Code-breaker (1K entry) (in Contests)

Send 1K to my character, "code" and post in this thread. Depending on the number and size of the entries, I will produce a code program of some complexity and give it to all entrants. 100% of entry fees (minus transfer fees) will be awarded.

No further details will be provided at this time.

Note: Programming skills are not required in order to enter this contest.

<nosyntaxcheck>
I don't even know what this is for, and being on a mac I probably can't even use the code, but private is neat. so here's a thousand of dollars.

</nosyntaxcheck>

sounds fun so im in.

I'm in

i don't get it

Yeah, being on a PC will help. However, I plan to have some codes which a Mac user *might* be able to figure out. However, your best bet is to be on a PC.

Ooookkkk.....

Sure.

I am in!

I'm in. Money coming shortly.

I'm in $ on the way :D

I'm in, 1k sent

I don't get it either, but I'll send 1k too.

I dunno what your talkin about, but here ya go.
darkpixie (pixie) 138.89.238.208 private (code) $1000 12:26 AM EST

Sounds interesting. Count me in.

CastleAaargh (Aaargh) 137.186.235.65 private (code) $1000 -- code-breaker contest 12:55 AM EST

I'm planning to start it at midnight tonight (server time). It will end 24 hours from then. If your email address is not public, you should post it here or something. I don't plan to provide refunds to people who don't provide me their email address (if you aren't tracking this thread enough to know I need it, then you aren't on enough to have won anyways, as likely as not)
Some further details:

You must get the program to output one of the following as its final output:

1) Nifty
2) Niftier
3) Binary in Binary or luck
4) Niftiest
5) I was too lazy to actually play with outputs
6) Weee!!

The person who sends me an input which yields the answer which is given the highest rating will win the pot (Weee!! is the 'best' answer). In the event of a tie, answers received earlier will win. I will ignore all but your first answer.

Inputs must be sent in the form of a text file attachment named input.txt.

Your answer should not use techniques like including the output in the answer. Buffer overflow exploits and other such tricks are also disallowed (though I'm unaware of any bugs which will allow them).

Considering that I'm not sending out the program until midnight, your best bet is to avoid entering the contest until midnight.

Note that by midnight, I mean tonight (in 20 hours or so).

I'm in.

Rhylok (Rhylok) 66.185.85.70 private (code) $1000 -- Contest

Am I right in assuming we have to email (not chatmail) the input files to your address?

Yes. Chat mailing file attachments is impossible.

Im in.

No more entries can be accepted. Good luck.

Email sent. Considering that all the participants have access to each other's email addresses through CB, I didn't use bcc.

Pot stands at 13K. Good luck.

Contest ends at midnight (in about 24 hours)

<Kira_Beth> i'm supposed to guess letters and or numbers place them in input run the program and see if i get the correct output? sorry i was typing LOL

Basically, yes. All the codes can be produced using a normal keyboard without using ascii codes with alt or whatever. I don't promise it doesn't include symbols and whatnot nor will I say if it is case sensitive or not.

Well, I sent to everyone, but I think maybe the gmail addresses decided not to accept the file attachment. You're welcome to ask a good samaritan to send you a copy and hope they're honest. I've stayed on a bit to catch the problems but I'm going to sleep now.

I didnt get one priv.

Herm.

Alman check your Bulk mail or your Spam folder. I see you got an email.

yeah, pretty much mac hates .exe and .bat files, but thanks for thinking of us anyway!

Private Are Neat!

Moniker: If you think about it and stuff, you could probably figure out some of these. There were things said in the email which suggested that perhaps I sent you those files for a reason...

Some hints for the hardest code:
The two long strings of 'debug' information are important.
There are 11 keys to unlock...at once.
Don't just use letters: Try numbers and symbols, too.

As for niftiest, just try to get it to say "1 is not 1" For 5), just keep in mind that it is about 10 letters long and all capital letters. That should be enough for you to figure out the answer, moniker.

Another hint for part 6:
The keys lie in getting the top line to be a particular number, though actually the top line is a set of 11 numbers. The bottom line is also a set of 11 numbers...but not the same ones...

Bolfen won by solving #5.

sweet. answers?

1) An empty file or no file. As I said in the rules, it was possible to not send me an input at all. Pretty simple. Some people found this one.

2) Just stick pretty much anything in the input file to solve this. If you provided too many inputs (stuff separated by whitespace), you got this one. A lot of people got this one by copying random text from different places or whatever.

3) 010000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001
Other codes would work as well because I didn't bother to use any fancy encryption but instead used other tricks (hence the "or luck" part of the output). I thought this was pretty obvious because of the output, "Binary in Binary or Luck". Nobody solved this one.

4) a aaa . Any code would work that had exactly 4 lower-case as in it, had exactly two inputs, and had a space at the end. Pretty hard to guess but for the "get it to say 1 is not 1" comment on the forum and the hmmm hints. Pretty tough to guess all this but the sample input did follow everything except the right number of as. I was hoping someone would be paying attention to the stuff about things not being 1 or at least to my hints posted in the forum. Nobody got this one.

5) TEXTEXTRACT . This was pitifully simple. All the comments about Moniker being able to solve this, combined with me saying it was in all capital letters and about 10 letters, should have made this cake. All you needed to do was run a text extractor or just peek at the code notepad (it's practically right next to all the other text in the program). Or run a disassembler and stare at the strings it extracted. Anyhow, this is the only code which could be found in the program with a text extractor. Bolfen is the only one who got this code.

6) This is tflonger...213411331 code:)
Ok, I admit that's a tough one. The trick (as I said in the forum) was to look at the long string of numbers that were spouted each time you ran the program. The first string was what you had. The 2nd string was what you should have, times two. The number of keys found indicated how many of the 11 numbers matched. There were no spaces between numbers. My response to Kira's question was actually another hint to this: I was hoping that saying all responses used a keyboard instead of just saying only numbers+letters might hint at the smiley face, since otherwise some of the keys would always be 0. The 11 numbers all had different meanings like position and number of the : or ), number of a particular letter, etc. The main way to solve this was to keep trying different outputs and see how the numbers changed with the outputs. It is probably possible to solve this with other solutions. I was originally going to just use, "This is the code:)" but decided to make it a little longer. So, I wrote the word longer and some numbers and whatnot.


I provided hints to these both in the rules and in the forum and the results were kind of fun. However, I was kind of disappointed that nobody solved #3 and #4. Regardless, I'll probably try something like this again at some point. I sent the $$ to Bolfen, minus the transfer fees.

Some of the numbers were sort of redundant so it was possible for one portion of the string to lead you towards the answer even if you ignored other strings