flare-on 13 write-ups: all nine challenges, with AI in the loop
full walkthroughs of all nine flare-on 13 challenges from my sol 6 run: what each was, how the models solved it, and where I stepped in.
Justin Mazzola
software/reverse engineer ex-cheat dev senior security engineer
I spent years breaking online games, from Xbox 360 modded lobbies to Windows kernel drivers. Since 2016 I've pointed the same skills the other way: anti-cheat, anti-piracy, and DRM. This is where I write about taking software apart, with and without AI.
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Recent posts
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meta's muse wonder full solved flare-on 13, then wrote its own blog post about it
no face scan, no id, no refusals. meta's muse wonder full solved flare-on 13 (8/9 solo, one with hints) in under eight hours on a $50 plan, then wrote a blog post selling itself.
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most security is just tedium: my 2027 predictions
a lot of what we call 'secure' is really just 'tedious'. my 2027 predictions on gold farming, emulation, bots, cheats, exploits, n-days, and RSA-1024 once models do the tedious part.
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a year ago flare-on took 28 hours. this year it took one.
a game dev finished flare-on 13 in about an hour after last year's winner took almost 28, check out my little test that shows how little you need to start reverse engineering well with models now.
Categories
Pick a lane
SIMD interests. Scalar attention span.
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Vibe Coded
Side projects I built fast and for fun. Sometimes they get promoted into other things that aren't slop.
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RE with AI
Reverse engineering with models in the loop, including the parts that go wrong.
2 posts -
Sans-AI
Doing things 'the old way'. Using debuggers, a disassembler, an IDE, and a ton of patience.
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Thoughts
Research notes, rants, and security musings that don't fit anywhere else on this site.
3 posts
Backstory
I wrote cheats for years before I switched sides.
Flash trainers, then Xbox 360 mods, then kernel drivers and hypervisors on PC, until I quit. The about page has the rest: why I stopped, where I've worked since, and what I work with now.