Interview with quangntenemy

First of all, we would like to thank quangntenemy for taking the time to participate in this interview.

If you're a Rankk member, quangntenemy needs no introduction. He's the top rankked member, with 153 challenges solved at the time of this interview. Not only has he contributed challenges, he has also been helping with providing feedback and fixing bugs.

Speaking for myself, I'm always curious about the person behind the username, and so this interview was conceived. quangntenemy gave very frank and interesting answers to our questions. I enjoyed reading his responses and I'm sure you too will be delighted to hear his story.

How did you discover Rankk?

One nice Friday evening, I felt a little bored. Had a nice chat on #tbs at irc.idlemonkeys.net and ch0wch0w and Sapr0 referred me to the site. It looked interesting and very unique. And so the journey began :D

So you're a Java hacker...could you tell us more about yourself?

I'm 23 years old, working for a bank in Vietnam. Solving computer-based challenges is my passion. I've been solving challenges on various challenge sites since 2003 and I have lots of experience :) Java is my favourite language.

Is there a particular challenge you enjoyed and one that you hated a lot?

Among those I have solved blackjack and python 103 were the most interesting. And of course I hate the challenges I haven't solved :P

How did it begin for you? What was your first challenge site?

Well it all began in 2003 when someone gave me the link to an academy challenge site. It was called StarFleet Academy I think. There were a total of 10 levels and I solved them all in just one night.

As I really enjoyed the challenges, I continued searching for challenge sites and finally found hackergames.net. All the good challenge sites are listed there. I fought my way through various challenge sites, notably arcanum, slyfx, ma's reversing, modx, theblacksheep, hackquest, netforce. theblacksheep was the most enjoyable. I even contributed many challenges there.I really can't imagine how I missed good challenge sites like cyberarmy and the old pyramid. But I'm glad now that I'm here on the new one :)

Do you ever give up on a challenge? How much time are you willing to spend on a challenge before you surrender?

Yes, when I have been working on a challenge for a long time without making any progress. But that's only temporarily. I'll come back once I'm in a good mood to start working on it again or when a new brilliant idea pops out of my mind.

I solve challenges mostly for fun, so the more interesting the challenge looks like, the more time I spend on it.

You are rankked #1 at Rankk...what do you think of that? Do you think you'll be bypassed? If so, who's this person likely to be?

To be honest, it's the first time I can reach the first place at a challenge site, so I consider it my own accomplishment. But I am well aware that some day someone better than me might come and take over the place. It could be an old member like valsa or coobb, or maybe a new guy. Whoever that is, he's gonna have a tough battle. I'm not giving it up easily :)

You haven't solved the Geb challenge - the one that will get you to heavens. Do you have a time frame for it?

No plan yet. I'm currently stuck on the second part although I have been trying it for so long. Maybe one nice day the right idea will pop out and you'll see my name written in blue ;)

If you were to set up a challenge site, how would you do it?

An interesting question. As Java is my favourite language the site would probably be a collection of Java-based challenges. Maybe it'd be divided into different sections for different groups: beginners, intermediate and advanced. And of course it would be Java powered :)

What is your favourite food?

Sheep barbecue, of course. Maybe that'll help you in some challenges ;)