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Cracking Crypto To Get Into College

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the we-have-another-task-for-you dept.

Kallahar writes "New Scientist is running a story about a Canadian university who had students break an encrypted message in order to get into college. A good idea to grab a good student, but here in 'Free' America these kids would have been thrown in jail for violating the DMCA ..."

5 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff by haruharaharu · · Score: 4, Informative

    You mean like when Professor Felten was threatened because he met the challenge to break SDMI?

    Proffesor Felten was threatened when he attempted to publish his results - The specific charge, as I recall, was distribution of a circumvention device. This is different, one notable difference being that most universities won't try to sue you for entering their contest.

    --
    Reboot macht Frei.
  2. the details by Syre · · Score: 5, Informative

    The cryotography turns out to have been very trivial. Here are the details.

  3. Link to puzzle by mattvd · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a link to the puzzle from the college's website:

    http://www.whatmagnet.com/gofigure/index.html

  4. Re:Ok, I was bored. by raoulortega · · Score: 4, Informative

    You summed the series, but that's not what's being asked. You are supposed to sum the digits

    For a series that would be

    (n + 1) * (n / 2)

    The answer is (45 * (10 ^(n-1)) * n) + 1 where n is the power of ten, 6 in this case.

  5. Stop it! by Tom7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The DMCA is a bad law, but it does NOT prevent anyone from doing cryptography or breaking it. It ONLY applies to circumvention of access control to a COPYRIGHTED WORK. It is copyright law, not encryption law.

    I think slashdot is perpetuating misunderstanding about this law, and I think that hurts our cause. Being informed is the first and most important step. Otherwise, we are just clueless zealots.