This year marks the beginning of Barstow’s Cybersecurity Club. The club meets weekly and will participate in three competitions. During competition weekends, the team usually starts at 3:45 pm on a Friday and finishes 4-6 hours later (8-10 pm).
Barstow’s team will compete in the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, in order to move from state and regional competitions, to a national competition in Maryland. The team will work together to secure a mock defense network. The exercise provides students with an opportunity to showcase their abilities in the computer science field, and also a creative outlet for students interested in pursuing STEM careers. The competition begins online, and eventually moves to in-person as teams advance.
Teams are required only to have one registered coach, and six members.
- The Qualification Competition begins as soon as this image is opened, and ends 6 consecutive hours later, after which the score will be logged. Attempting to continue after the time limit has reached will incur penalties. It is the coach’s responsibility to ensure their team does not exceed the limit.
- Only one instance of the image can be open at any given time. Opening multiple instances of a virtual image will result in a penalty.
- No person may compete on a team with which they are not registered, and may only be registered with one team per competition.
- During the competition, no outside assistance may be given to or received from anyone.
- No competitor may offer assistance to another after their round ends and the other’s begins.
- No outside communication is allowed during the competition. This includes but is not limited to verbal, electronic, written or coded.
- No offensive activity of any kind is permitted, including but not limited to hacking through programs or manual code injection, interfering with another team through social engineering and/or deception, or attaining the opposing machine.
The program is sponsored by the Air Force Association, the U.S. Air Force, the defense contractor SAIC, and the Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS), and was initially created in 2009. Only 8 teams competed, and all were either Civil Air Patrol or Air Force JROTC. Later, the Open Division was created, so that any teams could compete.
Only one team from the Kansas City Metropolitan Area has ever won at a CyperPatriot competition. Team Sudo, from Summit Technology Academy, in Lee’s Summit, won in the 2016 middle school division.
This year, the club is led by Anders Hwang ‘23, Alex White ‘23, and Euichan “Justin” Jeong ‘24. The three are replacing Grayson Martin ‘22, who was the president in past years.
“We’re probably not going to change very much from last year,” says White. “Grayson left pretty big shoes to fill, but Mr. Daniel is helping us through all the networking and foundational stuff we don’t really know yet. We’re learning how to do that.”
Mr. Scott Daniel is the Vice President of Technology and computer science teacher at Barstow in addition to being the faculty advisor for Cyber Patriots and teaching computer science classes. His background in information technology will help guide the team. Members of the club may follow in his footsteps and pursue a degree in technology or data science as well.
Hwang believes that the club itself “helps direct students towards a career in cyber security or another computer science, technology, engineering, and mathematical discipline.”
However, not everyone interested in such a career may know about Cyber Patriots. Despite having a booth at the Upper School Club Fair, the aim of Cyber Patriots seems a little unclear to the general student body. Some misconstrue cybersecurity for using VPNs, but it is not as simple as that.
“The main purpose [of Cyber Patriots] is to promote awareness about cybersecurity and how to prevent getting hacked,” explains White. “You could just get a VPN, and I highly suggest you do that. Doesn’t change the fact that there are a lot of other ways to get into your computer.”
Having a password doesn’t make your device safe proof either.
“Passwords, on a very surface level, will protect your information, but there are a lot of different ways people could take your information from social media sites or something else. They could guess your password, and there are certain programs that can bypass them,” continues White.
Other students, though, feel that there are better ways to talk about cybersecurity and solve such problems. Tyler Bauman ‘25, a member of Barstow’s debate team, indicated that he prefers to engage the topic in other ways.
“That’s a lot of effort,” Bauman said when asked if they would be willing to join Cyber Patriots. Even though there are only three competitions per season, Bauman still says that “that’s three more competitions than I want to go to. If I want to talk about cyber security, I would debate, and I am doing debate.”
There is also some skepticism around the club’s sponsor, the Air Force. On some level, the government has to be trying to recruit impressionable, talented young adults for the army and for their defense department through the program. The name itself emphasizes patriotism. Bauman points out that the name makes members seem like “patriotic cybers.”
White, however, says that, “The military sponsoring us is mostly because recently we’ve had a lot of security scares from foreign countries.” The military also sponsors other Barstow clubs, such as World Quest, a global knowledge competition.
Cyber Patriots is less focused on the second half of their name and more on computer science and learning. There is also a more relaxed environment around this club, and there is no strict schedule or practices. Those interested in STEM should definitely look into Cyber Patriots and the hands-on experience they offer. For more information about the club, you can contact Mr. Daniels, Anders, Alex, or Justin through email.
