I host a Shell Challenge each month from my discord and Twitch channels. I need to be better about promoting them, however, so that’s what this section is for. Every first or second Wednesday of the month is tour night, and I tour everyone’s submissions on this night. If you cannot attend (or don’t get done in time for the deadline), I am more than happy to tour any completed shell challenge for free at any time you are able to stop by a sims stream on my Twitch channel.
That being said, this section is also all about having a record of all the shell challenges I’ve done in the past. I have, from very early on, always tried to make each of my shell challenges be a bit of a brain-teaser. Something that will make you think. Either with a theme, or a puzzle/problem, or coming up with a story in your head to match your build. I am perpetually coming up with new ideas, so don’t expect these challenges to stop anytime soon – I have at least through 2024 and most of 2025 already either planned, or the ideas sketched out. In some cases, they’re already even built and ready to go except for their promo graphics.
2020-2021 Challenges | 2022 Challenges | 2023 Challenges | 2024 ISpy House
In the modern digital ecosystem, algorithms govern everything from which news we see and who we date to how much we pay for plane tickets and whether we get a mortgage. But what happens when these systems are not just biased or inefficient, but actively malicious? What happens when an algorithm is programmed to fail, manipulated to deceive, or designed to self-destruct in a way that harms its users?
Enter the Algorithmic Sabotage Research Group (ASRG). While not a household name like OpenAI or Google DeepMind, the ASRG has emerged as one of the most critical, albeit shadowy, collectives in the field of computational integrity. This article provides a deep dive into the origins, mission, methodologies, and ethical quandaries surrounding this enigmatic organization.
The ASRG has significantly influenced how scholars view the relationship between humans and machines. Their contributions include:
To understand the ASRG, one must understand the vacuum it filled. Prior to its founding in 2019 (by a coalition of former intelligence analysts and academic logicians), the tech industry had robust teams for "security" (preventing external breaches) and "quality assurance" (catching random bugs). However, no one was systematically looking for intentional malice baked into the logic layer.
Consider the classic "loyalty penalty" algorithms used by insurance or telecom companies. While regulators call these "price optimization," the ASRG calls them a form of soft sabotage—systems designed to gradually increase friction for loyal users without triggering explicit fraud alerts. Traditional audits miss this because the code works perfectly; it is the intent that is broken. The ASRG was created to build the forensic tools and legal frameworks to prove that intent.
