CodePros

It's been a whole two weeks now since we completed the latest Challenge Series at GopherCon 2025, and we're already laying the groundwork for next year.

Over the last two weeks, our feedback form has been busy, as Gophers from across the world have made sure to help us shape future Challenge Series events to be even better than this year's. A very important part of this year's feedback form is voting on the shortlist for next year's theme. As voted by you, and your fellow Gophers, the Top Four Themes for Challenge Series to pursue next are:

Dune
Jurassic Park
Cyberpunk
Portal + Half Life

All of these themes received at least 25 points worth of votes, and all are under consideration for next year's competition, though we do have a couple of specific front-runners within this set.

While most of the themes besides our Top Four were fairly neutral in score (averaging about 2 points), we had another standout from the themes, voted COMPLETELY into oblivion with -25 points:

The X-Files

As we get further from this year's competition (and closer to next year's), expect more teasers and information about what to expect in 2026.

Sometimes your security/development teams need extra help...

CodePros (https://CodePros.org) is here to help!

📊 Matrix Challenge Series — Final Stats 📊

🕶️ 196 registrations → 85 crews
👥 26.3% of conference attendees broke out of the system
🧩 87 challenges available — only 5 remain unsolved
• 1 unused speaker flag
• 3 hidden flags
• 2 eternal secrets, unsolved across all years

⚡ 769 correct submissions vs. 7248 incorrect
(only 9.6% correct)

🏆 26 prizes awarded to 22 winners
🔥 7 crews broke 50% of all points
💻 Only 1 user crossed that mark solo

👨👩👧 Largest crew size: 18
Most: 5 or fewer hackers holding the line

The Matrix fought back hard — but the resistance was stronger.

Life's challenges got you down? Need a new keyboard?

If you want a challenge you can solve join us next year at GopherCon 2026 for the Challenge Series!

Congratulations to the winning team Lemon Tree!

Hey Folks - Here is the feedback form for this year's Challenge Series event:
https://forms.gle/zXu2bkNEwPnznrAH8

Please take some time after the competition ends to fill out the feedback form and help us improve the competition.

⚡ Huge thanks to for powering the Challenge Series this year.

Our CTF runs on Oxide’s next-gen racks + control plane — giving us bare-metal performance with cloud-like orchestration. Reliable, fast, and built by engineers who actually understand what builders need.

We couldn’t ask for a better infrastructure sponsor. 🖤💚

Flags end up in the strangest of places

🕶️ You could be the One.
There’s still time to jack in — the Matrix Challenge Series is live.

💻 Hack the puzzles
🔓 Break the system
🏆 Climb the leaderboard

Join now before the signal fades.

📊 Challenge Series Stats Drop 📊

👥 185 registered players
🏆 Top Teams:
1️⃣ DNF — 5145 pts
2️⃣ Go4Magic — 4387 pts
3️⃣ Just For Fun — 4226 pts

🔥 Top Users:
1️⃣ ndy — 3676 pts
2️⃣ ibk — 3652 pts
3️⃣ admin — 3294 pts

❓ Challenges Unsolved: 7
🎤 Unclaimed Speaker Flags: 8
⚠️ Failed Submissions: 6,700

The code was bent, systems were broken, and the scoreboard tells the story.

⌨️🔥 Feast your eyes on this split mechanical beauty, courtesy of .

One skilled hacker in the Challenge Series will walk away with this custom keyboard — built for those who refuse to type on anything ordinary. Every keypress is precision. Every line of code, faster.

Big thanks to Keeb.io for sponsoring one of the slickest prizes at 🕶️💻