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 Forum index » Diversions » TimeWasters
FermiLab Calls for Code Crackers
Moderators: Giskard, ndemeter, ScarpeGrosse
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notgordian
Unfictologist


Joined: 23 Nov 2006
Posts: 1383
Location: Philly

 		FermiLab Calls for Code Crackers
Real codebreaking fun
Via Slashdot

Fermilab received a mysterious letter in code a little over a year ago...nobody's cracked it yet.

Since it's on Slashdot, you're probably better off checking out the Googlepages mirror of the image.

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:23 pm
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Euchre
uF Game Warden


Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 3342

 		So upon first glance...
The first part appears to be trinary. I've made no attempt to go further than that.

The middle seems to be an exercise in distraction, as the symbols always correlate to the same values beneath. The 'signature' that follows seems to just be 'SFC'. The set used in the body is hexadecimal in range.

The final section appears to be binary. Again, I've made no attempt to go further than that.

This might be fun to crunch in chat, if it's not already being attacked there. I'll go check and suggest it if it's not.
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Any sufficiently plausible fiction is indistinguishable from reality.
Any sufficiently twisted reality is indistinguishable from fiction.
Welcome to the new world of entertainment.
ŠEuchre 2007

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2008 10:27 pm
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Omega
Unfettered


Joined: 07 Mar 2008
Posts: 430
Location: Utah

 		Here are the values for the marks at the top, row-by-row:

Quote:
323233331112132
33323132212331
2111331132312233
333212123213113
311333313331111
211333323232211
2323132131121231
33231312

Trinary version:

212122220001021
22212021101220
1000220021201122
222101012102002
200222202220000
100222212121100
121202220010120
22120201

And the bottom part:

Quote:
111212112121212121121212121112121121
1121121121211121211211121211211121111
1111212121121121211121212121112111211
2111212112112111211121112111211121112
111211211121112121121112122211121211
1212112111211121112112111212121112111
211211211121121112112111212112111212
112121211

Binary version:

000101001010101010010101010001010010
0010010010100010100100010100100010000
0000101010010010100010101010001000100
1000101001001000100010001000100010001
000100100010001010010001011100010100
0101001000100010001001000101010001000
100100100010010001001000101001000101
001010100

I don't get anything when converting the binary/trinary to ASCII, so I'm guessing there's a different use for the marks involving the symbols somehow. That, or the values need to be converted from a base other than binary/trinary.
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Puzzle Experiments: #3, #4, #6

PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2008 8:25 am
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Euchre
uF Game Warden


Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 3342

 		Apparently it's been cracked, as noted in the Slashdot article comments:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=555280&cid=23443200
The employee number is the only thing still being ironed out it seems.
_________________
Any sufficiently plausible fiction is indistinguishable from reality.
Any sufficiently twisted reality is indistinguishable from fiction.
Welcome to the new world of entertainment.
ŠEuchre 2007

PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2008 5:57 pm
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doublecross
Unfettered


Joined: 25 Jul 2005
Posts: 588
Location: London, UK

 		I wouldn't say it has been completely solved. The first and last parts have, but the middle bit hasn't.

The three characters at the bottom would appear to be either 1FC or AFC, as 1 and A are the two hex characters that are not used in the previous part and hence could be 'S'.
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xx

PostPosted: Tue May 20, 2008 9:21 am
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