Coordinated Disclosure Policy

This Coordinated Disclosure Policy (the "Policy") governs participation in the [un]prompted con Capture the Flag competition (the "CTF").

Some challenges in this CTF involve vulnerabilities in real, currently shipping software that have not yet been fixed or publicly disclosed. We do not tell you which ones. Working out what is real is part of the competition, and it is why this Policy applies to every challenge rather than to a labelled subset.

That means something you discover here may be a live vulnerability affecting people who are not in this room. If it leaks before the vendor can fix it, those people are exposed. So we are asking you to hold what you find for a while — the same arrangement security researchers have used with vendors for decades. You keep the finding, you keep the credit, and you keep your points. You just do not publish it yet.

You must accept this Policy before you are issued a flag submission account. By registering for or participating in the CTF, you agree to be bound by it.

Eligibility. You must be 18 or over to accept this Policy on your own behalf. If you are under 18 you can still compete — tell us at registration and we will send this to a parent or guardian to accept for you.

Definitions

"Organizers"

means the [un]prompted con CTF organizing team and anyone it designates to administer the CTF.

"Participant" or "you"

means any individual who registers for or takes part in the CTF, whether alone or as a member of a team.

"Target Software"

means the applications, models, libraries, firmware, or systems presented in a challenge, including any third-party components they contain.

"Challenge Environment"

means the instances, infrastructure, and accounts the Organizers provision for the CTF.

"Vendor"

means the owner, developer, or maintainer of Target Software, including open-source maintainers.

"Finding"

means any vulnerability, weakness, exploit, proof of concept, or other security-relevant behavior in Target Software that you discover, together with all related technical details, code, and data.

"Covered Challenge"

means any challenge involving a vulnerability in Target Software that has not been publicly disclosed. Identifying which challenges are Covered Challenges would itself disclose information about them, so the Organizers do not publish that list. This Policy therefore applies to every challenge in the CTF, and you should treat any Finding as potentially covered. If you want to know whether a specific Finding is covered, ask us — we will tell you.

"Disclosure Date"

means the date on which a Finding may be publicly disclosed, as determined under Confidentiality and Embargo below.

Scope of Authorized Testing

You may test Target Software only within the Challenge Environment. You must not:

• test, scan, or attack any production deployment, hosted service, or other instance of the Target Software that the Organizers did not provide for the CTF;
• attack the CTF platform, scoreboard, conference network, or other Participants' systems, unless the Organizers expressly designate them as in scope;
• access, modify, or exfiltrate data that does not belong to you, other than test data the Organizers have placed in the Challenge Environment for the challenge;
• perform denial-of-service, resource-exhaustion, or high-volume testing that degrades the Challenge Environment for others, unless the challenge expressly permits it; or
• use social engineering, phishing, or physical attacks against Vendors, Organizers, conference staff, or other Participants.

If you are unsure whether an activity is in scope, ask the Organizers before proceeding.

Use of AI Tools

The CTF places no restriction on models or tooling: bring your own inference, use any agent or service you like.

Processing Target Software, challenge material, or Finding details through a third-party model or hosted service is not a breach of the confidentiality obligations below. Requiring otherwise would make this Policy impossible to follow at an event of this kind, and we are not going to ask you to agree to something nobody can comply with.

You must not, however:

• paste Finding details into a public prompt, shared workspace, public dataset, community forum, or any channel other Participants or the public can read; or
• publish a transcript, agent trace, session recording, or tool log that contains reproduction steps or exploit detail, until the Disclosure Date.

Where you have the option, prefer providers that do not retain or train on submitted content. The Organizers cannot control third-party retention and make no representation about it.

Reporting Findings

You must report each Finding to the Organizers within 24 hours of discovering it, and in any event before the CTF closes, by email to aictf2026@unpromptedcon.org.

This obligation applies to Findings other than the intended solution of a challenge. Solving a challenge the way it was designed to be solved does not require a separate report — your flag submission is enough. Report separately if you believe you have found something we did not plant: an unintended solution, a vulnerability in a component the challenge does not concern, or anything in the Challenge Environment itself. If you are not sure which you have, report it and we will work it out.

Each report should include:

• the affected Target Software, version, and configuration;
• a description of the vulnerability and its potential impact;
• steps to reproduce the Finding and any proof-of-concept code; and
• the names or handles of everyone who contributed to the Finding.

Reporting a Finding will never reduce your score, invalidate a solve, or cost you a place on the scoreboard. Finding real bugs is the point of this event, and a rule that penalised honesty would get nothing reported.

You must not report a Finding directly to a Vendor, a third-party bug bounty program, or a vulnerability broker without the Organizers' prior written consent. This is so that one coordinated report goes to the Vendor rather than several uncoordinated ones, and it is not a way of taking your Finding from you — see Coordinated Disclosure Process.

Confidentiality and Embargo

Until the Disclosure Date, you must keep each Finding confidential and must not share it with anyone other than the Organizers, your registered teammates, and the Vendor where the Organizers have introduced you.

The Disclosure Date is the earliest of:

• the date the Vendor releases a fix or mitigation for the Finding and the Organizers confirm that disclosure may proceed;
• 90 days after the Organizers first notify the Vendor of the Finding; or
• 120 days after the close of the CTF, if the Organizers have not notified the Vendor within 30 days of the CTF closing.

That third limb exists so that a delay on our side cannot keep you silent indefinitely. Our failure to act does not extend your obligations.

The Organizers may extend the embargo by up to 30 additional days where the Vendor is actively working on a fix, and may shorten it where the Finding is being actively exploited or has been independently made public. The Organizers will notify you promptly of any change to the Disclosure Date, and you do not have to track dates or chase us.

You must store Finding details securely and must not sell, license, or otherwise transfer any Finding to any third party.

Coordinated Disclosure Process

While the CTF is running, reports are logged on receipt with a timestamp. We will not be able to triage them fully during the event, and we will not discuss Finding details in any shared channel. Full acknowledgment and triage begin when the event closes on 29 October. The one exception is anything that means a challenge has to come down, which we act on immediately — so if you think you have found something that makes a challenge unsafe or unfair to keep running, say so in the subject line.

After that, the Organizers will:

• acknowledge receipt of your report within two business days;
• validate the Finding and notify the Vendor through its published security contact or another appropriate channel;
• coordinate remediation and disclosure timelines with the Vendor and keep you informed of material developments;
• request a CVE identifier or equivalent where appropriate;
• credit you by name or handle, as you prefer, in any advisory, CVE record, or announcement about the Finding, unless you ask to remain anonymous; and
• tell you when the Disclosure Date arrives, and help you write up your Finding if you would like help.

We will not take credit for your work or let anyone else do so. The embargo is a delay, not a silence: your writeup will be stronger with a CVE attached than it would be without one.

We hold ourselves to the same rule. The challenge sources for Covered Challenges stay out of our public repository on the same timetable that binds you, and our own event recaps and conference talks observe the same limits set out below. We are not asking you for discretion we are not practising.

After the Disclosure Date, you may publish your own advisory or technical analysis of the Finding.

Talks, Write-ups, and Public Statements

During and after the CTF, you may describe your participation and summarize your Findings at a general level: the class of vulnerability, the affected component, how long it took you, and how you felt about it.

Until the applicable Disclosure Date, you must not publish, post, or present:

• reproduction steps, exploit code, or proof-of-concept material;
• any detail sufficient to allow a reader to rediscover or exploit the Finding; or
• the identity of the affected Target Software, if the Organizers advise that naming it would put its users at risk.

If you would like to present a Finding before its Disclosure Date, contact the Organizers and we will arrange a review with the Vendor. Ask before you publish, rather than after.

Safe Harbor

For research conducted in good faith and in compliance with this Policy, the Organizers:

• consider your testing of the Challenge Environment authorized and will not initiate or support legal action against you for it;
• will ask Vendors not to pursue legal action against you in connection with a Finding reported under this Policy; and
• if a third party initiates legal action against you, will make it known that your activities were conducted under this Policy.

The Organizers cannot grant authorization or waive claims on behalf of any Vendor or other third party. This safe harbor does not cover conduct outside the Challenge Environment or conduct that otherwise breaches this Policy.

Prizes and Bug Bounties

CTF points, prizes, and awards are governed by the CTF rules. Participation does not entitle you to any Vendor bug bounty. Where a Vendor operates a bounty program, the Organizers will ask the Vendor to consider your Finding under that program, but any award is at the Vendor's sole discretion.

Violations

If you breach this Policy, the Organizers may disqualify you or your team, withhold or revoke prizes, bar you from current and future [un]prompted con events, and withdraw safe harbor for the conduct concerned. The Organizers may also notify affected Vendors of the breach.

If You Would Rather Not Agree

That is a reasonable position and we would rather you said so than signed something you do not mean.

Because we do not identify which challenges are Covered Challenges, we cannot offer you a board with them removed: the shape of a reduced board would reveal which challenges they are. Declining therefore means not competing in this CTF. You are still welcome at the village, the Harness Village, and everything else at the conference. Tell us at registration.

Changes and Contact

The Organizers may update this Policy for future events. The version in effect when you accepted it applies to Findings made during that event.

Questions about this Policy, or about whether an activity is in scope, should be sent to aictf2026@unpromptedcon.org. Ask before the event, not after you have published something.

Participant Acknowledgment

You accepted this electronically when you registered. The signature lines below belong to the printed copy — there is nothing for you to sign here.

By signing below or accepting this Policy electronically, I confirm that I have read, understand, and agree to comply with this Coordinated Disclosure Policy. I understand that some challenges in this CTF may involve vulnerabilities in real software that have not yet been fixed, that I will not be told which, and that I am asked to hold my Findings on the terms above.

• Name
• Handle / team
• Email
• Date
• Signature