If it's all the same to you, I'm going to focus on inspiring people with today's technology, and hopefully help fuel their curiosity to learn about what comes in the future – whatever that may be.
Source code wouldn't help, because there's no way to verify any code I showed would be the same as the version on the App Store. Fortunately, you can just watch the network packets leaving from your device when you run the app, and you'll see literally nothing coming to me.
You'll be pleased to know that the app is not only a one-time payment, but also has zero tracking – no analytics, no logging, no adverts, and no data collection of any kind.
The native version does quite a few extra things, including bringing all the solving tools inside the app (as opposed to using external tools like CyberChef, Boxentriq, Dcode, etc), but also has more compute-intensive operations like creating spectrograms of audio and image manipulation, a much bigger implementation of the Linux terminal, and (safely!) destructive things too – you get local copies of files or databases to work with, so you can delete them, modify them, etc, freely, rather than being restricted to working with shared resources.
I think it's hugely important to eliminate barriers to get access to education, which is why there's a free, web-based version of Hacktivate that is already being used 350+ schools around the world.
I also think there's a lot of people out there who would pay to have Hacktivate running offline, using the full power of their device, and with no external resources being required, so I made that too.
Suggesting that I need to make them open source to prove I want to help kids learn is really strange, particularly when literally thousands of students around the world are benefitting from my work without paying a cent.
Thank you! I poured a lot of time and energy into making sure challenges are unique and interesting, but also graded so folks follow a cohesive pathway, and also feel fun – it's as close to a "Hollywood-hacker" aesthetic as I could get.
No, but I like the idea – I think it might make for a good screen to add once they complete the game, saying "use your skills responsibly" and similar. Thank you!
I see. Well, I hope you can appreciate there are limits to what I can do – if someone skips the free challenges then is unhappy there aren't enough free challenges, I don't really know how I can fix that. If you want to go back to play the tutorial challenges, they remain available.
If I only released an up-front payment version, people would complain that they weren't able to try the app first. If I only released a free version with in-app purchases, people would complain that they don't like in-app purchases. I did both, and I'm still getting complaints. I get that my solution is imperfect, but I'm trying my best.
Eh… I just went to Stack Overflow and searched for "php mysql", and the first result (https://stackoverflow.com/q/79790370) – asked 12 days ago – had SQL injection
All you have to do to unlock the next free challenge is solve the previous challenge. The first 10 tutorials are designed to teach the basics of the app – how to transform data with the toolbox, how to read web page source code and run JavaScript, basic Linux commands, etc – and so they are run in order. There are 10 in total, all free, plus another one in the first territory afterwards, which teaches the basics of ciphers.
The app only uses one API from iOS 18 and later, so from a coding perspective I could make it support older versions easily. However, the bigger problem is testing: right now I test each release thoroughly on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, across iOS 18 and iOS 26, so adding another iOS version would require another set of devices and more time.
I agree that the early 90's were a lot of fun – I remember drilling holes in 3.5-inch floppy disks to increase their capacity, blissfully unaware that actual HD floppies had a different coating entirely…
Thank you for your kind words! I've spent over a decade teaching folks to build apps, and it's something I hope I can continue doing for a long time to come.
If you try the game and like it – if you've run through the 10 tutorial challenges and thought, "I like this and want more" – there's a separate version of the app that is an up-front, one-time purchase with no in-app purchases at all. You pay once and get everything. Get it here: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6754342195
Those cybersecurity challenges are incredible – I see kids light up when they take part, finding a passion for something they didn't even known existed previously. I don't think the teams who organize them get enough recognition for their incredible work!
Nothing about Hacktivate is pay-to-win – you can solve every challenge without using a single hint, and even if someone does need hints there are a bunch given away for free. Even more, for people who want the game but don't want micro-transactions, there's a dedicated version of the game (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hacktivate-education-edition/i...) that is a one-time purchase with no in-app purchases at all.
I'm not sure where you got the one challenge thing from – you can play 10 challenges without needing to pay a cent. Plus, there is a dedicated version you can buy up front front without any in-app purchases, right here: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hacktivate-education-edition/i...
I suspect gamifying it isn't enough, but as you say it's a step, and if it helps more people get involved then hopefully others can provide more steps to follow.