I did not really count the hours I spend on this. I wanted to try and
learn something rather than getting to the results as fast as I could!

I would imagine that I spend around 40 hours on this challenge
including the related web research and tools work. I think this could
have been done faster if it's done on a more regular basis;-) Based on
the assumed salary of $70000 this would have cost roughly $1400 in
salary plus all the equipment expenses etc.

My background has not too much to do with system administration and or
security;-)

* Software development since 1990 mostly for Unix's
  - Compiler and related tools.
  - Some `support' for compiling & debugging large applications like
    Oracle, SAP etc.
* Linux user since I believe 1993 mostly at home.
* Some system administration for prototype systems in work related
  labs.
* General troublemaker/troubleshooter;-)

-- Marco Walther