Slashdot Mirror
Cracking Crypto To Get Into College
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 ..."
Perhaps you should get some sleep Timothy? Or lay off the Bawlz. In the morning you can brush up on the DMCA at any of these convenient sites. ;)
(And yes, the RIAA backed off...but the threat was credible enough that it left the lingering possibility that someone could be prosecuted under the DMCA for breaking encryption when invited to do so, if the inviter disapproves of what they do with the information afterwards.)
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Guess you couldn't tell that from Slashdot's 2+2=5 "edjukayshun" icon, huh?
I decoded the message. I guess I'm bored. I didn't quite get the numerals in the address though.
TO WIN A SCHOLARSHIP
FROM THE UNIVERSITY
OF LETHBRIDGE
DO THE MATH.
FORMULA:
FIND THE SUM OF ALL DECIMAL
DIGITS APPEARING IN THE NATURAL
NUMBERS FROM ONE TO ONE MILLION
INCLUSIVE.
CONTEST ENTRIES MUST BE
RECEIVED BY DECEMBER 12/31/01
TO ENTER ONLINE: VISIT
WWW.ULETH.CA AND SUBMIT YOUR
ANSWER.
MAIL: SEND YOUR ANSWER, ALONG
WITH YOUR NAME, FULL ADDRESS AND
PHONE NUMBER TO GO FIGURE WHAT
MAGAZINE,108/,93/ LOMBARD AVENUE,
WINNIPEG, MB, R3/B3/B1/.
Computed as follows:
0 + 1,000,000 = 1E6
1 + 999,999 = 1E6
2 + 999,998 = 1E6
...
499,998 + 500,002 = 1E6
499,999 + 500,001 = 1E6
and 500,000 left over.
so, we have 500,000 pairs equaling 1E6, giving 5E5 * 1E6 = 5E11. Add 5E5 left over, and you get your answer of 5.000005E11 = 500000500000.
Confirmed with the following bc program:
total=0;
for(i=0;i<=1000000;i++)
total+=i;
total
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
I don't know what kind of standards these American Colleges require, but that math problem was set in the same general form (1 to 1000) as some of the ones we did for fun in Primary School ("standard 4" or age 10)...
It is extraordinarily simple.
Spoiler Warning...
.
.
.
.
Imagine brute-forcing it by hand. (Oh the pain)
It would be easier if the number you were adding on was the same each time, yes? Ok, how do you make that happen?
Simple. Add in pairs.
Start with Nothing.
Add 1 and 999,999
Add 2 and 999,998
etc...
continue until you have just added 500,000 and 500,000. You'll need to subtract 500,000 because you added it twice... Ok, easy... Now add the 1,000,000 that you haven't added yet...
Well, it now seems that we add 1,000,000 500,000 times, subtract 500,000, then add 1,000,000...
That seems like multiplying 1,000,000 by 500,000 then adding 500,000 to me. Should a college student be ready to multiply and add yet?
Result: 500,000,500,000
Hardly scholarship material... In New Zealand primary school, we solved a specific case {1..1000} in 30 minutes, then a couple years later in intermediate (12 yrs old) we solved the general case using algebra. At 14 yrs old we were taught to solve similar problems again with algebraic summing of finite series (and that was the easier part of the course)
This is not a troll, but if this college seriously expects to vet scholorship recipients using this, perhaps they should use a REAL test.
Perhaps it's like the lottery rules in this country - if the lottery runners are not a registered non-profit organisation, they get taxed, so they make you answer a completely brainless question as part of a "competition", then randomly pick out the winner because they had "too many correct answers"...
Singing bye-bye,
this part of the hard drive,
maybee data, someday later,
now it's just gotten fried.
I pressed a button, kissed his data goodbye,
I hope this makes my customer cry,
I hope this makes my customer cry.
HelpGeeks - don't bother visiting, it's not worth it! Really!