FazeCT 
Finally I have some free time to write about my trip to Saudi Arabia for Blackhat MEA, which happened in November 2024 💀
I came to the event as a member of snibedisnaphesback and got full reimbursements for being one of the top 10 teams in the qualification (to be exact, we were the eleventh but The Flat Network Society withdrew).
As a fellow Vietnamese, Onirique from thehackerscrew also came along with me on the same flights and we both shared one hotel room in Riyadh.
Information about Blackhat MEA 2024 can be found here.
First impression
idk why but I had to take flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong to Riyadh, which was a very odd route…
After arriving in Riyadh, we took a loooong 40km trip from the King Khalid Int’l Airport to our hotel, Boudl AL Sulaymaniyah.
They acquired us a very big apartment-like accommodation with a living room and a twin room, with greatly prepared amenities.
Main event (Day 1 - 2)
We took a 100km road trip by bus from the hotel to get to the onsite location (which was held in the middle of a desert 💀).
Before the start of the CTF, I wandered around to check the booths of the conference. There were many exciting sectors, such as airplane hacking, car hacking, medical security, …
This below was the atmosphere of the CTF event, with over 250 teams participated. Everytime someone first-blooded a chall, or a new team got the first position, they would play an audio (I did not flinch) and show the team’s name on that big screen.
The challenges were okayish, except the one that reused the obfuscation scheme from Flare-on 11 Challenge 9 (Serpentine) on an infeasible algorithm that needed to be guessed to solve, which annoyed me a little bit.
Main event (Day 3)
At the end of the day we still managed to get into top 17 with only two players onsite.
Congrats to all of the teams that had made into top 10, and Dicegang to be crowned the champion of 2024 edition!
What an ending! Blackhat MEA CTF 2024 was officially crowned the LARGEST in the world by Guinness World Records!
Foods
We got to try some of the specialties of Saudi Arabia, including a full-course at one of the best steakhouse in Riyadh.
This was one of the dishes, iirc it was grilled cheese wrapped with pan-seared porkchop.
For one of the nights, we tried camel meat. The thing tasted just like beef but more juicy and had a greasiness feeling when eaten.
(the camel hump was so fatty it gave me nausea 💀)
I also tried this T-bone in The Black Pinoy, and it was hella chewy that it took me over an hour to finish 💀
(and their boba was also hard as rock 💀)
Al-Nassr vs. Damac
I didn’t expect the ticket for this football match at Al-Awwal Park (home stadium of Al-Nassr) to be super cheap - we bought 2 tickets for seats in the corner of the stadium for ~15$ each.
Before the match, we also paid for some French fries with cheese and a signature sauce as dressings, and it was spot on.
This was my first time attending a live match outside of Vietnam, and I was amazed by Al-Nassr fans! They cheered very actively without feeling tired throughout the whole match.
We were so lucky WTF? Our semi-🐐 Cristiano Ronaldo scored a penalty at 17’ and ran straight into our face, celebrated with his signature moves. SIUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!
He then later scored his second goal at 79’ and just barely missed his hat-trick by being offsided. What a match!
Boulevard City
After the football match, we departed for Boulevard City to enjoy Riyadh’s nightlife.
We decided to try Raising Canes’s (there is no such brand in Vietnam) because we heard that the brand is popular for its signature sauce - correct me if I’m wrong.
Inside of the Boulevard City, lots of themed sections can be found and here is my photo dump of them.
Random things
JLPT
I skipped the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) level N2 in order to enjoy the whole trip to Saudi Arabia 💀 Gotta wait until July 2025 for the next exam window 💀
University assignment
Me and Onirique had to work on an assignment for 24 hours straight before the football match 💀 We bought the tickets before starting the assignment to boost ourselves up 💀
Traffic in Saudi
First time I have been on a 135km/h car (average in Vietnam is like 40km/h). The roads were also poorly designed at the intersections as well (no wonder 90% of cars in Saudi were dented 💀)
Thesis instructor
What a coincidence that he also went to Saudi for Blackhat MEA conference. I intended to take a week off from thesis, but ended up having to work onsite with him in the hotel 💀
Time to go back
With my limited memory buffer, I can only recall the above contents after like 2 months from the event.
Through the trip, I had chances to meet so many cool (and talented) people from big CTF teams as well as to try many things that are not available in Vietnam.
And, thanks to the organizers for this free trip! To the readers, see you soon in my next travel blog.