Today I was pleased to give a talk entitled "Find your niche: Making an impact in the micronational community" at the 2024 Digi Micro Summit. You can see the recording of the video below:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Slabovia Participates in Cyber Competition
[SLABOVIA]
Elements of Slabovia’s cyber command, Slabovian Cyber External Network Threat
Defense, Reconnaissance, and Operations Planning (SCENTDROP), recently
participated in the Fall 2024 National Cyber League (NCL) competition.
The NCL
competition, now in its eleventh year, annually sees more than 10,000 secondary
and post-secondary students participate individually and in teams in a
competitive online arena that simulates real-life cyber-threats. Challenges in NCL
include cryptography and password cracking, open-source intelligence gathering,
application exploitation, and web application attacks, among other areas.
The
Slabovian contingent captured 2175 points in the individual game, finishing
well within the top 500 competitors overall, and 2570 points in the team game,
placing them within the top 10% of competing teams.
His Royal
Majesty, King George 2.0, who spoke at MicroCon 2023 in Joliet, IL about
“Cyberwarfare as an Existential Threat to Micronations”, led the Slabovian
effort. An internationally recognized expert in cybersecurity, His Majesty
recently joined the faculty of City University of Seattle, where he will
lecture on this area to undergraduate and graduate students.
When
reached for comment, His Majesty stated, “In the modern, connected era,
cybersecurity touches almost everything we do. We are very proud of how
Slabovia performed in NCL, given that this was our first time competing, and We
expect even better results in future competitions.”
The NCL
Commissioner, David Zeichick, said, “The NCL Competition provides the opportunity
for students to gain mastery of practical skills through well-designed challenges,
covering the major aspects of computer
security.”
For more
information about National Cyber League, see https://nationalcyberleague.org/
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Given the ongoing decline of "the platform formerly known as Twitter", I've created a new account over on bsky.social - my handle there is thellamaking.bsky.social (which was supposed to be TheLlamaKing but apparently it doesn't like capital letters).
Update: the former Twitter/X account has now been closed/deleted.
For those who aren't already aware, there's a "Digi Micro Summit" being held online in December 2024. From their website, "The Digi Micro Summit is a virtual conference hosted by the Principality of Sancratosia, the Democratic Republic of Satoshi, and the United Republic of Obscurium. This one-of-a-kind event will be held from December 27th to December 29th, 2024." I've applied to speak at it - more information as I have it!
If you're interested, the website for the conference is here.
As previously discussed, the Microphalerist Educational Archive and Library of Slabovia (MEDALS) was founded to document and preserve examples of medals, decorations, and awards from micronations. The archive was recently gifted with a full set of medals from Obscurium, which were donated by President Zar Antonov. While the MEDALS archive has not been updated yet with these items and their descriptions, that should be done in the next few days.
The archive thanks President Zar Antonov of Obscurium for his generous donation!
At the end of June, the Royal personage embarked on a whirlwind diplomatic tour.
On the weekend of June 14-16, He joined forces with His sister, the Queen of STATYS (So There And Told You So), to deliver a much-needed economic stimulus package to Detroit, Michigan (AKA cross-border shopping). While there, both royals were hosted for dinner by the Sogmo of Sandus, Will Soergel, and their consort, Oliver.
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| Will and Oliver |
On Monday of the following week, the King met up with Emperor Eric Lis of the Aerican Empire, who was accompanied by his consort Jenny and their son, Jake (AKA "Squishy") on their own grand tour. The royal party played mini golf and stopped for lunch.
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| Lunch time! |
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| Outside of the shop |
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| Posing with the flag |
Finally, on the Friday of that week, His Majesty did a walking tour of the Republic of Rathnelly, an area of Toronto which briefly separated from Canada in the 1960s to protest a planned Spadina Expressway which would have passed right through their neighbourhood. Local street signs still proclaim the republic's existence and "Stop Spadina Lane" is named to commemorate their victory.
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| Local street signs delineate the boundaries of the Republic of Rathnelly |
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| Stop Spadina Lane commemorates their victory |
One of the frequently-asked questions among micronations is, "Where can I get (insert object) made for my micronation?"
Arthur Tourneau of Duckionary and Zar Antonov of Obscurium have come up with the following list of companies that produce objects that might be of interest to micronations. The list is Euro-centric, since that's where both of these micronations hail from, but it's a good place to start:
I offer my thanks to both Zar and Arthur for their work in compiling this list!
