://sic.link/condor
• FAQ: https://wiki.cs.uni-saarland.de/en/HPC/faq
• Interactive access / Code Server: https://wiki.cs.uni-saarland.de/en/HPC/interactive

If you have any issues connecting to the cluster or have any questions, feel free to ask in the forum or send us an email.

Also, a friendly reminder that the deadline to submit your code, reports, and presentation for Wave 1 is quickly approaching. Please do not forget to submit your solutions before the deadline at 14:00 tomorrow :)

Good luck, have fun, and happy hacking!

The PINE Team

Dear Students,

The second wave of challenges is live! 🚀 You can now connect to the next two challenges of the semester:

• ssh chimera@pine
• ssh zoomer@pine

This is the perfect time to continue your progress, dive into the new challenges, and earn more points on the scoreboard. Some teams may be ahead right now, but nobody is safe yet 👀 This wave alone contains 400 bonus points from badges, and points are awarded continuously throughout the wave. Starting early is definitely worthwhile, and there is still plenty of opportunity for the rankings to change!

As a reminder, you can follow your progress on the local scoreboard at pine-aisec.org, as well as on the international scoreboard with our friends in Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg at raid-international.org.

Good luck, have fun, and happy hacking!
The PINE Team

Dear Students,

Congratulations on your fantastic efforts so far! As this wave comes to a close, we would like to remind you about our next meeting on Wednesday, 20.05 at 14:15 in room C0.01.

For this meeting, we would ideally like 4-5 students to present their solutions to one of the challenges. If you are interested in sharing your work, please register here:
https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/84f32bd35213948e5b05370e6f01cdd7-1716116

Please note that, by the end of the semester, each student is expected to have given one presentation, as this is part of your final grade.

As a reminder, your presentations should be about 10 minutes and self-contained. This means that you should:
- Briefly explain the problem the challenge addresses
- Explain how your method work
- Describe what alternatives or iterations you tried
- Present some of results how your solution performs

Happy hacking,
The PINE Team

Dear Students,

just a quick reminder that the LSF registration deadline is approaching quickly. Please make sure to register by May 13 if you would like to participate in the course.

If you no longer plan to participate, we would appreciate a short email so we can keep track of the numbers.

Happy hacking,
The PINE Team

Dear Students,

Some of you ran into issues connecting to the servers from the university network. We checked this with our IT and found a routing issue that was likely causing the problem. It should now be fixed.

Happy hacking,
The PINE Team

P.S. Congrats to all the teams that made it into the global top 5 ranking at raid-international.org ! 📈

Dear Students,

The wait is over: the first wave of challenges is live, and you can already connect to the first two challenges of the semester:
- ssh snicket@pine
- ssh cheetah@pine

Now is the perfect time to get started, explore the challenges, and claim your first points.

If you run into any connection issues, please let us know - we'll do our best to help you get up and running quickly. We are aware of one issue that sometimes connections from within the university network may fail. We are currently looking into this to see if this can be fixed. In the meantime, using a VPN while on campus should solve the problem.

Once you submit your first solution, you'll appear on the scoreboard at pine-aisec.org, as well as on the shared scoreboard with our friends in Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg at raid-international.org.

Remember: points are awarded continuously, so getting started early gives you more time to climb the scoreboard!

Good luck, have fun, and happy hacking!  
The PINE Team