By: Aynslee Douglass
Sitting outside the Starbucks in Prairie Village at 1 a.m. after nine hours of working inside the coffee shop, freshman Miles Muehlbach and sophomore Yabo Wang are exhausted. They’ve been completing hacking challenges, ever since they got out of school.
They were perfecting their hacking techniques and researching new ways to unlock a database. This practice wasn’t to break into a company's database or cheat on a test, but to win the “Roo CTF” competition.
This is one of several cybersecurity competitions in which Muehlbach has participated. The competition's layout is unique compared to other competitions, with the goal of being the first to hack into a database.
“It's called Red Teaming, and it's essentially trying to use what would be considered malicious tools and tactics to figure out how to break something before the bad people can, so they can then go and fix it,” Muehlbach said.
On Oct. 25, the freshman-sophomore duo entered against several college students, an increased level of competition.
The prize for the college students Muehlbach and Wang were competing against was $1000 per team, and though the duo did beat them, but, they only came home with $400 each due to being in high school.
“They didn't give us the university prize,” Wang said. “I feel that just proved our worth to ourselves, which was enough reward for us.”
Muehlbach also participates in the Cyber Patriot League, a national cybersecurity program for youth that focuses on creating defense mechanisms from hacking. The SMSD team is run by an engineering instructor at the Center of Academic Achievement. Muehlbach and the SMSD team have qualified for the national semi-finals, which takes place on Jan. 22-24, through the Kansas state meet, where they placed first, beating out Blue Valley School District.
Though the Cyber Patriot League has been integral in Muehlbach’s life since August of seventh grade, his passion for computers has always been a part of him.
“Computers are such a [big] part of our lives. I was really interested in how all of that works under the hood,” Muehlbach said. “And I think being able to code is the best way to understand that.”
Muehlbech practices with the cybersecurity team at the CAA once a month with 20 other students from across the Shawnee Mission School District. While many rising sophomores will be deciding between AP European History and AP Microeconomics for their first AP course, Muehlbach will be choosing between AP Computer Science and AP Cybersecurity at the CAA.
These advanced tech classes usually require an introductory class, however his current coding knowledge already meets the requirements. He can take other classes, such as engineering, without being limited to introductory levels.
“The classes that I could take this year were more like basic levels,” Muehlbach said. “I wouldn't really get a lot out of them. I can skip some other classes sophomore year.”
According to Muehlbach, the ability to self-teach coding techniques is essential for growth. To complete his first project, he used online resources and continues to do this as he grows his portfolio.
“I just read documentation, which is online websites that have basic information about how [coding] works, and read [documentation] of what I wanted to process,” Muehlbach said.
This comprehension is necessary in order for him to hack into software for competitions, according to Muehlbach.
This also translates into robotics, which he pursues through a non-affiliated robotics team. He practices three times a week, working on functions for multiple hours with a team of 15 high schoolers from across the KC metro area.
Their State qualifying competition was the weekend of Jan. 17, when both SM East and Muehlbach's team earned automatic bids. To do this, they had to complete a series of challenges.
“This year, we have these balls that we have to pick up and then shoot this goal,” Muehlbach said.
He’s in charge of the programming, while others work on design. The team competitions are challenging due to the long hours, but very enjoyable and rewarding, according to Muehlbach.
In between competitions and practices, Muehlbach can be found experimenting in his “home lab.” In the basement of his house, there’s a room, filled to the brim with wires, computers and the glow of his PC. In his “home lab,” Muehlbach spends the majority of his time programming, dissecting code and managing his servers.
Although Muehlbach loves his weekend competitions and working in his home lab, he’s anticipating a larger project.
“My goal by the end of high school is to find a project that's like my passion project, and release it and try to gain support for it,” Muehlbach said.” I think it'd be a good thing for me to do personally, to expand my portfolio.”
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