Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderSee also: * https://linuxsurvival.com/ * https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxupskillchallenge/ * https://github.com/learnbyexample/TUI-apps (written by me, interactive exercises for grep, sed, awk, etc)
Wargames are great. Vortex has been around for a long time and really gives a sense of how memory-corruption based software exploitation looks like. If you liked that, check out https://ctftime.org and writeups from the top events (Google CTF, hxpctf, PlaidCTF are some examples).
These reminded me of a ... "computer game" distributed on a CD (yep, that's at least 15 ago) where you would play a hacker accessing everything through a cli interface (it was fairly realistic, or so I remember it: never played but bought a copy as gift for a friend). You would get "contracts" being asked to penetrate increasingly sophisticated companies - and you started putting together a worrying picture about some sort of conspiracy. Can someone help me remember…
If you are looking for more wargames like this, https://www.wechall.net/ has a large index and allows you to keep a persistent score based on which challenges you have completed.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 4
- Total points
- 885
- Total comments
- 116
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-01-19 | OverTheWire.org wargames | te | 2 | 0 |
| 2015-02-08 | Wargames | franzpeterstein | 4 | 1 |
| 2015-07-13 | WargamesFirst breakout | nullgeo | 146 | 17 |
| 2016-11-13 | OverTheWire: Wargames | eth0up | 2 | 0 |
| 2017-10-25 | OverTheWire: Wargames | petethomas | 4 | 0 |
| 2018-01-28 | OverTheWire: Wargames to learn and practice security concepts | p4bl0 | 172 | 23 |
| 2020-12-14 | OverTheWire: Wargames | lemonspat | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-01-31 | Wargames – OverTheWire | letientai299 | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-12-29 | Wargames can help you to learn and practice security concepts through games | azalemeth | 220 | 26 |
| 2023-08-27 | Overthewire.orgHall induction · Best thread · Latest 20+ point return | ghostfoxgod | 326 | 49 |
| 2025-08-13 | OverTheWire: Learn and practice security concepts through fun games | vincentchau | 1 | 0 |
| 2025-08-14 | OverTheWire: WarGames | panki27 | 1 | 0 |
| 2026-03-12 | OverTheWire: Wargames | surprisetalk | 3 | 0 |