WeChall Certificates – A Strategic Upgrade

Hey Gizmore and everyone,

It's great to see WeChall up and running for more than 17 years, as such an inspiring and intellectually rewarding platform. WeChall has been a unique hub that not only connects the global challenge-solving community, but also motivates individuals to push their limits in problem-solving, security, cryptography, and much more.

I would like to propose a new feature that could greatly enhance both the user experience and the visibility of WeChall in the broader tech ecosystem: introducing certificates of achievement.

* Why Certificates Matter

While WeChall’s ranking and stats already serve as a great measure of skill, certificates add a tangible, shareable recognition for users who reach specific milestones. This feature has been successfully implemented on platforms like HackerRank, where developers can earn certifications after completing structured assessments. These certificates are widely shared on LinkedIn and other professional networks, contributing to:
- Individual career growth
- Increased brand awareness for the platform
- Organic traffic generation from social sharing

WeChall, with its strong community and high-quality challenge integration, is in a great position to offer similar — but even more elite — recognition.

* Potential Benefits for WeChall

1. User Motivation: Certificates provide a clear and rewarding goal, especially for new users or students exploring cybersecurity for the first time.

2. Growth in User Base: Learners, universities, and bootcamps often look for platforms that offer credentials. Certification can attract this demographic.

3. Increased Social Presence: Shareable certificates (with a unique URL or badge) will naturally boost WeChall’s visibility across LinkedIn, personal portfolios, and GitHub READMEs.

4. Positioning WeChall as a Recognized Authority: A well-designed certification system can gradually earn the same level of recognition in security circles as HackerRank has in general software engineering.

* Example Implementation Ideas

- Tiered Certificate Levels (e.g., Beginner, Intermediate, Expert) based on points or challenge diversity.

- Challenge Domain Badges (e.g., Web, Crypto, Forensics).

- Verified Profile Links that employers or peers can use to validate someone’s achievements.

Optional: A small contribution/donation to unlock downloadable or printable certificates (to help support the platform).

* Respecting User Privacy & Alias Culture

One important consideration: many WeChall users prefer using nicknames instead of real names, which is a respected tradition in the CTF and infosec community. To accommodate this:

- Certificates can be issued under the user’s alias by default.

- There can be an optional field for users who wish to include their real name (e.g. for CV/LinkedIn purposes).

- All certificates should include a unique Cert ID and a verification link (e.g. wechall.net/cert/verify/WC-2025-09238) to ensure authenticity, even without a real name.

- Maybe we can also provide a completely transparent certificate - one that shows real name but with no traceable link to the user's nickname.

This approach balances privacy, culture, and verifiability — a combination rarely seen in today’s gamified learning platforms.

* Closing Thoughts

I believe introducing certificates is not about gamifying WeChall — it’s about elevating the incredible effort and expertise already being cultivated here. It gives users a way to show their work, and gives the world a reason to recognize what WeChall has built.

I believe with Gizmore's skills and passions, this addition would be done in a short period of time. Myself and the WeChall community would be more than happy to help further refine this idea if helpful.

Reference: https://www.hackerrank.com/blog/new-technical-skills-certifications/

Regards,

quangntenemy

Quote from quangntenemy

Jun 16, 2025 - 05:13:32

* Example Implementation Ideas

- Tiered Certificate Levels (e.g., Beginner, Intermediate, Expert) based on points or challenge diversity.

I read "Tired Certificate -- I definitely deserve that one!

No TL;DR?

Just kidding

Hi quang o/

Hey Quang,
I really like your idea, and I want to challenge / offer suggestions / propose additionnal reflexions...

If I try to think like a marketeer, i would ask the following questions:

What is the current situation on WeChall? how many new players do we get each month? how many do we lose? how many are sleeping?... @gizmore => do youh ave some kind of stats, or is it possible to get some anonymized data to run some statistics? I've the gut feeling that we have a bunch of dormant accounts, some old seasoned hacker, but I've no idea about how many new players arrive here

what is our Unique Service Proposition? there are a lot of hacking sites that provides premium membership and some kind of certificates or bragging tokens that one can display on linkedin. Some of those sites are affiliated to wechall (hackthebox, pwn.college, rootme,...) I think what's unique here is :

- a really diverse collation of challenge websites, from hacking archeology (TBS, +Ma,..) to "out of the box thinking" challenges nearly unrelated to hacking (enimes-a-thematiques, brainquest) to up-to-date real-life computer security challenges (hackthebox,...). In fact iti so diverse that it's nearly impossible to categorize the different sites
- a bunch of old-timer challengers ready to help newbies to learn those amazing skills and dive into the marvelous world of hacking

some ideas:
- we could act as curator, and create some learnign path through the different sites. For example, In order to learn cryptography, we advise to start with challenge X,Y on site Z, then challenge A,B,C on site D, etc, then all challenges on "try to decrypt" and "cryptohack" and if one gets X points on site Z and Y points on site D and so on, we award a "crypto" badge (and a "crypto expert" badge aferward, then an "expert" one etc)
- we could also provide some kind of mentoring program, where newbies can get a seasoned mentor as a guide through the massive amount of challenge, and answer questions like "where do I sart" or "what to do nect" or "I'm lost"

The work to implement this would probably be huge: in addition to the programming, the curation part can take a lot of effort. But if I can win a "Wechall mentor" badge, you can count on me

That is, if you are measuring WeChall's success in user count.
I bet the WC server will be glad if active user count doesn't rise. (seenoevil)

You're right, it's maybe the first question to ask: do we want more users

Hey quangster,

always nice reading you! Have you been experimenting with AI?

I support the idea, but i fear the implementation and the design and the general logic behind the certificates/achievements/etc. would have to be more detailed to take this on, since IMHO gizmore and the rest of the admin team are not very actively contributing to the site for various reasons.

Best,
tehron

Hiya,

For certs we could make wechall only certs (only wechall challenges count)
maybe "100% exploit" and so on.
Then maybe 2 certs overall 75% and 100%.
Some more challs could round up the quality of the certs.
We can make a challenge "Zooooooooom" where you get interviewed and need to solve a secret chall. An admin observes the challenger solving with teams or alike.


The big problem is how does someone validate that you really claimed a "WCert".
How can an employer check this?
Maybe a few rows of text that is user controlled and can contain data to verify it's him.... like you can put the name of a company for when you go to a job interview or something other that recognizes them.

LG
- giz

Yes, Gizmore, that's a good start!

Maybe we can also use RSA to digitally sign the information. At least that'll work until a true large-scale universal quantum computer is built

After that maybe we can expand to multi-site cert. Something like: 80% crypto on 6 major crypto challenge sites - similar to the The Six Star Marathon Medal by Abbott https://www.worldmarathonmajors.com/stars

This is something only Wechall can do!

Especially we need a certificate for "Master of LLM agent prompting".