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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 ..."

3 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. the details by Syre · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  2. 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

  3. 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.