Any CTF participants?
The one type of programming competition not available at Topcoder: the CTF security competition!
In CTF (Capture The Flag) competitions, you and your possible team compete against others to solve a number of problems. The problems are usually categorized as something like:
Cryptography (algorithms),
Forensics (file type and software / device architecture knowledge and analysis),
Web (web app vulnerability hunt),
Pwn (Binary analysis and exploit creation),
Steganography (Finding hidden codes),
Other (everything else. For example, programming challenges to solve a game)
You will need strong programming and algorithm skills, especially for Cryptography and Pwn challenges, but also creativity and out-of-box thinking to find out the solutions. But you can also get started with weaker fundamentals and just learn as you go, since the easiest challenges don't necessarily require coding skills. After contests are finished, many writeups are usually released that you can learn from!
A great site listing upcoming CTF competitions is https://ctftime.org/
Any enjoyers of both Topcoder and CTF competitions in our community?