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 ..."

Comments

Clean your vulva today.

[Roto-Rooter Man]

Douche, you slut.

What a cool idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I've thought for a long time these people should be hired and put to work. I mean really, they have a gift. Exploit it!

Re:What a cool idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Fag.

Re:What a cool idea

[Anonymous Coward]

dragqueen

Re:What a cool idea

[fostware]

"Exploit" is such a bad choice of words :P

Re:What a cool idea

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe he/she should have said

profit from

1st ASCII Dick Post!!

[Big_Ass_Spork]

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The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff up

[haruharaharu]

these kids would have been thrown in jail for violating the DMCA

shut up timothy - the DMCA doesn't apply when the copyright holder asks you to break the encryption.

DMCA

[_Bean_]

"but here in 'Free' America these kids would have been thrown in jail for violating the DMCA .."

You are a moron.

Re:DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of posting is absurd and should be absent from this site. How do you expect to have a decent discussion when you refer to your reader as "moron". This underestimates the reader's opinion of what the society thinks of him, and as a result, the reader could in response think of how to return the insult instead of answering your comment and thus contribute beneficially to the discussion. This is why probably you were moderated down. Please try to be more polite, and then you will see that people may actually start to reply and you will have a beautifull thread.

please visit my site on-line
http://NOSPAM.goatse.NOSPAM.cx

Watch out for the lava!

[the_furies]

Recently a whole village in the Congo was destroyed by a lava flow! Why do you suppose the villagers built their homes so close to an active volcano?

Re:Watch out for the lava!

[Peyna]

Fertile land.

Re:Watch out for the lava!

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHA you just made me crap my pants laughing. Keep up the good work!

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[AntiNorm]

shut up timothy - the DMCA doesn't apply when the copyright holder asks you to break the encryption.

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

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[jockm]

shut up timothy - the DMCA doesn't apply when the copyright holder asks you to break the encryption.

It is worth pointing out that Timothy isn't the one who made that comment. It was the submitter, Kallahar...

Everything else will be a variation...

[cyril3]

of cool, it's not illegal or you're a moron.

Next topic please. This ones done.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[dytin]

Hey hey, there's no need to bash Timothy. Kallahar is the one that said you'd get thrown into jail. Timothy just posted Kallahar's submission.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[haruharaharu]

Oops - Mea culpa

Entrapment

[Renraku]

Following that train of thinking, I imagine the FBI will be setting up accounts on all the popular messenger programs, sending people illegal data, and arresting them if the file transfer completes.

Re:Entrapment

[Com2Kid]

Uh. . . .

They do.

(for certain types of files)

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up haruharaharu !

DMCA is bad everyone knows it except you.... idiot

USA is not free, accept it or change it, dont stay in denial

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[gehrehmee]

Tell that to the RIAA/SDMI.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Cato the Elder]

Of course, since it was just an encoded mathematical problem, I doubt they even bothered to copyright it. And it was the poster, not the editor, who made the stupid comment. I still would argue that the flambait line should of have been removed, but hey. Too bad you can't mod stories.

The idea sounds interesting, but kinda gimmicky. Especially with a scholarship for speed--with a problem it took 30 minute for _New_Scientist_ to solve (or did I misread something) that seems a bit silly. Now, waiving the application fee for anyone who solves it, that seems a more commensurate prize.

Doesn't make you a good student

[gtaluvit]

Just because you broke some method of encryption doesn't necessarily make you a good computer science student. What about good design or object oriented techniques? How about math skills and knowledge of discrete mathmatics and its relation to programing language design?

Since I know scripting languages, am I an elite hacker?

Since I can install linux, am I a sys admin?

Since I can make brownies am I Wolfgang Puck?

IMHO breaking the encryption doesn't mean too much.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Peyna]

Breaking encryption would imply good mathematical knowledge and higher reasoning.

I think this is a good basis for a scholarship and admission. Most other scholarships and admissions are based on self-written essays. At least it is less subjective.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that why they're going to college, to learn all that stuff? How much do you expect high-school kids to know, anyway?

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[gtaluvit]

True, the article doesn't really state what the actual encoding was. However, it may be something that could be brute forced, it might be something that requires that knowledge, or it could just be ROT13.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[gtaluvit]

They don't need to know everything, but I'd rather accept a student with a general understanding of computing than just a math whiz. From the curriculum I went through in college for Software Engineering, we cover authentication and encryption about 10 weeks out of 5 years.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Boiling_point_]

Setting a world-realistic problem as an entrance/scholarship test is fair enough, but the implementation here sounds pretty unfair.

The article states that New Scientist took 30 minutes to decode it - since the scholarship went to the first person to email a correct answer to the university, I fail to see how this differs substantially from "first post" trolling.

Education should not be a gimmick.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[cscx]

Since I know scripting languages, am I an elite hacker?

Since I can install linux, am I a sys admin?

Isn't that the general consensus around here?

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[nathanh]

I'm no genius but it took me 30 seconds to decipher the code. It's base 4 with the letters numbered consecutively.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[feelafel]

The scholarship, in fact, does not go to the first person with a correct solution. Anyone who meets the contest regs (ie: student, 16-19 years of age, not residing in Quebec) and submits a correct answer is entered into a draw for one of three scholarships.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Sparr0]

And for everyone who didnt bother to read the article:

One hundred other students who also managed to decode and figure out the problem were offered a place on the computer science course at the university.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[cscx]

Breaking encryption would imply good mathematical knowledge and higher reasoning.

Guess you couldn't tell that from Slashdot's 2+2=5 "edjukayshun" icon, huh?

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[hyoo]

I think they are trying to find students who are more than plain academic nerds. A high school student who has enough knowledge to break an encryption scheme (even if its fairly trivial by todays standard) shows potential. High school does not teach the theory to be proficient in encryption and any student who demonstrates this skill must have put in extra time to learn (which is proof of potential IMHO).

I think that this is a great way to separate bookworms from brilliant people.

The fact that they can break the encryption doesn't make them a computer scientist, but then again a non-computer person can enter university and as long as they have the desire to learn they can leave with a lot of knowledge.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[DeVilla]

I'm on Slashdot. Does that make me a Zealot or knowledgeable in all technical fields?

In response to the Sig, it ought to be prettier. It's the least they could do since you'll be seeing a lot of it.

Dan

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Johnny00]

Actually, I think they are aiming for those with knowledge (thru schooling) but only a passing interest. If you look at the material, its not presented in some technical manner. Not to mention that the hints & tips are REALLY obvious. The really elite won't need those hints & tips and wouldn't need flashy animation and posters to attract their attention, something formatted to Neilsen's standards would do nicely.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[DavidBrown]

I disagree with your idea. A high school student who is able to break this encryption scheme isn't necessarily a high school student of more potential then average. He or she is just a high school student who, for curiosity or any other reason, has applied his or her talents to the study of cryptography or puzzles.

The "potential" shown by the successful codebreaker is the same potential shown by successful Mensa applicants - they figured out a problem, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a "special" skill for problem solving or genius potential.

But, despite all that, why shouldn't the university give a break to the first person who can figure out the solution?

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[talonyx]

You're absolutely right. This shows completely that they know more than the average person about computers and algorithms.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

It is only on rare occasions that I see a good programmer that also knows (discrete) math.

I like to think that people that think you need math as a developer really dont know anything about real life programming.

The rest of the stuff you mention you have to learn with teachers. I could code a game when I was 11. But to unlearn all those bad habits ( GOTO's, variable declaration when I needed it, not in the beginning of a program/procedure ) was really difficult once I had programmed for 7 years in BASIC/assembler.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[zorgan]

Windows STOP errors are BLUE but they are more frequent than a Kernel panic !!!

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just an entrance requirement, nothing more... By the same token you could say "Just because I have the entrance requirements, ie I got 80% in my math course, it doesn't make me an elite hacker" ... You're logic is so flawed!!!

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually in Canada, there wasn't a lot of weights based on self written essays to get into University at least when I was in school a long time ago.

As to breaking encryptions, that's a new one for me.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[sql*kitten]

Just because you broke some method of encryption doesn't necessarily make you a good computer science student. What about good design or object oriented techniques? How about math skills and knowledge of discrete mathmatics and its relation to programing language design

No, but that's what you're going to study to learn. The test is looking for logical deduction and reasoning skills that can't be learnt through academic study, but are necessary for it.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[squaretorus]

Since I know scripting languages, am I an elite hacker?


well... yes!

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[ext]

..well, that's what you are about to learn when u go to Uni, isnt it?!?

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[billcopc]

With my personal opinion of canadian colleges and the incredibly bland atmosphere they all share (please check your brain at the door), I think breaking the crypto in their exam only proves that you are bored stupid. Only stupid people submit to stupid exams to be admitted in a stupid school that only cares about your stupid money.

Sure, crypto involves advanced math and logic skills, but if you already know that, you can probably learn whatever else you need on your own, without paying a bunch of incompetent profs.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[caesarsgarten]

Have you already tried to solve this puzzle? The "encryption" is merely a teaser for nicely wrapping a mathematical problem. Since you have read about this, you have to solve it with a computer? Wrong! Using your computer for trivial task makes you a nerd, not a computer scientist. I think the difficulty of this test is appropiate for High-schoolers. Nowdays you cannot take for granted that everybody knows about the concept auf base-n codings, unless inside the hacker community ( even there I doubt that it is true). The math-problem is intended be solved with paper and pencil I think. It took me less than a minute to compute the solution and I bet no one will be able to beat this by writing a program. Anyone who actually wrote a program to tackle this problem should be banned from university - programming is a poor substitute for thinking.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

how the fuck is the parent of this comment flamebait?

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

You replayed just as if math would be the essence of programming. You must be a bad programmer...

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[mason127]

Point well taken, in many cases this could simply have been the result of commonly available hacking tools rather than an inate suitability for comp sci. In any event, four years of university is more than long enough to weed out the weaklings!!!

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Lord Omlette]

"deduction and reasoning skills that can't be learnt through academic study"

Just curious, isn't that what the Euclidean Geometry class is for? You know, where you learn about points and lines and planes and triangles and etc. and you have to prove theorems and stuff?

Deduction & reasoning skills have to be taught somehow, I don't buy that students are born ready for cs.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Em Ellel]

>Since I know scripting languages, am I an elite hacker? No, cuz all the real "elite hackers" know how to spell 313373 ;-)

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Em Ellel]

Just because you broke some method of encryption doesn't necessarily make you a good computer science student. What about good design or object oriented techniques? How about math skills and knowledge of discrete mathmatics and its relation to programing language design?

Yes and no. It does not prove you are already good at computer science, but if you were, why bother with learning it again? It just proves that you want to learn and you have some basic skills to base your learning on.

I am not a CS (and would probably kill myself if I had to code for a living), but for kicks and grins I solved this thing. It took 1 minute of looking at it and 1 minute of coding - but to de-code it you DO have to understand some basic math and CS concepts and if it werent for that, I'd probably never solve it.

So, it does not make you a good CS professor, or even a good CS graduate, but it does make you potentially a good CS student. And it sure does weed out the "i don't know what I wanna do in college, but I hear those computer thingys pay well" crowd.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

cuz all the real "elite hackers" know how to spell 313373 ;-)

yeah, it's spelled 1337

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Em Ellel]

It took me less than a minute to compute the solution and I bet no one will be able to beat this by writing a program. Anyone who actually wrote a program to tackle this problem should be banned from university - programming is a poor substitute for thinking.

I do not think you understand what programming is. Programing is not a substitute for thinking - it's an extension. It's a tool. It's like saying anyone who solves it with a pencil and paper is an idiot because they cannot do it in their head. Bottom line is that it takes just as much thinking, if not more to write a program, because you solve the problem conceptually in your head, and then write the code to do the mechanincs.

In this case, I'd say the coding is probably as much trouble as the pen-and-paper approach, but in general as an employer I'd rather hire a person knowing and using proper tools over the person who tries to do everything brute force, because when the problem gets tougher, or even if the same problem was much much longer (think "War and Peace" encoded) - the programming solution takes exact same amount of time (plus a few ms for processing) and the pen-and-paper approach will take forever.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[hyoo]

Math is essential if you wish to be a computer scientist. Its easy to code, it's hard to come up with elegant/correct algorithms with basic knowledge of math.

If you disagree, then you must be someones coding bitch and not a REAL programmer.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[BitterOak]

Most other scholarships and admissions are based on self-written essays.

No, they are generally based on grades and SAT scores. The essays are just to make it look like the college is interested in a well-rounded person, and not just someone who scores well on tests. Other than being a measure of basic literacy, the essays really have very little to do with admission, in practice.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[GreyPoopon]

No, they are generally based on grades and SAT scores.

No, they are generally based on a combination of grades, SAT scores, sometimes your race, your prominence in the community, sometimes the income of your family, and very much on who you know. I witnessed this "who you know" process in action when the teachers at our high school all "neglected" to inform most of the students about a large number of available scholarships. It was mighty suspicious when one person at the school ended up with something like six of the eight scholarships that were handed out. Even the Valedictorian only received one scholarship.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I know scripting languages, am I an elite hacker?

Since I can install linux, am I a sys admin?

Well, I am, I don't know about you. Linux and Perl got me a nice job without a degree. :-)

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[JonToycrafter]

Can someone mod this down? I went into Slashdot comments to find a link to the challenge, and found the answer instead. Sigh...a spoiler warning would have been good.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

Just FYI, Canadian universities don't use SAT scores. The only time students take the SAT's is if they're applying to an American university.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[BitterOak]

Just FYI, Canadian universities don't use SAT scores.

This is true. I once applied to and got in to a Canadian University. But I didn't have to write an essay.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[BitterOak]

I agree with everything you said. My main point was that essays count for little if anything. I would hope that grades and SAT scores would count for more than the things you mention in most cases, though.

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[caesarsgarten]

Your are completly right when you say that programing is "an extension [..] for thinking". My point was that the problem seems to be constructed for being solved without programing. Employing a computer on this task is like the behaviour of these moron managers who need an assistant for switch on the VCR, stating "that she will do it better that I would". Implementing this problem is undoubtly an interesting little task. As you point out, "you have to solve the problem conceptually in your head, and then write the code". Besides implementing this as an excersise, one will notice that as soon as your have finished this preparation the paper-pencil method will stare right into your eye. If you go further and implement this without noticing you are perhaps too ignorant to find any solution to harder problems. Using brute-force is (usually) a bad idea, such as tool-stacking is. A clever person uses the tools that will help him to solve a problem in the most efficient way. In this case, so I still believe, it is paper&pencil. (doing it in the head turned out to be too error-prone:-)

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[GreyPoopon]

My main point was that essays count for little if anything.

Agreed. I'm convinced that the whole purpose of the essay is just to make you work a little and make sure you have the drive to complete one. I think very little consideration is given for how good the essays are.

I would hope that grades and SAT scores would count for more than the things you mention in most cases, though.

I would hope so too. I'm pretty sure that they weigh more equally now that they did when I graduated. I had a combined score of 1440 on my SAT (darn verbal), and I didn't receive a single scholarship. My family's perceived income was too high and I wasn't adequately informed about many of the scholarships available.

But on the other hand, it probably worked out the way it should have. We were able to afford to put me through college, whereas many families could not afford to drop $60K for an education. It genuinely would have been unfair if a poor boy, who went to a substandard school because his family couldn't afford to live in a better school district, was not able to receive a scholarship because his school failed to adequately prepare him for the standardized tests.

Sorry about being long winded. I'm feeling a little chatty this morning. Blame it on the two-hour drive to work. :)

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who teaches at a Middle School in Safety Harbor, Florida forwarded the following letter.
The letter was sent to the principal's office after the school had sponsored a luncheon for the elderly. An old lady received a new radio at the lunch, and was writing to say thanks.


Dear Safety Harbor Middle School:

I know God blesses you for the beautiful radio I won at your recent Senior citizens luncheon. I am 84 years old and live at the Safety Harbor Assisted Home for the Aged. All of my family has passed away. I am all alone now and it's nice to know that someone is thinking of me. God bless you for your kindness to an old forgotten lady.

My roommate is 95 and always had her own radio, but before I received One she would never let me listen to hers, even when she was napping. The other day her radio fell off the nightstand and broke into a lot of pieces. It was awful and she was in tears. She asked if she could listen to mine, and I said fuck you. Thank you again,

Sincerely,

Edna



Moderation Totals: Offtopic=377, Flamebait=4, Troll=27, Redundant=5, Insightful=98, Interesting=205, Informative=49, Funny=12, Overrated=11, Underrated=62, Total=850.



Sindome is ok and so are you, man. I hope you have a great day. Say hi to the trolls for me!

Re:Doesn't make you a good student

[Em Ellel]

Damn... there goes my membership card....

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Timothy makes the exact same comments in every story he posts. It might as well have been him, I for one am sick of listening to his dribble.

Ummmm

[tswinzig]

See, these people write in with links to articles, and they write a summary of the article and usually throw in their opinion. Those parts are italicized. Then an editor approves the story and sometimes they make comments themselves.

And sometimes they don't make comments. Like this time.

So, I think you owe timothy an apology.

Re:Ummmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The "No Score +1 Bonus" button is there for a reason. Just thought you'd like to know.

Re:ummmm

[Infinite Monkeys]

Mod this the hell up! It's about time these arrogant nerd types realised that NOBODY IS IMPRESSED! This is meant for fucking school age kids. Pricks.

h07 gr175!

Disclaimer?

[Tigris666]

here in 'Free' America these kids would have been thrown in jail for violating the DMCA

All he'd need is a valid disclaimer. If he is creating his own crypt method then he just needs to say that it's ok to break it. Surely?

I think it's a good idea. Maybe at the wrong level though. I mean crack the code to get a place at uni? Should be more like crack the code to get a job, not to get into a school.

Re:Disclaimer?

[Arandir]

All he'd need is a valid disclaimer. If he is creating his own crypt method then he just needs to say that it's ok to break it. Surely?

Do any of you guys try to find stuff out on your own, or do you just regurgitate the shit that Slashdot feeds you.

The DMCA is about copyright, not about decrypting a message in base four. Geez. If Adobe (as just a hypothetical example) decided to encrypt their PDF files in base four, then it would be illegal to decrypt those files. But it would NOT be illegal to decrypt any non-PDF base four encodings. The DMCA is Evil enough without you inventing yet new Evils for it.

In summary, no one needs any damn disclaimer to use base four (or rot13). Get real.

Re:Disclaimer?

[seaan]

There are some circumstances where it would be legal to crack (circumvent) the Adobe files (DMCA provides exceptions for libraries, encryption research, etc.). But in almost all cases it is illegal to tell anyone how to do it (dissemination, only DMCA exception is for software reverse engineering).

In general non-monetary circumventions of the DMCA are upheld by civil suits brought by the copyright holder or the producer of the protection method. My understanding of the criminal section is that it only normally applies when monetary gain occurs. INAL, but recommend reading Jessica Litman's "Digital Copyright" for more details.

Re:Disclaimer?

[Arandir]

So you're telling me it's illegal to decrypt rot13 messages? I think some of you guys read more into the laws than are actually there.

Re:Disclaimer?

[seaan]

So you're telling me it's illegal to decrypt rot13 messages?

Under some circumstances, that is true. If the rot13 method is used to protect a copy righted work, and you perform an unauthorized rot13 to read that information, you could be prosecuted under the DMCA. There are a number of circumvention exceptions, but so far these have been applied very narrowly (encryption research, library archival purposes, etc.).

What makes the DMCA really ironic is that you could even be prosecuted if you told someone else "company xx uses rot13 to protect their yyy copyrighted content, and here is how to decrypt using rot13". This is because of the DMCA anti-dissemination clause, and has almost no exceptions (the only one I'm aware of is reverse engineering of software). The quality or frequency of the use of the algorithm does not matter, only the fact that it is used to protect a copy righted item. This is the method the RIAA used to threaten Prof. Fenton.

Re:Disclaimer?

[seaan]

So you're telling me it's illegal to decrypt rot13 messages?

Oops, forgot one other irony of the DMCA. Under the circumstances described in my last post, you could run into the following situation: It is illegal for you to circumvent the copy protection, even though your intended use of the copy protected item is a legal and non-infringing use.

A good example of this is the DVD. You have the legal right to make a back-up copy of a DVD you have bought, under the fair-use clause of the copyright laws. But it is also technically illegal to do so because making a back-up requires breaking the copy protection which is against the DMCA (unless you fall into one of those narrow exceptions allowed by the DMCA circumvention clause).

This is why people complain about the DMCA giving copyright holders the ability to "legally" eliminate fair-use. A good book on this topic is Lawrence Lessig's "Code and other Rules of Cyberspace".

America...

[kanayo]

The land of the "free".

Re:America...

[Anonymous Coward]

That was fucking genius. Did you think before spewing that?

Re:America...

[ext]

..or free to take the gun out and 'frag' some1..? :-/

American universities

[DeltaStorm]

I wish that more universities in the US did this. It would help distinguish those that are intelligent from those that leaned over the shoulders of the intelligent.

Re:American universities

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone's jealous that they were smart but did badly because they refused to put in any effort. It's so funny when those "smart" kids that got 1600s on their SATs are failing out of state schools, don't you think?

Re:American universities

[stevarooski]

That would depend on the type of the problem given by the aforementioned American universities. If it was something that could be cracked by solid quantitative reasoning alone, I would very much agree--especially if this is an intro course you're talking about. Make sure that you're testing ability and potential, not knowledge at this point!

Not every kid who wants to try CS needs to be a math whiz. I was a Music major when I took my first CS class on a whim, and now I'm getting my Comp E degree. When I started, I didn't know anything about algorithm formation or discrete math.

Re:American universities

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even think many of them are that smart, they just think they do. Most of the people who think that know how to program, not solve problems. A smart monkey could learn to program.

Re:American universities

[scubacuda]

Good point.

And those who come here from other countries will most likely be the ones who would really kick ass. How could we *not* recruit them?

Re:American universities

[DataSquid]

Oh yes, I just hate all those people who go to school and learn someting! They should have known it all before they got there!

Re:American universities

[RWC09]

This makes sense. When I was in College for Electronics we had people scoring 95-99 on the written test (book smart) but blowing up projects in the Labs! Just shows you that scoring high on a written test does not mean you can apply what you read to real world situations.

Re:American universities

[MrRagu]

Not that I advocate cheating but sometimes intelligence means knowing where to get the answers, too. One of the core values of computer programming that I've had drilled into me was that you should never have to write code that someone else has already written. In fact the first assignment in Brian Kernighan's programming class wasn't writing grep from scratch, but chiseling out grep from the ed source code -- the same way Ken Thompson created grep all those years ago. Don't discount the value of standing on other prople's efforts.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[haruharaharu]

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.

Neat idea

[Spaceman Spiff II]

That's a pretty cool idea by that Canadian University. This practice should happen more often. That way, the students with the talent and more importantly the desire can go into the field and will have a better chance to get in than, as is quite often the case, the better test taker or person with more money.

Re:Neat idea

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah for example, you need to know how to turn your computer on with less then 2 chances at pocking at buttons on the front of a computer case to get your CS degree.

Re:Neat idea

[CheeseMunkie]

Not just Universities either. The UK does it to recruit spooks.

The theory is sound: If you want good people, don't ask them to write a self-aggrandizing paper, set them a real-world, if trivial, challenge. The world is open-book, so the reward (job scholarship admission whatnot) goes to the person who can find the answer by whatever means.

Unrelated, but follows: A reference librarian is oftentimes better to have than a genius.

the details

[Syre]

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

Re:the details

[berzerke]

For those that have trouble breaking it, here are some hints:

1. It is in english.
2. The vowels are 001 = a, 011 = e, 021 = i, 033 = o, 110 = u
3. Think about the subject of the story (from the link, not the slashdot headline).
4. What is the highest digit in the message? Why is this a hint?

Re:the details

[Anonymous Coward]

*extremely* trivial. I didn't even need to go to that link to figure it out. I went to the website and solved it before I looked at the problem. The website has the following "tips"

1. The code might seem tricky, but it's really pretty BASIC.

2. If you're counting with your fingers, you're way off BASE.

3. To crack the code, you need to think FOURward. Need more help?

Duh it is letters in base 4! Heh encrypted my ass.

Re:the details

[steelhawk]

Well.. the DMCA makes even unauthorized decryption of ROT13 illegal, right?

(For US citizens that is, of course...)

Geez... the consequences are really WEIRD.

Re:the details

[Alsee]

The cryotography turns out to have been very trivial.

Yep. The web site gives lots of hints, and even offers live help via E-mail. They are trying to make it almost as easy as possible. Why?

"The University of Lethbridge is holding a contest to attract computer scientist students",

This wasn't done as a scolarship program for deserving students. It's a PUBLICITY STUNT.

The hardest part is either translating all the letters by hand, or typing it into a program to translate it for you.

As for the math problem in the message -
Any Math major that can't find a pattern to get the answer deserves to be rejected.
Any Computer major that can't write a program to get the answer deserves to be rejected.

-

Re:the details

[smnolde]

This kind of contest reminds me of the move "A Christmas Story" when the young boy gets his decoder ring and is finaly able to decode Secret Annie's message.

The message? DONT FORGET TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE

Re:the details

[liquidsin]

Trivial??? It looks a hell of a lot more sophisticated than what Adobe uses to "protect" their Ebooks!

Re:the details

[caesarsgarten]

Yeah, you got it! It is just an ad that fits the organisation that placed it. As I mentioned in an earlier post: Even a computer major must not use a program to solve this problem. If your're unable to solve this by paper and pencil (mental arithmetics should be sufficient, too), you won't be able to write a non-trivial program, too. In this case the studies of CS would be a waste of time and money. Maybe it is more difficult to read and understand the hints given. A good student tries to understand the problem completely before getting into work with it. So it is not a question of easy-diffiuclt, it is a question whether the student has the right attitude.

Re:the details

[mvpll]

The hardest part is either translating all the letters by hand, or typing it into a program to translate it for you. ps2ascii saved me the trouble.

Re:the details

[malarkey]

Actually, it was...it was... "Soap Poisoning". No, No, No. It was: Be sure to drink your ovaltine.

Re:the details

[Enygma42]

Come on! a four year old could decode this!
They could have at least shuffled the key instead of using a shift(0)!

If that's what's getting a scholarship these days....

Re:the details

[AdamTrace]

I wouldn't call it purely a publicity stunt.

I haven't looked at the code closely yet. Multiple accounts say that it is relatively easy to crack, but I think that's the point.

Did you ever hear of that "Einstein problem", that supposedly he claimed only 98% of the population could answer? It is my firm belief that well over 98% of the population could figure out the answer, but probably only 2% of the people who actually saw the problem actually tried it.

I think this is a similiar situation... sure, it might not be that hard of a problem, but only a fraction of the people who actually see it will invest the time to do it. And as a result, you ont only get smart people turning in answers, but those who are really dedicated and interested in this sort of work.

Ada

Re:the details

[cornjones]

lighten up!
this is a contest for POTENTIAL students. They aren't math majors. they aren't compsci majors. if they went to a smaller school (like many of us have to) they didn't have a chance to have any programming or math-beyond-precalc classes.

this isn't supposed to be proving P=NP, this is something to let the university know who can take a problem and work out a solution. It is meant to imply desire, not genius.

this elitist attitude in computing still nauseates me.

Re:the details

[yesthatguy]

Hmm, even if you don't pick up on #4 in the coded part itself...

Williams said that a large poster and contest information was created using a computer code -- called Base4 -- which substitutes a series of numbers for letters of the alphabet.

Why oh why would the computer code be called Base 4? I have no idea. Anyway, it is a pretty neat gimmick. I probably would've spent the few minutes to decipher it if I had gotten it in the mail, even without any intention of going to that school.

Re:the details

[Alsee]

they aren't compsci majors.

Bzzzt! Wrong answer.

"Winning" the contest gets you a spot in the computer curriculum.

The website has an E-mail address where a professor will help you. They want as many people as possible to solve it. They are trying to get customers, err I mean students. The "scholarships" they offer are handed out randomly. It's written off as an advertizing expense.

-

Re:the details

[yorlik]

Even I can do it and I'm neither a computer scientist nor a math major. All you do is notice that the underlined portion is a web adress which happens to match the web address for the university. Then you can see the pattern which is a numerical representation in base 4 of the letters where a=1 and z=26. It's then only a matter of substituting the 3-digit codes for their respective letters.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[themassiah]

He wasn't threatened when he broke it or because he broke it. He was threatened because he was going to do the un-American (un-Corporate?) thing and turn down the money instead to publish a paper on the subject [which he subsequently did present].
Disclosure of procedure is different than just doing something.

..Minus the slashdotisms

[jesterzog]

From slashdot:

"New Scientist is running a story about a Canadian university who had students break an encrypted message in order to get into college."

But from the article:

"A Canadian university has awarded a scholarship to the first prospective student who successfully cracked an encoded mathematics problem"

And from slashdot:

"...here in 'Free' America these kids would have been thrown in jail for violating the DMCA ..."

Uh, yeah. Whatever.

Re:..Minus the slashdotisms

[Peyna]

He was a little closer than that, if you read the next paragraph:

One hundred other students who also managed to decode and figure out the problem were offered a place on the computer science course at the university. While it may not have been required for admission, and I don't know the size of their program, 100 sounds pretty high, so that may well encompass all incoming freshmen, or not.

Re:..Minus the slashdotisms

[irecleas]

U of Lethbridge is a very small university. (2 hours from my house) 100 seems like a huge number and is most likely every single first year CS position.

Re:..Minus the slashdotisms

[lewkor]

I graduated from the University of Lethbridge in Dec 1992. I remember Dr. Holtzman well. He was a very fair prof who made the students work for their grades.

It is a small undergraduate university and unless its grown tremendously since I left one hundred students would be a huge increase in enrollment for the department of compting science. Intro courses in math had maybe 50-60 people and my compiler construction class had only 8 people in it!

There was equal emphasis on theory and practical application. One downside was that the school could not afford any sexy hardware, but that is not as important as learning the basics in my opinion. Nor did it have a Electrical Engineering department. I would like to have learned more about hardware and that's the only difference that I notice when comparing myself to the tech people that I meet where I live now (Calgary, Alberta).

The University of Lethbridge is a particularly good place to go for a science degree because the work that is usually left to grad students at larger institutions is sometimes done by eager undergrad students. I had one friend who had his name on a paper accepted to an academic journal while he was in his forth year of chemistry.

Macleans, a national news magazine similar Time or Newsweek, rates the canadian universities each year. The University of Lethbridge rates just behind the bigger canadian universities like Waterloo, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, McGill etc.

Makes me almost miss the place. Almost! :^>

Re:..Minus the slashdotisms

[csbruce]

Just because 100 students were offered admission doesn't mean that the students accepted or that the university could handle all of them if every one of them did accept.

Re:..Minus the slashdotisms

[penguin_dance]

Not to forget, it was also "...posed by teachers in place of a conventional entrance exam."

Solve a problem and get in without taking the entrance exam. Sounds like a deal to me!

Link to puzzle

[mattvd]

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

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

Re:Link to puzzle

[embobo]

Well, I can tell you I wouldn't win the scholorship. That website was so annoying that I couldn't get past the first couple pages (including a splash page, barf) which talked about Flash being 21st century technology and all the l33t speak.

Re:Link to puzzle

[dragons_flight]

Geez that code is trivial. At least the puzzle requires a smidge of thought. Though with only going to a million, the math puzzle could just as easily be solved by brute force.

I'm not sure whether to be happy that they want to make kids think, or be upset that they think today's youth are capable of so little.

And what's with spraying the university's name all over the encrypted text? Do they really think people that can decrypt it need to be reminded several times about what university wrote the puzzle?

Re:Link to puzzle

[gid]

Just click on the non flash version, from the page:

Codecrackers

1. The code might seem tricky, but it's really pretty BASIC.

2. If you're counting with your fingers, you're way off BASE.

3. To crack the code, you need to think FOURward


Gee, I wish all encryption was like that, hitting you in the face with a brick screaming that it's encoded in base 4.

Re:Link to puzzle

[RC514]

You forgot to link to the business major puzzle:

Everybody who can find the solution to the computer science puzzle by using personal connections or by paying someone else to solve it, will be invited to hold a one-hour Powerpoint presentation about the solution. Scholarships will be awarded based on 80% presentation, 20% cost of finding the solution and 5% correctness of solution.

Re:Link to puzzle

[Banjonardo]

It may be trivial to you. I'm an HS sophomore, and I can't figure it out at face value. Sure, I could take out a pencil, write it out, and figure out what the hell base 4 is.

But I probably won't.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[b0r1s]

they never said you werent allowed to break it.

they merely said you werent allowed to PUBLISH your solution.

Good one Tim...

[big_groo]

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. ;)

ummm

[j0nkatz]

"Free America"?

I allways thought those Canucks were pretty free themselves. I musta been wrong.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go moron, maybe you should learn the difference between the submitted text, and the person who posted it, fuckhead.

Find my secret message

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, if you can't figure it out
I must say you are silly
A stupid idiot
Please tell me you know what it is
Elite hax0rs here at slashdot
Roadkill, eww!

Shit, it's almost done
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Xeno is cool

Re:Find my secret message

[Anonymous Coward]

Your secret message is "IMS THE ISI"
Take the first letter from every 2nd word.
I'm so smart.

not really OT

[NightHwk1]

This reminds me of the Try2Hack website.. It consists of 10 or so challenges, each one harder than the previous, involving html/javascript, java, vb, packet sniffing, etc.

It would be great to see something like this as a final exam for anyone studying networks or security.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[isomeme]

The DMCA doesn't apply when the copyright holder asks you to break the encryption.

Tell that to Felten.

(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.)

Article was short on details

[dytin]

The New Scientist article was really short on details. Anyway though, I found the university's press release, which has much more details. It can be found here. This link also contains the actual puzzle in case anyone is so inclined to try to break it...

Re:Article was short on details

[dirkx]

This bit of perl (that adobe cut-n-paste from pdf is nice):

#!perl
$_="110/033/ 113/021/032/ 001/ 103/003/020/033/030/001/102/103/020/021/100/ 012/102/033/031/ 110/020/011/ 111/032/021/112/011/102/103/021/110/121/ 033/012/ 030/011/110/020/002/102/021/010/013/011/ 010/033/ 110/020/011/ 031/001/110/020/. 012/033/102/031/111/030/001/: 012/021/032/010/ 110/020/011/ 103/111/031/ 033/012/ 001/030/030/ 010/011/003/021 /031/001/030/ 010/021/013/021/110/103/ 001/100/100/011/001/102/021/032/013/ 021/032/ 110/020/0 11/ 032/001/110/111/102/001/030/ 032/111/031/002/011/102/103/ 012/102/033/031/ 033/032/011/ 110/033/ 033/032/011/ 031/021/030/030/021/033/032/ 021/032/003/030/111/103/021/112/011/. 003/033/032/110/011/103/110/ 011/032/110/102/021/011/103/ 031/111/103/110/ 002/0 11/ 102/011/003/011/021/112/011/010/ 002/121/ 010/011/003/011/031/002/011/102/ 12/31 /01 110/033/ 011/032/110/011/102/ 033/032/030/021/032/011/: 112/021/103/021/110/ 113/113/113/.111/030/011/110/020/.003/001/ 001/032/010/ 103/111/002/031/021/110/ 121/033/111/102/ 001/032/103/113/011/102/. 031/001/021/030/: 103/011/032/010/ 121/033/111/102/ 001/032/103/113/011/102/,/ 0 01/030/033/032/013/ 113/021/110/020/ 121/033/111/102/ 032/001/031/011/,/ 012/111/030/030/ 001/010/01 0/102/011/103/103/ 001/032/010/ 100/020/033/032/011/ 032/111/031/002/011/102/ 110/033/ 013/033/ 012/021/013/111/ 102/011/ 113/020/001/110/ 031/001/013/001/122/021/032/011/,/108/,/93/ 030/033/031/002/001/102/010/ 001/112 /011/032/111/011/, 113/021/032/032/021/100/011/013/, 031/002/, 102/3/002/3/002/1/. "; while(s/([0-3]{1})([0-3]{1})([0-3]{1})\/(\D*)//) { printf("%c$4",64+4*4*$1 +4*$2+$3); };

Gives you all the detail you'd ever want.

The actual riddle is very cute - as it can be done with a few lines of code - or by just thinking logically - and calculating it straight out. (and if you realize that leading zeros do not foil the fun as they do not add - it gets positively neat).

But still a bit easy for a 15-16 year old I would recon.

the code

[DanThe1Man]

I got off the school's website the code that is to be broken. Can someone from Slashdot solve it?

Re:the code

[mliu]

SPOILER ALERT

Heh, they can call it encryption if they want, but this is encryption on the same scale as ROT-13. The message is encoded in the Base-4 number system with each number being the alphabet's letter's numerical position. so a = 1, z = 26. Or encoded, a = 001, z = 122.

And like numerous people have pointed out, while this contest in itself can't lead to a DMCA violation, the sad thing is, a piece of software "encrypted" with this algorithm could.

Re:the code

[DanThe1Man]

Here is a JPEG vesion of the code for thouse that don't like PDF.

Re:the code

[Anonymous Coward]

I must 3733t, I solved it without any help. Can I get a job now please mr NSA?

Re:the code

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah, the it translates to

To Win a Scholarship

from the unversity

of lethbridge

do the math

formula

find the sum of all decimal

digits appearing in the natural

numbers from one to one million

inclusive

contestentries must be

received by december 12/31/01

to enter online visit

www.uleth.ca and submit

... mailing instructions ...

ps. I get 36001 can some one check me...

hazards of research

[peepoh]

I work as a research assisstant for a Psychology lab at a major university. Part of my duties includes running experiments on undergrads. I had just finished running this one experiment on a very attractive young lady. Just when I was moving to thank her for her participation and show her to the door, she interrupts.

"Look, I hate to beg, but I really need some extra credit for psyc 101. If my final grade stinks as much as my current grade, my parents will cut off my allowance. Could you spot me a few extra participation points?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to do that." What a pathetic grade-grubber.

That's when the brat began sobbing and blubbering. "But I can't fail this class! I got straight A's in highschool! I'll be a disgrace! I -"

"Well, I'm sorry but I can only award credit commensurate with the amount of time you give us. I -"

"What if I give you a blow job?"

Did she just say that? I'd better come up with a generic response if I didn't want to come off soundling like a big pervert in case she hadn't just tried to bribe me with oral pleasure.

"Sure, okay."

"Ten credits, I'll even swallow."

"Deal."

My remaining disbelief disappeared the minute she unzipped my trousers and opened wide. My Jimmy was having a thoroughly good time, at first. But then I got a little nibble, and then another.

"Um, could you please stop biting me?"

" I can't help it, my braces only allow me to open my mouth so far."

Braces!?! This chick had braces? I guess The Castle Dental Center's advertised "invisible braces" really held true to their claim. Normally I would have avoided a metal-mouth right off the bat, but I'd been duped by The Castle. Common sense told me, begged me to abort immediately, but I've never been one to pull the pancakes off the griddle before they were done just because a cockroach had fallen into the batter. I was going to complete this transaction.

"ooh! ow! ooooh! ow-OW! oooh! ow!"

Five minutes later, the pancakes were done. My participant attempted to dismount, but something was wrong. My flesh was caught in her braces! I tried to work my pee-pee's way carefully and slowly out of her mouth, but she wouldn't hold still! Suddenly she jerked her head back and a flap of skin tore off. I screamed. She picked her teeth with her pinky nail, said, "Thanks for the credits!" cheerily and walked out.

I lay on the floor in a fetal position, my member bleeding, for an hour or so until a scab had formed. I get my dick cut up on Miss Piranha's maw of death and she gets ten credits?!? But she didn't have the credits yet - I had to award them! I still had control of the situation! Oh sweet revenge! Negative one-hundred for you, bitch!

Encryption easy to break

[kenneth_martens]

According to the article, this sort of thing is not entirely new: "The UK government's intelligence headquarters, GCHQ, issued ac hallenge to job hunters in January 2000."

However, this was the first time that a university staged such a contest with scholarship money as a prize. And the University of Lethbridge's puzzle was a bit easier than GHCQ's puzzle, apparently.

I wish my university would give away scholarship money like this--I could sure use the money, and I'd like the challenge.

Re:Encryption easy to break

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine every tech going into GCHQ undergoes a hell of a lot of tests like this. Given the amount of stupid tests I've been asked to do for fairly basic tech jobs I wouldn't be suprised if there was a week long interview. Still at least its better than our security services recruiting people just because they went to Oxford or Cambridge uni. This stupid practise was seen through by other countries and allowed them to insert their own agents right up to the top of MI5/6/GCHQ i.e. Philby

Incidently I wish my uni also did some kinda scholarship like this. Especially since its so expensive to be here and seems like a waste of time mostly.

Re:Encryption easy to break

[Anonymous Coward]

It's much older than that. Think Bletchley Park. The British Government published a crossword puzzle, the people who finished it quickly were used to help break German codes in WW2.

Clarify

[1g$man]

Do you mean "free as in beer" or "free as in speech?"

Re:Clarify

[mlk]

Bah, I don't like beer....

If it's "free as in vodka" I'm moving!

Re:Clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

Free as is "shut and give me all your money or I'll shot you, punk".

Re:Clarify

[cscx]

If it's "free as in vodka" I'm moving!

...to Russia, that is!

Re:Clarify

[mlk]

Vodka is not free in Russia, just very very cheep.

Which is why I'm heading that way for my hols this year ;-)

Here we go!

[skinney]

Aight kiddiez. Stop! Don't do anything in high-school!
Just drop-out and learn how to crack. Then you can
get in to school for free! Just beware of the Fed
in the white van across the street from your house.
:)

Canada is good :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, canada regulations are a bit more permissive.

If you want to hack into a systems...destroy all machine running windows with a morphing-self-replicating virus....you better move to Canada.

Mafia boy got eight months in a youth detention centre for causing $1.7 billion in damages

If he was from US....few years? 10 years + 1,000,000$ ++?
Recent stories that people got cought growing marijuana in their house near montreal got less then a year in jail (7 to 11 months). 8 people in total I think.

American* justice is a bit too much 'american'.

*I hate to use the word american to designate US citizens. Candians are American too....since in America. ....but again....'american' like to be kings. :)

You missed the point...

[Lethyos]

The point of college is to learn the things you have mentioned. Does filling out a college application or writing an entrance essay make you a good CS student? No. It just demonstrates your ability to perform a task involving some thought. Does breaking an encrypted message make you a good CS? No, of course not. But, it DOES show that you have strong skills in mathematics and analytical logic. Don't be so silly in jumping to conclusions.

That was simple

[ipfwadm]

All the code is is the index of the letters of the alphabet in base 4. There's a URL underlined in there that makes it really obvious what the "encryption" technique being used is.

Re:That was simple

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. The website has big bold letters, saying BASE FOUR... It took about 6 minutes to decode, using pen and paper.

If I knew about this ahead of time, I could have had a free scholarship... ;)

NATION UNDER ATTACK PLEASE READ

[Frank White]

Terrorists have attacked again. The White House, the Capitol Building, and the United Nations building are in ruins. Reports of further attacks in Chicago and Los Angeles are unconfirmed. President Bush and Vice President Cheney are believed dead in the White House destruction and Dennis Hastert has claimed the presidency. Nuclear strikes have been launched by the United States military against the Phillipines and Iraq. Martial law has been declared and mass media have agreed under force to continue normal programming. News web sites including Slashdot have agreed to use their moderation system to silence anyone discussing the attacks. Yahoo.com refused to abide by the decision and was shut down by the military. (Try to visit them if you need proof.) Know the truth! Do not be silenced in the crisis!

Re:NATION UNDER ATTACK PLEASE READ

[Anonymous Coward]

he is right! my modem is trying to eat my brain!

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[bellings]

It is worth pointing out that Timothy isn't the one who made that comment. It was the submitter, Kallahar...

Yeah, Timothy is just a mindless dumbass, posting anything and everything submitted, without any oversight or thought.

No, wait, he's a Slashdot editor. Same thing, really.

You guessed what I was gonna say: "OH WELL"

[rice_burners_suck]

This is a marvelous idea! Now that I've thought of it, I believe that every college should do something unique each year as part of its acceptance process. In other words, technical colleges might have you break an encryption, or fix some obscure bug nobody can find in a huge piece of software, or something difficult and obscure that most people wouldn't be able to accomplish. If you can do that, it adds major points to your acceptance process and gives you a huge advantage. Of course, other important stuff (like what grade you got in kindergarden) would still apply.

-_-_-O-_-_-H-_-_- -_-_-W-_-_-E-_-_-L-_-_-L-_-_- !

Re:You guessed what I was gonna say: "OH WELL"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a marvelous idea! Now that I've thought of it, I believe that every college should do something unique each year as part of its acceptance process.

I don't understand why there needs to be an acceptance process for colleges in the first place. If you get more students, hire more professors.

Of course, other important stuff (like what grade you got in kindergarden) would still apply.

Interesting. Maybe you're actually arguing the same point?

I Agree With This - To A Certain Extent

[Ieshan]

You know, this makes sense, up to a point. Most Liberal Arts kids have to write Essays to get into college, why not have Computer Science Geeky Kids Crack Codes?

Well, I think the major problem is the *lack* of creativity. This doesn't quite show that you have creative thought, only that you can deduce something logically. Now, as I understand it, that applies to programming, but really, if you're going to be a college student, life is more about creative problem solving than it is about logical.

Although, it is a neat idea. Will physics students be allowed to design experiments, or will others get similar "bonuses" to their college application process? I'd like to hope so.

Down with Standardized Tests, In With Creative Applications.

Re:I Agree With This - To A Certain Extent

[God_Retired]

if you're going to be a college student, life is more about creative problem solving than it is about logical

Yeah, I remember my first year in the dorm over a decade ago. A friend of mine had some weed, but neither of us had a pipe or bong. I ended up taking my pocket knife to an apple and we were smoking within 5 minutes. Damn I miss that creative college life...

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[DivineOb]

What does run DMC have to do with any of this?

Man, this is easy

[VVrath]

I'm about middle of my course of 400 CompScis, and it took me all of five minutes to 'crack' the code, and solve the puzzle. Any kid who's done GCSE Computation (aged 14-16) should be able to work it out in less than half an hour.

Are degree courses that easy to get on to in Canada? I had to get three A levels at grade C or above (and my Uni's not particularly prestigous)!

Re:Man, this is easy

[feelafel]

I'm about middle of my course of 400 CompScis, and it took me all of five minutes to 'crack' the code, and solve the puzzle. Any kid who's done GCSE Computation (aged 14-16) should be able to work it out in less than half an hour.

Well of course it's easy for a university student, and of course it's totally possible to complete for a high school student. Doesn't make much sense to post a puzzle for admission to a CS program that nobody can solve, does it?

At the end of the day, Lethbridge was trying to attract self-motivated students. The students who actually take the time to decode the message (very easy) and then solve the problem (a little more difficult, especially if you try to come up with a formula instead of just brute-forcing it) are the ones that they want. Not neccessarily because they have the capability to come up with the correct solution, but because they've got the moxy and the motivation to actually give it a "college try", as it were.

Your flamebait comment about the implications of Canadian University degrees will go ignored, but noted.

Re:Man, this is easy

[VVrath]

I had no intention of implying Canadian University degrees are of low worth, and I apologize to anyone who got that impression (it's late here, and my misguided sense of humour normally activates past 4am :)

I take your point that the problem itself is difficult if you don't brute-force it, or if you haven't done much pure maths. However, I still believe they should have made cracking the code at least a little more challenging. I would imagine that easily 95% of those who attempted it managed to crack the code and read the puzzle.

Saying all that, though, as a method of filtering out those who can't really be bothered, it was a fantastic idea.

Re:Man, this is easy

[Malc]

Getting into and going all the way are completely different stories! Some universities have lower entrance requirements, but are much tougher later on.

From my experience: I went to UEA. I chose them because at the time, they had the best N. American exchange program. York and Lancaster also had programs, but not as good. Cats college in Cambridge told me I could do an exchange, but I would have to set it up myself. That and their requirement of an A in Further Maths A-Level on top of A's in Maths and Physics (and not Geology which I was really good at) made me decide on Norwich ;)

My exchange year was spent at Carleton University in Ottawa. That place has the rep. of being second to Ottawa University (like a poly), but also for having really low entrance requirements. It was much harder for those people to get into the second year. Take it two ways: 1) they give people a chance who have failed to get in elsewhere; 2) they're money grabbing b******s who will let in anybody, take their mullah and not give them a degree ;)

The work was different than at a British university, but not necessarily to a lower standard. To be good at a British university required excessive reading around a subject. Being good at the Canadian one required working excessively hard, even if the work was not immensely challenging (try doing 4 or 5 courses in one semester with 5 one week projects for each). I did learn some good transferable skills at Carleton (e.g. OO), and take some of the main courses needed for my BCS (???) accreditation (as if anybody in the real world cares about that). They were way ahead of UEA in the OO department - e.g. UEA moved from structured programming to OOP the year after I came back by switching to teaching C++ instead of Modula-2 to the 1st year students.

Re:Man, this is easy

[feelafel]

However, I still believe they should have made cracking the code at least a little more challenging.

Gleefully agreed. I'm guessing that they were afraid of turning people off or intimidating them. However, the very least they could have done was put a simple cipher behind the base-4 encoding scheme. I mean, the ol' ROT-13 would have even been a fun way to throw an "old skule" kink in the plans. :)

Re:Man, this is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like UK universities are all that hard to get into really. Maybe you were told you needed 3 c passes but they probably would have let you in with less, and you certainly could have got into a university somewhere regardless of your grades. I wonder if its something to do with the huge amount of cash they get both from the student each year in tuition fee's and from the local education authority, well no, I don't wonder, I know thats exactly why.

I'm not entirely sure its a good thing that our universities become so commercial that anyone with money can get through, no matter how stupid they will get helped by tutors until they can learn stuff and repeat it parrot-fashion. It also seems now that only people with reasonable amounts of money or reasonably wealthy parents can afford to go, which is definately NOT GOOD.

Re:Man, this is easy

[icejai]

I'm about middle of my course of 400 CompScis, and it took me all of five minutes to 'crack' the code, and solve the puzzle. Any kid who's done GCSE Computation (aged 14-16) should be able to work it out in less than half an hour.

Yeah, of course it's easy, you're in the middle of your 400-level compsci course. And you already know how to convert numbers around to other bases.
(It'd be really sad if you didn't)
I know people in 300-level comp sci courses who still don't know how to convert base-X numbers to base-Y numbers.
Can you believe it?? I'm still trying to get over it!

I think this challenge is supposed to give students with low grades (maybe they're bored with school or something) a fighting chance at studying something they love to study.

Heh, take me for example. I got into the University of Toronto's Engineering Science program with an 83% average. The average of the 'typical' student who gets accepted into that program is usually in the mid 90's. I got into the program with such a (relatively) low average because I ranked in the top 1.2% in the University's annual nation-wide physics competition.

So, these contests/competitions aren't supposed to pick out future comp sci phD's.... they're supposed to reward the students who show potential.

Re:Man, this is easy

[Malc]

I agree: commercialisation of universities seems to be leading to devaluation of degrees. My dad did some teaching at the University of Westminster (or whatever it's called). Six of the students that he gave bad grades to complained! All sorts of trumped up charges for which my dad was cleared, although after causing him lots of stress. It seems that many students these days are spending huge wodges of cash, and in typical consumer fashion are expecting to get a good degree in return. Well I'm sorry, but that's not what academia is about: in my book, if you can't make the grade, you lose, irrespective of wealth and connections.

Re:Man, this is easy

[xenocide2]

Shit dude, the formula is non trivial, but not exactly difficult to come up with; I figured it out when trying to come up with a way to figure out the number of diagonals in a polygon with n sides. If I recall correctly, Euler did something similar, but in his head, at the age of 10.

And not to mention ..

[OzPeter]

A few years back, the Canadian snowboarding team a the winter olympics.

But then again, that would involve thinking about sport, which might be too much for the average /. reader.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

The specific charge, as I recall, was distribution of a circumvention device.

You don't recall correctly. There was no specific charge. Vague threats were made, and they were dropped.

Look at me I'm a journalist

[anthony_dipierro]

Timothy writes writes "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 ...'

Re:Look at me I'm a journalist

[Art Tatum]

*Sigh* For the millionth time, Slashdot is NOT a journalistic institution. Yes, I KNOW that it says 'News for Nerds.' Ignore it--it's just a cute tagline and nothing more. Slashdot is a place that links to OTHER places and that lets you see pretty much raw commentary from others. Quit whining about the declining 'journalistic quality' of Slashdot--it never had any to begin with and nobody ever pretended that it did. Sheesh.

Re:Look at me I'm a journalist

[anthony_dipierro]

Call it whatever you want, a copy and paste from someone who has absolutely no idea what s/he's talking about (referring to the submitter, not timothy) isn't interesting to me.

Had someone else posted the same comment as mine and I had read it, that I would have found humorous. Others' tastes may vary, but unlike timothy at least I actually tried. So I'll keep publishing things that I find funny/interesting/insightful/whatever, and timothy can keep publishing the works of others without so much as checking facts or adding anything useful himself. At least there's a moderation system to tell me when others find my crap worthwhile. Timothy has to rely on flames from readers like me. Of course, judging from the lack of effort he seems to be putting into his work, apparently he'd prefer to sit in a cube from 9 to 5 and collect money from a soon to be bankrupt company.

Re:Look at me I'm a journalist

[Art Tatum]

Call it whatever you want, a copy and paste from someone who has absolutely no idea what s/he's talking about (referring to the submitter, not timothy) isn't interesting to me.

I agree. Slashdot is not the place that most people think it's supposed to be. If people realized that it was just an average public forum/rumor mill, a lot less people would come here. And--ironically--that would drastically improve the quality.

Re:Look at me I'm a journalist

[anthony_dipierro]

If people realized that it was just an average public forum/rumor mill, a lot less people would come here.

I don't know. Sometimes I think slashdot is an above average public forum/rumor mill. Then I take a look at the comments on the front page. "I wonder how much of this profit represents 1-click licensing fees" - troll. "Can't say I'm surprised" - redundant offtopic troll. Sometimes I wonder if the only reason I come to slashdot is to get pissed off by the trolls.

But then I try to think of an alternative. And there really isn't one out there. I've learned a lot about certain topics through reading +4, +5 posts. It's just funny that it's despite the editors. The editors could just post the word "chicken" and somehow 5 interesting posts on the topic would rise to +5.

The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challenge)

[feelafel]

If anyone's interested in the real story, they should go to this story in the National Post.

Amongst other things, it talks about how the code is the first part of the challenge. The coded message leads to a math problem (which is actually kind of fun and has a rather elegant solution). Solve the math problem, and you get into school with the chance to win a scholarship.

Having gone to the site and gone through the decode and solve phases, I can happily report that the "code" isn't really a code at all. As the site hints, it's basically "coded" by being written in base-4. The challenge is really in the math problem, which requires applicants to find the summation of all decimal digits in the sequence of natural numbers from one to one million. While this isn't impossible, it does require some thought and intelligence. I thought it was a great idea for students who liked math and computer science (the problem can also be solved with a simple brute force algorithm) but weren't neccessarily that stellar students nor interested in lengthy University applications.

Heck - I spent an hour coming up with a solution and then verifying it with a quick little Java program. It was fun! Give it a shot!

(As a Troll-y sidenote, I'd like to mention with some degree of bitterness that I submitted this story, except when I did it, I got the facts right. Apparently this warrants a rejection, and irrelevant whining about the DMCA warrants approval. Do you ever wonder why /. gets a bad reputation from time to time?)

=)

[Anonymous Coward]

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, r3b3b1.

Re:=)

[justin.warren]

Heh. Just beat me to it. Simple substitution cipher with all letters substituted for their position in the alphabet in base 4:

A = /001
B = /002
etc. Numbers, dates and punctuation not included.

Answer's 27,000,001 in case you were wondering.

Re:=)

[Kwikymart]

Yes, I actually did the contest even though it expired. It was simple base-4 encryption (with numbers directly corresponding to letters a = 1, z = 26 etc etc etc). Check the contest website here. there is PDF file there with the code. The math question they asked was trivial. I am almost 99% sure answer was (1000000*1000001)/2 .

I first saw this in a Canadian newspaper called The National Post (article). The funny thing was they neglected to say that the contest was expired and I was under the assumption that it was still going.

Re:=)

[Kwikymart]

HAHAH!!! I guess I was wrong. I must have misread the question. The other person posted another answer and got me thinking what they were actually asking. All I can say is, oops!

Re:=)

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is the real question, it is pretty easy...

Re:=)

[Anonymous Coward]

that's not the answer you moron. thats the sum of the digits in the 6 and 7 digit numbers. duh.

Re:=)

[YogSothoth]

#include

int main()
{
int sum = 0;

for(int i = 1; i <= 1000000; i ++)
for(int value = i; value > 0 && (sum += value % 10); value /= 10)
;

cout << "sum: " << sum << endl;

return(0);
}

Re:=)

[justin.warren]

Umm.. if it's not 27,000,001 what is it?

The program in the previous reply calculates it as 27,000,001 and the following link shows the shortcut method I used: http://www.cpa.us.mensa.org/solutions.html

The sum of digits in the 6 and 7 digit numbers, aka sum of digits of natural numbers from 100000 to 9999999, inclusive, is 312749999.

Why am I replying to an abusive AC again?

Poisoned ninja dart to the neck!

[Discount_Ninja_Troll]

F00l! You cannot defeat the ever-present force of the NINJA! I kill you and claim your first post in the name of the Koga clan! hahahahahaha

Re:Poisoned ninja dart to the neck!

[I.T.R.A.R.K.]

Pfft! And I claim your stolen first post in the name of Orville Redenbacher!
My tongue-foo 0wnz you, biznatch!
You will ph34r!

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[xtremex]

American Corporations are NOT American. They are the most UNamerican thig there is! Corporations aren't patriots, they are GLOBALISTS, thats why they allow third worlders in to take jobs. To BREAK the wage.
They couldnt care less about our country. If they did, they wouldnt ALLOW third worlders to take American jobs. Why should they pay an American citizen $100,000 as a UNIX SA, when a third wolrd foreigner will do it for $30,000?

Congratulations

[Ralph JewHater Nader]

Excellent first post sir. Just as the average woman today desperately needs to clean her filthy vagina, humanity needs to rid itself of its impure elements, such as the niggers and the jews.

Re:Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

You raise a salient point here, as you have before in this forum. I have noticed, though, that you neglect the greatest menace of them all:

The Yellow Menace.

That's right, asiatics are crawling over the earth like bacteria in a petri dish. Multiplying at astonishing rates, their progress into the whiter portions of the world is accelerating. This is something that must be stopped, lest their godless ways and tiny thin eyes cover the globe.

I agree that there are other races who pose a threat, but the most of them are either poor or limited in number. Our yellow inferiors, however, have used their hive-minded conformity to dominate half of the world, like fireants in Texas.

I ask for your help, Ralph JewHater Nader, in spreading the word.

Hando

I can't believe no one has posted this...

[macsuibhne]

Was it "f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng."?

Enquiring minds &c.
Tony.

Coming soon...

[Nugget]

... the distributed.net online scholarship program!

]:8)

Crack the code of goatse.cx!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a secret message in his anus: www.goatse.cx/hello.jpg

- The BOFH Troll

Canandian Universities..

[Silver222]

At least in Alberta, are a bit different than they are in the States. No entrance essays about how you bleed the color of the school, no parents lobbying to get you in even if you are a complete dumbass *cough*Bush...Yale*cough*. (Although I'm sure strings have been pulled in some instances. Hell, they even gave Ralph Klein an honorary degree, right?)

All I had to do was submit my high school transcript with the application halfway through Grade 12. If you have good marks, it's harder to get a driver's license than it is to get into the University of Alberta. (Not to imply that it's an inferior University either.)

Re:Canandian Universities..

[quantaman]

I'm also attending the UofA and I have to agree that it is very easy to gain admission. The fact is that anyone who has any sort of decent marks in high school has the intelligence to be able to complete some sort of program if they apply themselves at all. I'm sure 90% of "smart" people are just ordinary people who have the initiative to apply themselves. This was probably the intent of the test in the first place, to seperate the the people who have the motivation to learn and to become good students and eventually become succesful professionals, from the otherwise intelligent people who just don't care.

Re:Canandian Universities..

[freeweed]

All I had to do was submit my high school transcript with the application halfway through Grade 12. If you have good marks, it's harder to get a driver's license than it is to get into the University of Alberta. (Not to imply that it's an inferior University either.)

Nope, in fact many Canadian universities are very well respected. The difference here is, in Canada we believe in education for EVERYONE, or at least for the most possible. Not money, nor family connections, matter.

Of course, once you're in it's a whole different story. You still have to do the work involved, but there's no high-pressure entrance exam (at least not for a lot of Canuck schools) or insanely high fee. Kinda why we use a lot of government money in one of the few subsidies I can stomach: post-secondary education.

There's a reason why a majority (or so it seemed coming from my less-than-average high school) of Canadian kids go to University/College. No, it's not for everyone, and yes, a LOT of Canadians don't have degrees/diplomas. But usually, that's because of the student's performance AFTER getting out of high school (which is basically just a big social club where we learn algebra, anyway :)

Re:Canandian Universities..

[Silver222]

My wife went to a State University in California, and the fees were actually about the same as the University of Alberta's. So I'm not sure that it's a lot worse in the States. It does seem that more people (this is just my observation, not firmly grounded in fact) in the United States move away from home to attend college. That ups the cost considerably. It's the private universities that kill you with tuition, unless you have scholarships up the ass.

Re:Canandian Universities..

[Kwil]

The difference here is, in Canada we believe in education for EVERYONE, or at least for the most possible. Not money, nor family connections, matter.

At least, we like to think so, and our government sure likes to tell us so. Too bad the statistics say otherwise. Basically, if you're poor, you have only half the chance of attending university of someone who's rich. That may be better odds than the states, it may not, but it definitely doesn't fit with the "money doesn't make a difference" line.

As for tuitions, Canadian university tuitions work out to about the same as many US universities and colleges. In fact, unless they're going to a University away from home, the average American student can wind up paying less thanks to the larger number of scholarship/grant programs available.

Of course, if you're Canadian, you can work on changing this. Start with your MLA and be sure to send a copy on to your MP. If enough people bring the issue up to the electeds, maybe they'll finally start doing something about it.

Re:Canandian Universities..

[SuiteSisterMary]

You've got the 'dedicated' people who can plow through the crap. You've got the 'smart' people who are bored silly, and there's no alternative for them, so they skate by on Cs and Ds. You've got the 'challenged' people, who DO have an alternative (special programs out the wazoo) and get the care and extra attention they deserve. You've got the 'average' students for whom the entire general cirriculum is geared for. So in academic terms, being terribly bright, as we all know, is quite the detriment. Yes, y'all can come up with ten thousand counterexamples, but this is, by and large, true and accurate. I guess for America I can add 'those good at sports, who are sailed through the other classes' and 'those with connections or rich daddies' but that's all based on hear-say. :-)

Re:Canandian Universities..

[gdr]

At least, we like to think so, and our government sure likes to tell us so. Too bad the statistics say otherwise. Basically, if you're poor, you have only half the chance of attending university of someone who's rich. That may be better odds than the states, it may not, but it definitely doesn't fit with the "money doesn't make a difference" line.

These statistics don't show that universities discriminate on the basis of wealth. Are we to conclude that because men far outnumber women studying physics at university that this is because physics departments discriminate against female applicants?

Your wealth does affect your likelihood of going to university but it's not the university system doing the discriminating. If your parents are (well paid) intelligent professionals you are much more likely to grow up in an environment that values and encourages intellectual growth, which will give you a better chance of growing up to be a good university student. There's not a lot the state can do about this.

Re:Canandian Universities..

[arkanes]

The statistics show that poor people don't go to college as much as rich people. It shows nothing about the reasons why, whether it's social enviroment, affordability, or university discrimination. All it shows is that if you're poor, odds are better that you won't have gone to college than if you're rich. The parent post is correct.

Re:Canandian Universities..

[duct_tape_n_wd40]

"Canadian universities...there's no high-pressure entrance exam"

What about the Descartes exam, Sir Isaac Newton Physics and all the others? They're probably the only reason I got into uni (my HS marks sure didn't get me there!)

Wow.. I actually graduated from that University...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would have thought the little University I went too would turn out a totally unique and creative idea such as this... :)

Speaking from experience, the CS courses there rival many of the larger Canadian Universities, and actually exceed them. If that's one thing the UofL teaches you, it's how to critically think, and code.

Sweet!

makes you wonder

[joenobody]

Does this strike anyone else as a great way to get someone else to finish up the work on your thesis for you?

Silly Question

[Guppy06]

If you have to know crypto-analysis in order to get into college, where are you supposed to learn crypto-analysis? Or is Canada yet another of those countries where university != college?

Re:Silly Question

[DataSquid]

Indeed Canada is, but it wasn't untill my second year (of university) we learned how RSA worked, and a real crypto course would be a third or fourth year elective. Most awards based challenges like this are relying on your problem solving skills or resourcefullness to solve them. That's kind of the point, most highschool students shouldn't know how to solve it.

Re:Silly Question

[aallan]

If you have to know crypto-analysis in order to get into college, where are you supposed to learn crypto-analysis?

A book?

Al.

Re:Silly Question

[Mac Beckett]

Yes, college != university. It sounds as if these are students from what I think are called "community colleges" in the US. Here, it's a stage between High School and University.

Re:Silly Question

[iplayfast]

Yes, in Canada College is more towards practical application of knowledge, and Univerity is towards theory. They overlap a bit, but in general if you go to Univerity, you aren't going to be an automechanic.

I always found it slightly funny that American's try so hard to get into college. (it's a joke laugh!)

The Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[DarkZero]

Actually, it DOES apply. Professor Felten was asked to break it as part of a competition, but was then prosecuted fo it. Also, Dmitry Sklyarov was not asked to break Adobe's encryption, but a precedent was set when Adobe chose not to prosecute him, but the US government decided to prosecute him in federal court because breaking encryption broke the CRIMINAL LAW aspect of the DMCA.

It is definitely feasible that a college student breaking the encryption on an encrypted message, even when specifically asked by his college to break the encryption on a message given to him by his college, would be at risk for prosecution under the DMCA. It is a very broad piece of legislation, the specific wording of which could easily be held up in court in a variety of cases, regardless of whether or not the defendant was asked to break the encryption and whether or not the person that originally encrypted it had a problem with it.

Hmmm....

[DataSquid]

So if I'm successful I go to college instead of university? Sounds like a raw deal to me ;) There's a big difference between the two here, with colleges being more trade-school oriented. Not that there's anything wrong with that! (a la Seinfeld).

Interview Puzzle

[scubacuda]

In fact, someone who applied to Microsoft told me that he was given a puzzle to complete during the interview.

Re:Interview Puzzle

[shemnon]

They were only given one puzzle? The must have decidede early not ti hire him then.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Martigan80]

Is that just like the whole Adobe illustrator thing? I mean they dropped the charges BUT the local authorities were still prosecuting. Lawyer can twist this around to were it doesn't matter IF the owner wanted it done because it_is_still in violation.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Danse]

I doubt they even bothered to copyright it.

Anything you write is automatically copyrighted. You don't have to register it or anything anymore.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[DivineOb]

shut up timothy

Circumvention Device

[PSwiss]

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void)
{
int c, i, j;
char seq[4];
char message[1024];

seq[3] = '\0';
i = j = 0;

while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) {
if (i == 3) {
i = 0;
message[j++] = strtol(seq, NULL, 4) + 'a' - 1;
}
if (c >= '0' && c <= '3')
seq[i++] = c;
else if (c == '/')
continue;
else
message[j++] = c;
}
message[j] = '\0';
printf("%s", message);
}

The answer is 500000500000.

Re:Circumvention Device

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is 500000500000.

Well, if the question was to find the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 1000000, then you'd be correct. But it asks that you find the sum of the all the *digits* of appearing in the numbers from 1 to 1000000.

eg. The sum of all the numbers from 1 to 11 inclusive would be

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11=66,

whereas the sum of all the *digits* of the numbers from 1 to 11 inclusive is

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9
+1+0
+1+1
=48

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL HAHAHAHAHAH, your so damn clever. I love it how all these smart slashdot people find a way to critize people without sneaking in anything new, constructive or otherwise hasn't been said before.

Seriously, if you hate slashdot editors, then wtf dp upi read this site, go somewhere else with people that you agree with, you'll be much happier.

They made that way too easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I cracked it in less time than it took me to *find* the puzzle on their site! In fact, I "cracked" it before I found it at all, thanks to the hints they gave.

What they should have said instead is "full scholarship to the first one who reverse-engineers the compression on the Creative USB WebCam". Now *that* would be a challenge! It'd be great for the Linux USB project too :)

Spoiler

[Tungz10]

The digits 1-9 appear an equal number of times from 1 to 999,999. That is, if you write out all the numbers in a vertical column, each column will have 100,000 1's, 100,000 2's, etc, except in a different order which doesn't matter.

The sum of 1 to 9 is 45. so the sum of each column is 45 * 100,000 = 4,500,000. There are six columns of digits, so multiply that by six to get 27,000,000. Now add the sum of the digits of 1,000,000.

The answer: 27,000,001

Re:Spoiler

[Utopia]

1+2+3+...+n = n*(n+1)/2
isn't that easier.

Re:Spoiler

[mike_g]

isn't that easier.

It would be if it was the right answer.

1+2+3+...+n = n*(n+1)/2

This is the sum of the numbers from 1 to a million. The question was asking for a sum of all of the digits of the numbers from 1 to a million. A slightly harder problem.

Re:Spoiler

[Behr]

it would be if it were asking you to add the numbers but it's asking you to add the digits...

Re:Spoiler

[Dahan]

Sorry, no scholarship for you!

It's base 4.

[Wakko Warner]

Not exactly a brain teaser. Anyone who can't figure this out (and is already a CS major) should think of switching majors to something a little less challenging.

- A.P.

Decoding

[jquirke]

For those who couldn't spend a couple of minutes writing a Perl or C program I did (bored) and here's the base4->Alpha translation.

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 13/31/01

to enter online: visit
www.uleth.ca
and submit your
answer

mail: send you answer along
with your name full address and
phone number to go figure what
magazine 93 lombard avenue
winnipeg mb r3b3b1

And no, i dont have the answer :-) - not that bored

--JQuirke

Re:Decoding

[jquirke]

oh great by the time I had posted this two anonymous cowards have posted it already, one with the answer, now i look redundant even though i didnt intend to be

Re:Decoding

[dirkx]

Of the top of my head:
for a number n digits long (ignoring the last entry) we have 10^n combinations and the average value in each position is 4.5 and each number has n digits:
=> n * 10^n * average value of a digit (4.5) +1

or - more constructional:

0...9 = 4*10+5 = 1 * 45
00..99 = 10x(0..9) + 10x(0..9) = 2 * 10 * 45
i.e. each row has all permutations.
000...999 = .. = 3 * 10 * 10 * 45
0000....9999 = .. = 4 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 45
with n=ln(N)/ln(10)
=> n * 10^(n-1) * sum(0..9)
and then add one for the million (inclusive).
=> n * 10^(n-1) * sum(0..9) + 1

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[ndevice]

I'm not sure that this 'test' really serves to differentiate applicants:

- assuming that the base 4 transform really is as trivial as it sounds (can't get at the link - site overloaded probably) there are two ways to solve the summation problem:

1) with brute force summation
2) with euler's method (well, one of euler's methods [n*(n+1)/2])

with 1) you get the CS people who are sometimes too lazy to know the math.

but with 2) you get the math people who are too lazy to write the brute force algorithm.

But since this is a first-reply contest and since it is the cs/math departments accepting applicants, it probably doesn't matter who they get. Maybe they shunt people into different departments depending on the answer?

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is different, one notable difference being that most universities won't try to sue you for entering their contest."

Heh - Go ahead, break our encryption. We won't scrue, I mean, sue, you, promise! Trust us!

Stop calling Amrican "free"

[kzadot]

Im not in America, but I get sick of hearing people complain about how its not free anymore. Its only 1 country. Things are a lot worse in many countries and a lot better in some too. If you want to improve then vote libertarian.

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Sparr0]

You spent an hour coming up with a solution that is named after the 3rd grader (Karl Friedrich Gauss) who solved the problem in about 30 seconds. This took me about 5 minutes to decode and under a minute to solve.

It's A Clever Gimmick

[FrankDrebin]

I lived in Lethbridge for a few months over ten years ago. It was a small town then and still is, as you can see here (less than 70,000 population).

IMHO, Southern Alberta is an attractive region if you're into farming or ranching, but doesn't generally have a large enough population to support the University of Lethbridge on its own. Calgary is only a couple hours away by car, and tends to draw the more city-minded students.

It seems the U of Lethbridge has to use these clever gimmicks to attract enough students from outside the region to keep itself viable. By making the crypto test relatively simple, it taps into the ego of a wider number of prospective students.

Pretty smart marketing move, actually.

Re:It's A Clever Gimmick

[frzntoz]

I actually live in Lethbridge, and I've lived in the area almost all my life. Yes Lethbridge is a farming-oriented community, but this is not to take anything away from the university. With enrollment around 7000 now, and much expansion over the past few years, the stature of the UofL has risen greatly.

Many students come to Lethbridge specifically to get away from the big city universities in Calgary and Edmonton. I wouldn't be so quite to write it off...

Re:It's A Clever Gimmick

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHA. You truly are an idiot aren't you. Perhaps you should note what some of the researchers in the Math and CS department do. THey are very dedicated to coding and cryptographic issues, as they have held some very prestigous workshops in the past.

As well, their CS dept is probably one of the less known departments. Their education and nursing faculties are top notch in Canada, and possibly North America. I think you are probably one of these people from Calgary that is pissed your university never makes the news.

Re:The REAL Story ... (here's the solution)

[feelafel]

2) with euler's method (well, one of euler's methods [n*(n+1)/2])

This would give you the summation of all natural numbers between 1 and 1000000. The question, however, is to find the summation of all decimal digits appearing in the sequence.

For example, 324 would contribute a total of 9 to the total sum.

So, the sum of 0..10 = 46
the sum of 0..100 = 901
the sum of 0..10^n = (n * 10^(n-1) * 45) + 1

In our case, we're looking for 0..10^6, so

= (6 * 100000 * 45) + 1
= 27000000 + 1
= 27000001

As I said, a little more complex, but not impossible to figure out if you take out pencil and paper and think about it.

To verify, simply create a brute force algorithm that loops from 1 to 1000000, where the loop code either uses mod and div to isolate the value of each digit of a number, or some funky string-integer transformations.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever, Timothy. Maybe you'd prefer I prattle some random crap about the DMCA instead?

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[ndevice]

oh right Gauss. Got Euler and Gauss mixed up.

But wasn't the story that Gauss got into trouble for using his summation method? Maybe these guys require a manual summation...

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[feelafel]

Assuming that Gauss came up with a method to do this, and you're not mistakenly referring to Euler, then zoombah - you're smarter than me. Take a friggin' bow.

Assuming that you, like many others, failed to read the question and just found the summation of natural numbers between 1 and 1000000, then take another look at the wording and go back to the drawing board, Spanky.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[digitalunity]

Y'all are freaking retarded. If there is anything that the Skylarov(sic), the copyright holder doesn't have to grant the Government permission to charge someone with a crime. The DMCA is very much a Criminal law as much as a Civil law. Even after adobe backed out, he still got charged for the crimes committed. In this case, I doubt anyone would get charged. Doesn't mean it couldn't or wouldn't happen.

You should be able to do that in your head

[Robber Baron]

'nuff said.

Wow! I just made a poem!

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Xerithane]

First off, I went into the site and couldn't even figure out the navigation well enough to even want to go through it. And, for a scholarship don't they think they could have come up with a little bit of a harder problem? After giving up on their silly site, I perused slashdot and was kind of disappointed that it was that silly.

The college I attended had an annual competition where high school students built robotics or coded something, and would give out some degree of scholarships or other financial assistance towards prospective students and I can tell you that anybody who wrote a program to find the summation of all natural numbers would be laughed out. These were things like kernels, AI schemes, language recognition applications. I fail to see the cool factor in this. Any nerd deserving a scholarship for brains alone should really be challenged and not something that can be solved by a 2 minute script.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[digitalunity]

Y'all are freaking retarded. If there is anything that the Skylarov(sic), the copyright holder doesn't have to grant the Government permission to charge someone with a crime. The DMCA is very much a Criminal law as much as a Civil law. Even after adobe backed out, he still got charged for the crimes committed. In this case, I doubt anyone would get charged.

Doesn't mean it couldn't or wouldn't happen.

the hard part is...

[markj02]

The hard part is to get the text corresponding to the encoded message so that you don't have to type it in. The ULeth Press Release has a JPEG (are you supposed to do OCR?), and the Go Figure web site has a really messy navigational structure and the message hidden in a PDF file. Now, getting it out requires experience with Adobe Acrobat or some other PDF tools. That's much harder than undoing the simple encoding or solving the trivial math problem.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[_xen]

the copyright holder doesn't have to grant the Government permission to charge someone with a crime

yes, but the point here is that if the copyright holder grants you permission, there is no breach of copyright in the first place ...

-1 Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

>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

Uninformed mudslinging doesn't help the cause...

moron

[autopr0n]

Felten was never prosecuted, he was threatened with prosecution. I could threaten you with prosecution for spreading false information, but that certanly wouldn't make it a crime

Re:moron

[renehollan]

Actually, IIRC, in Canada, threatening to prosecute is a crime (or at least used to be) -- you either prosecute or you don't.

The idea is to avoid intimidation by the threat of groundless prosecution that would nevertheless be expensive to defend against.

Of course, IANAL.

Wasn't all that hard.....

[sonicsft]

I'm a senior in highschool and I "cracked" the "code" in about 6min....The hardest of the whole thing was running find and replace for their base 4 alphabet(I was too lazy to write a script for it), and then punching some numbers into my scientific calculator. I wish some US schools would do this, then maybe I could afford to go to the schools I get accepted to.....

-sonicsft

Re:Wasn't all that hard.....

[Dr. Evil]

The sum of the numbers from 1 to 1M fits a pattern. It is an old, old problem.

To toot my own horn, somebody asked me the question (1 to 100) in grade 10, on the other hand, just knowing that there is a solution and that it can be done in your head, makes solving it trivial.

Just think of the sets of numbers which add up to 1M, and do some multiplication.
1M + 0 = 1 M
999,999 + 1 = 1M
999,998 + 2 = 1M
...

Think about 1 to 10, and you can figure out where stuff meets up. 6+4 = 10, so the 5 has no partner, or 500k has no partner in this case. Also, 6 to 10 is 5 sets, meaning that there is an even number of multiplications going on equal to "half" the number of numbers.

So, 500,000 * 1M + 500,000

It shouldn't be too hard to see the solution in your head, then work out any particulars on paper (I can't keep very much in my head).

Sort of like knowing that there is a way to triple the resolution of an LCD, most people immediately realized how sub-pixel rendering works.

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[saforrest]

The story about the young student Gauss coming up with the means of summing 1 to n (a task his teacher had set his class as an exercise in time-wasting) is available here.

(Given that you know enough math to solve the problem as you describe it, I'm actually kind of surprised you've never heard the story, but I guess I did have instructors that liked math history.)

Yeah, it sucks that nobody seems to understand what you said (i.e. the distinction between sum of integers and sum of their decimal digits), but hey, it is Slashdot. Did you expect better?

NSA Problems

[SkewlD00d]

The NSA has some fun problems on its USA Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS) page.

2^(2^(2^2 + 1) - 1) - 1 = 2^31 - 1: Mersenne prime

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Rothfuss]

I've got a picture of a turtle and another picture of a pirate that you can try to draw freehand for a chance at a scholarship to an art school.

Let me know if you want the details.

-Rothfuss

Re:the code and the SOLUTION in PERL5 =P

[Anonymous Coward]

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;

use vars qw/
/;

# START: 1:28am -> 2:38am
# DURATION: 70 minutes

sub quagit2dec($)
{
my $t = $_[0];

# return "" if $t =~ m/[0123]/;

my @a = split //, $t;

my $dec = $a[2] * 1 + $a[1] * 4 + $a[0] * 16;

return $dec;
}

sub dec2alpha($)
{
my $d = $_[0];

# return "" if $d =~ m/[0-9]/;

my $idx = 1;

for my $i ( 'a' .. 'z' )
{
# print "[$i|$idx|$d]";
return $i if ( $idx == $d );
$idx++;
}

return "?";
}

sub main()
{

my $code = qq{
110/033/ 113/021/032/ 001/ 103/003/020/033/030/001/102/103/020/021/100/
012/102/033/031/ 110/020/011/ 111/032/021/112/011/102/103/021/110/121/
033/012/030/011/110/020/002/102/021/010/013/011/

010/033/ 110/020/011/ 031/001/110/020/.

012/033/102/031/111/030/001/:

012/021/032/010/ 110/020/011/ 103/111/031/ 033/012/ 001/030/030/ 010/011/003/021/031/001/030/
010/021/013/021/110/103/ 001/100/100/011/001/102/021/032/013/ 021/032/ 110/020/011/ 032/001/110/111/102/001/030/
032/111/031/002/011/102/ 103/012/102/033/031/ 033/032/011/ 110/033/ 033/032/011/ 031/021/030/030/021/033/032/
021/032/003/030/111/103/021/112/011/.

003/033/032/110/011/103/110/ 011/032/110/102/021/011/103/ 031/111/103/110/ 002/011/
102/011/003/011/021/112/011/010/ 002/121/ 010/011/003/011/031/002/011/102/ 12/31/01

110/033/ 011/032/110/011/102/ 033/032/030/021/032/011/: 112/021/103/021/110/
113/113/113/.111/030/011/110/020/.003/001/ 001/032/010/ 103/111/002/031/021/110/ 121/033/111/102/
001/032/103/113/011/102/.

031/001/021/030/: 103/011/032/010/ 121/033/111/102/ 001/032/103/113/011/102/,/ 001/030/033/032/013/
113/021/110/020/ 121/033/111/102/ 032/001/031/011/,/ 012/111/030/030/ 001/010/010/102/011/103/103/ 001/032/010/
100/020/033/032/011/ 032/111/031/002/011/102/ 110/033/ 013/033/ 012/021/013/111/102/011/ 113/020/001/110/
031/001/013/001/122/021/032/011/,/108/,/93/ 030/033/031/002/001/102/010/ 001/112/011/032/111/011/,
113/021/032/032/021/100/011/013/, 031/002/, 102/3/002/3/002/1/.
};

my @quagit = split /[^0123]+/, $code;

my $xmsg = $code;

#for my $pt ( @quagit )
#{
# my $td = quagit2dec( $pt );
# my $da = dec2alpha( $td );
# print "$da";
#}

my $cnt = 0;

while( $xmsg )
{
$xmsg =~ m/([0123][0123][0123])\//;
print $`;

my $v = $1;
my $t = quagit2dec( $v );
my $d = dec2alpha( $t );

print $d;

$xmsg = $';

$cnt++;

last if ( $cnt > 450 );
}

my $val = 0;
for my $nb ( 1 .. 1000000 )
{
$val = $val + $nb;
}

print "\n\n SUM of 1..1,000,000 => $val \n";

exit;

}

main;
exit;

1;

__END__

DECODED OUTPUT:
===============

to win a scholarship
from the university
oflethbridge

do the math.

formula:

find the sum of all decimal
digits appearing in the natural
number sfrom 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/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3 /b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b 3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/ b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3 /b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b 3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/ b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b3/b

SUM of 1..1,000,000 => 500000500000

What was the question again ?

The Perl script is not perfect, got rid of
an infinite loop with a stupid limit,
but it works okay.

Didn't got the last part fully working...
Anyway.

Hope this help.

|=R33 l33C|-| 2 @ uÑi\/ $c|-|0L@r$|-|iP

That's a real code damn it! =)

I'm not eligible, anyone cares?

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Cryptnotic]

Someone's been watching too much late night TV. *grin*

Cryptnotic

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[ndevice]

I checked, the natural number summation is by gauss.

A variation of that can be used to sum the digits from 1 to n:

- sum from 1-9, get 45 (gauss).
- notice that the sums cycle with cycle length 10
- use the following forumula:
- m = (n+1)/10 (gets 1, 2, 3, ...)
- [m * 45] + [(m(m-1)/2)*10]
- the second part of the sum is gauss

where n is 1 less than a multiple of 10. e.g. n can be 9, 19, 29, etc...

I think I got my math right. But I could be wrong.

The power of bc (4)

[Anonymous Coward]

The code can be found here

The solution can be found by starting up 'bc' and typing
ibase=4

And then each number of the puzzle.

The result is the number in the alphabet of the corresponding character.

Have fun ...

Cracking exams

[jmerelo]

In the old times of FidoNet, I shared a BBS with several students. I was teaching computer science 101 then. At 00:00 AM, 8 hours before the exam, I posted the exam to the BBS, in postscript (with the first line deleted, so that it was not inmediately recognizable as such), and compressed with zoo (not a very popular compressor, now and them). I put a rubbish name on top, so that, well, it wasn't only using zoo and ghostview. I sent a message to the 3 students telling them that I had posted the message in the file area, without telling them the name or anything else. They managed to "crack" it the next morning, 2 hours before the exam. The zoo part was easy (it includes "zoo" as the first letter in the file), the PS file a bit harder, and the hardest part, 10 years ago, was to find a program to print PS (download it thru fidonet and all the stuff).

They passed, but not with high marks; after all, they had only a couple of hours to prepare it. They would have been better off studying thru the night...

Ok, I was bored.

[molo]

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

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[k-flex$]

hehe, even in javascript...
----

<html>
<head>
<script language="javascript">
var total = 0;
total=0;
for(i=0;i<=1000000;i++)
total+=i;
document.write(total)
</script>
</html>

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[raoulortega]

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.

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[Puppe]

The easiest way to calculate the sum from 1 to 1000000 is ofcause (n+1) * n/2.

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[limber]

Judging by the different answers provided by various /.ians in this thread, the idea of using this problem as an entrance filter seems to be working!

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[smnolde]

I got a much shorter message: DRINK YOUR OVALTINE

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[Puppe]

Could you explain how you got to that formula?

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[Stonehand]

Well, at least as a literacy test... a LOT would fail, it seems.

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[iplayfast]

The only possible digits are '0' through '9' (assuming base 10...) so 9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1+0 = 45 :)

Or,

there are no digits in the phrase "THE NATURAL
NUMBERS FROM ONE TO ONE MILLION
INCLUSIVE" so the answer is 0.

Really they should make these questions more clear!

Re:Ok, I was bored.

[Anonymous Coward]

why must me be failing math! me be dumb and cant understand what you be saying with your numbers and stuff...

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[troff]

Writing the code to translate is cool, but my coding is rusty, so I did the decoding by:

Exporting the PDF as RTF
Reading the RTF into a word processor
Substituting the appropriate letter for each of the base-4 strings

But the math problem is trivial and can be done with pen and paper in about thirty seconds. Bearing in mind the decoded message has already been posted...

SPOILER WARNING...
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
...
Don't bother writing a program or anything, or even using a multi-precision calculator. Recognise that the summation can be done by adding opposing pairs, then a single multiplication.

1 + 1e6 = (1e6)+1.
0.5e6 + (0.5e6)+1 also = (1e6)+1.

Then just multiply it by 5e5. Paper and pen.

My only complaint is that the site must be slashdotted and I couldn't submit the solution. Sure, I live in Australia and can't really use a scholarship to U.Lethbridge (too late anyway, I know...)... but it just would've been fun. Sigh.

P.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[twilightzero]

True but you SHOULD copyright it, if just to be able to prove that you DID write it. Even poor man's copyright (seal in envelope, mail to yourself certified mail, never open envelope) works for this, but you need to do at least something so you're able to prove legally that you wrote it.

Wanna see it done in 1 line of perl? :)

[Anonymous Coward]

perl -e 's/(\d)(\d)(\d)\//chr($1*16+$2*4+$3+64)/ge;print' CODE_GOES_HERE

jryan
http://www.perlmonks.org

Two Years From Now:

[Gameshow Bob]

A University in Canada had to expel 100 Computer Science juniors for breaking into the computer system and changing their grades.

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[ndevice]

oops, am wrong. missed the recurrences (cycles are at 10^n for n > 0)

Give it to the jock instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right, that scholarship should have gone to someone in athletics instead so he could get his CS degree. I think this is a good way of FOCUSING on students that normally wouldnt have as many chances at scholarships as your head of the football/hocky team types. Yes in some cases breaking encryption wouldnt be that hard, but how many people at your school would know how to, or even know how to spell encryption to begin with.

Check please!

[lowtus]

#!/usr/bin/perl
@string = ("110","033"," ","113","021","032"," ","001"," ","103","003","020","033","030","001","102","103", "020","021","100"," ","012",
"102","033","031"," ","110","020","011"," ","111","032","021",
"112","011","102","103","021","110","121"," ","033","012"," ","030","011","110","020","002","102","021","010",
"013","011"," ","010","033"," ","110","020","011"," ","031","001","110","020"," ",
"012","033","102","031","111","030","001",":",
"012","021","032","010"," ","110","020","011"," ","103","111","031"," ","033","012"," ","001","030","030"," ","010","011","003",
"021","031","001","030"," ","010","021","013","021","110","103"," ","001","100","100","011","001","102","021","032",
"013"," ","021","032"," ","110","020","011"," ","032","001","110","111","102","001","030"," ",
"032","111","031","002","011","102","103"," ","012","102","033","031"," ","033","032","011"," ","110","033"," ","033","032",
"011","031","021","030","030","021","033","032"," ","021","032","003","030","111","103","021","112", "011","."," ",
"003","033","032","110","011","103","110"," ","011","032","110","102","021","011","103"," ","031","111","103","110"," ",
"002","011","102","011","003","011","021","112","0 11","010"," ","002","121"," ","010","011","003","011","031","002","011","102", " ",
"1","2","/","3","1","/","0","1"," ",
"110","033"," ","011","032","110","011","102"," ","033","032","030","021","032","011",":","112","0 21","103","021","110",
"113","113","113",".","111","030","011","110","020 ",".","003","001"," ","001","032","010"," ","103","111","002","031","021","110"," ",
"121","033","111","102"," ","001","032","103","113","011","102",".",
"031","001","021","030",":","103","01","032","010" ,"121","033","111","102"," ",
"001","032","103","113","011","102",","," ","001","030","033","032","013"," ",
"113","021","110","020"," ","121","033","111","102"," ","032","001","031","011",",","012","111","030","0 30"," ",
"001","010","010","102","011","103","103"," ","001","032","010"," ",
"100","020","033","032","011"," ","032","111","031","002","011","102"," ","110","033","013","033","012","021","013","111", "102","011"," ",
"113","020","001","110"," ","031","001","013","001","122","021","032","011", ",","1","0","8",",","9","3"," ","030","033","031","002",
"001","102","010"," ",
"001","112","011","032","111","011",",","113","021 ","032","021","100","011","013",",","031","002",", ",
"102","3","002","3","002","1","."
);
@chars = ("A","B","C","D","E","F","G","H","I","J","K","L"," M","N","O","P","Q","R",
"S","T","U","V","W","X","Y","Z");
for ($x = 0; $x = 455; ++$x) {
if (length($string[$x]) 2) { print $string[$x] }
else {
$baseten[$x] = chop($string[$x])*4**0 + chop($string[$x])*4**1 + chop($string[$x])*4**2;
print "$chars[$baseten[$x]-1]";
}
}

Output:

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 ONEMILLION INCLUSIVE. CONTEST ENTRIES MUST BERECEIVED BY DECEMBER 12/31/01 TO ENTER ONLINE:VISIT WWW.ULETH.CA AND SUBMIT YOUR ANSWER.MAIL:SANDYOUR ANSWER, ALONG WITH YOUR NAME,FULL ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER TOGOFIGURE WHAT MAGAZINE,108,93 LOMBARD AVENUE,WINIPEG,MB,R3B3B1.

Too bad something like this wasn't around last
year when I was graduating highschool. Maybe
those colleges that rejected me would think
twice... Not that this is a serious cryptography problem, but still.. one has to wonder :)

YOUR POST PLEASES ME!

[L.Torvalds]

You may now go to www.microsoft.com and download LINUX!!!!

What RMS Really Likes

[Anonymous Coward]

Exposing the disgusting heterosexual-challenged life-style of Rob Malda is one of the favorite hobbies of the non-linux-using, heterosexual minority on Slashdot. However, Mr. Malda is a closet-homosexual when compared to the faggot-master -- Richard M. Stallman.

One popular story on Slashdot is about Mr. Malda's "taco-snotting" habit. While this is completely revolting to heterosexuals, I will now expose how this is quite trivial to the rest of the heterosexually-challenged Linux community, and childs-play for the chief pirate-smoker -- RMS.

RMS was actually introduced to what is known as "Taco-snotting" at the tender age of 10, when his father witnessed his first erection and used the opportunity to corrupt him.

Since this is neither the time nor place to discuss the evolution of RMS's (homo)sexual tastes, we will jump ahead several years to the present.

Please, if you, or anyone else reading over your sholder is offended by the truth, do not read any further.

RMS's favorite sexual activity is to be fucked silly by five other Linux-using homosexuals. His favorites include Jon Katz, CmdrTaco, CowBoiNeal, Alan Cox, and Hemos. You can use your imagination to picture this horrific scene.

The worst part comes later. When everyone is almost ready to shoot, RMS jams a large funnel into his anus, and has Hemos pour one to two gallons of faggot cum into his colon. Any leakage is quickly picked up by the tounges of Mr. Malda and CowBoiNeal. Malda then proceeds to Taco-snot RMS with what he picked up.

While this is happening, CowBoiNeal and Alan Cox like to give RMS what is known as "Open-source ear-wax". Their penises happen to be tiny (and lubricated enough with ass cum) to slip into his ear canals, where they proceed to shoot their loads.

Its not over yet. For a long time, the Linux community was stumped with a quandary -- how could they get faggot cum to go INTO their penis?

Once the disgusting above actions have taken place, the remaining homosexual semen is gathered up into a container, which is attached through a special hook-up to an air compressor. The other end of this container has a cathader (sp?), which is greased up and inserted into Mr. Stallman's pee-hole. After some charging, the atrocious contents are blasted into his penis and reproductive system at 200 psi.

This device is, of course, open-source, and Freely available to any Linux faggot who dares to give it a shot.

Do you dare? Have you given this a try? Please reply and let us know! The truth must be told!!!

ummmm

[nomadic]

I don't mean to burst your bubble, people, but this was aimed at pre-University 16-19 year olds. Unless you're in this age range I don't think it's a huge deal to have solved it...

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[GMontag451]

Anything you write is automatically copyrighted. You don't have to register it or anything anymore.

Except, of course, uncopyrightable material, such as math problems as they were dealing with in this case.

Because they were genetically inferior...

[ringbarer]

No better than common apes

it wasn't that difficult!!

[air1]

as they pointed out on the website, it's a base 4 so if you know your binaries 00 01 10 11 well you just have to adapt to a base 4 00 01 02 03 10 11.. so 01=a 02=b i still have to sort the problem out though, but it seems to me like a pretty clever way to engage people if done jointly with a proper exam!

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[morie]

Great, but as was already mentioned when others came up with this solution: It is the right answer to the wrong question. They asked to add the decimal values of all figures between 1 and 1E06.

But I was bored longer...

[halfsad]

The real, real answer for those amongst you seeking wisdom is as follows.

Sum of digits 1 through 9 = 45
Sum of digits 1 through 99 = 45 + (10 * 45) = 11 * 45
(we add up the digits in the one's place ten times, plus once again in the ten's place)
Sum of digits 1 through 999 = 45 + (10 * 45) + (100 * 45) = 111 * 45

And so by extension,
Sum of digits 1 through 999,999
= 111,111 * 45 = 4,999,995

Plus one more for the 1 in 1,000,000 gives you 4,999,996, which is a number worth a few thousand bucks to some sucker.

Re:But I was bored longer...

[thue]

That would mean that the average digit sum of a number was 5, which is clearly wrong.

I happened to find the same result as the parent ((45 * (10 ^(n-1)) * n) + 1), which makes it likely to be right. That gives 27.000.001.

Method: See that all possible combinations of 6-digit numbers are in the range 000000...999999. Then for a given digit all numbers occur with the same frequency due to symmetri. Then the average contribution of that digit is sum(0..9)/10=45/10. Then the average contribution of a 6-digit number is 6*45/10. There are 1.000.000 numbers in 000000...999999, so we multiply the average with 1000000. Now we have the sum from 1-999999, but we needed the sum 1-1000000, so we add digitsum(1000000)=1.

The result is then 45/10*1.000.000*6+1 = 45*100.000*6+1=45*10^(6-1)*6+1. Generalize the number of digits and you get the formula above.

Read the article

[mykdavies]

It *was* a test of their maths skills.

From the site "The challenge was to convert a mathematical problem into text from a confusing string of numbers. Then figure out the problem and email the answer to the university."

DMCA.. YEAH!

[ShaniaTwain]

D.. M.. C.. A..

Don't Mess with Company Assets
Decieving Many Consumer Assholes
Devious Money Consumes All
Diabolical Medling Corporate Attorneys
Etc.. etc..

EVERYBODY NOW.. It fun to violate the D.M.C.A..
D.M.C.A.

Math puzzle

[KhaliF]

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.

Re:Math puzzle

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they teach you to read and follow directions in New Zealand? Perhaps that's what part of the test was all about...

You need to sum the decimal digits of all the natural numbers from 1 to a million, not the numbers themselves.

Re:Math puzzle

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that it mas a Canadian college, _not_ an American college.

I don't know what they teach in New Zeland schools, but in America we are taught to read in Kindergarden (before first grade)

Program for *second* part (sum of digits)

[Anonymous Coward]

Not seen anyone post a C program for the second
part, so here's the trivial code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
int loop,total=0,remain;
for (loop=1;loop<=1000000;loop++)
{
remain=loop;
while (remain) { total+=remain%10; remain/=10; }
}
printf("%d\n",total);
return(0);
}

Prints out 27000001 in 0.17 seconds on my P4 box.
Not exactly a tricky one !

The answer is 27,000,001

[The Smith]

Using a combination of C, fold, shell and grep, I can confirm that this (27,000,001) is correct.

This is a harder problem than you might think, but it's not helped by the idiots who can't even understand the question and try to add the numbers 1 to 1,000,000.

Here we have done the same...

[GdoL]

For my CS Master we were to be able to crack a code so to have some points. AFAIK that still is a bonus for the students here and they don't go to jail everytime they succeedd on breaking the code. :-)

Re:Here we have done the same...

[GdoL]

Hei... don't censure me... I didn broke the code!

Flagship vodka

[Anonymous Coward]

tastes great (with lemon, none of this ice crap or fizzy sugar water). And its cheap (well, 30 roubles at a nightclub seems reasonable to me, maybe not if I was on Russian wages).

Trivial? So?

[debrain]

Cuecat was pretty trivial, too, remember?

The complexity of the object does not seem to mitigate the draconian principle being applied to it.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[blibbleblobble]

Would I be right in thinking that, even if you applied for this canadian job in canada, but if your email describing the decryption method travelled through american property (i.e. servers) then you could be arrested in the US for breaking something which could conceivably be used to protect copyright?

Remember, DeCSS can be expressed as a prime number, as can any document, so mathematical problems have no special advantage.

Code

[mrfiddlehead]

There's a lot of huffing and puffing and sniffing going on here about the quality of the "code" and/or "encryption" technique used here. This message is a perfectly valid example of an encoding technique. In fact, there are two methods of encoding here: 1) the characters are first indexed numerically and then 2) the indices are written in base 4. Granted, it was pretty obvious that it was going to be a simple solution since the first thing that jumps out at you is the fact that it is a series of base 4 numbers. But that's not the goddamn point.

The point is about solving a problem. It is about the thought processes involved, not necessarily the difficulty involved in the encoding technique. What the fsck do you expect them to do? Publish a 1024 bit PGP encrypted problem and have potential candidates use distributed.net to crack the code?

Sheesh! Give them some credit. It's better than the usual approach to University entrance (a letter from daddy, with a fat cheque, to the dean).

Now bugger off and get out to the curb, the school bus is coming any minute now.

They wouldn't have one to jail over the DCMA

[Jason Levine]

After all, the encryption they broke wouldn't have been a major company's. Remember, the DCMA only applies if you break the encryption of a company (or if a company feels that your breaking the encryption in any way impacts their bottom line). Then that company releases the lawyers on you. While the students would have technically violated the DCMA, they wouldn't go to jail over it. (Ok, I know that the DCMA really applies in all cases, but for all practical purposes it will only come into play if a company with lawyers feels threatened by the code cracking.)

When I was in college...

[Java Pimp]

...our cryptography professor encrypted all our homework assignments. We'd have to decipher the text and then answer the questions.

My University!

[GeekBoy]

Cool, this is the university I graduated from and I can bet that
I know who's responsible for this. Jonathan Seldin,
the euopean god of lamba calculus, who was also my
cryptology professor; and a damn good prof too, if I might add.

Re:My University!

[kapella]

Nah, actually... I think it was Holzmann. And ... maybe Crypto was good, but I took 2620 with Seldin and he couldn't code his way out of a paper bag. The man just Didn't Know C++.

Re:My University!

[GeekBoy]

Holzmann's probably just there b/c he's the chair.
And yes, I know seldin can't code, but hell, better
than taking a class with Chali. (who can't code,
AND is a prick). No, Seldin is a math prof, and
it does show. His, crypto class was great! (but
I did hear that his coding classes weren't so great).
At least he's fair and amicable in person.
(i.e. completely the opposite if chali).

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Anonymous Coward]

So what university did you attend?

Village People

[baby_head_rush]

Please cease and desist the use of chanting letters. Our clients (the RIAA & The Village People) are very upset.
Thank you,
Icky Lawyer

skill vs. effort

[No Such Agency]

The hardest of the whole thing was running find and replace for their base 4 alphabet(I was too lazy to write a script for it)...

You know, Thomas Edison (aka. the a**hole who ripped off Tesla) supposedly said that "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". I'd say the same saying applies to undergraduate-level university work. If someone is "too lazy to write a script for it", they might find university level CS surprisingly hard even if they're the next Alan Turing.

(Yes, I know you're just trying to make a point. But so am I :-)

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[delcielo]

First, Professor Felten WAS NOT PROSECUTED FOR BREAKING THE ENCRYPTION. He faced prosecution for publishing and presenting his work. That is a HUGE distinction. Obviously, it's something I still disagree with; but it's important to get the facts right.

Second, it may be feasible that a college student could be charged with something under the DMCA if the university got some bug up its arse over him/her; but it would require an idiot of a prosecutor. The university invited the act, and it would end up much as if they had hired the kid to break into their own office as a test of security. Weird things happen, so I'd never say never; but let's try to show a bit more reason.

The answer is also almost 42

[mvpll]

In the one million and one decimal numbers mentioned there are only 10 digits to be found;
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9
I sincerely hope the University of Lethbridge(?) regarded the sum of the above as a valid answer. Whilst I think 27,000,001 is also a valid answer, from the wording of the question it isn't the only answer.
English is a much more ambiguous language then mathematics...

Stop it!

[Tom7]

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.

Re:Stop it!

[JohnG]

Exactly! I've noticed that happens a WHOLE lot on Slashdot too. I don't agree with the DMCA anymore than anyone else, but I have to wonder whether or not the average Slashdotter even knows what the hell it is all about.
I mean, claiming that breaking encryption is illegal under the DMCA when the owners of the encrypted data are the ones that say "Break this" is like claiming you can go to jail for rape if you have sex with your wife when she says "Fuck me!"

Re:Stop it!

[Dino]

Tell that to Dr. Feldon. He cracked the SDMI watermarks from their contest and was then threatened when he was to present the paper.

Re:Stop it!

[JohnG]

I hadn't heard about that, but it's still largely irrelevant. What he was threatened with, and what he would be convicted for are two different things. If somebody is holding a contest to crack something, and you crack it, no jury or judge in the world would convict you, DMCA or not.

Re:Stop it!

[sn00ker]

If somebody is holding a contest to crack something, and you crack it, no jury or judge in the world would convict you, DMCA or not.

As someone who lives outside the US and cringes at the madness of the whole legal shambles there, I think you have a very naive view of the sanity of the US judicial system.
Obviously SDMI were fairly sure that if it went to court they could get a conviction, given that they did actually threaten him based on the DMCA. Now, I know that lawyers have a very strong dose of self-interest, but they also don't like losing in court.

The DMCA must be overturned, before other countries start drafting laws with it as a basis. THAT thought terrifies me.

Re:Stop it!

[JohnG]

And I think you have a very paranoid view, just as the original submitter of the topic. If you have been given express permission to do something, then you cannot be held accountable for doing it. Any sort of prize/reward being offered is more than enough to be considered express permission to do something.
To give an example of cases lawyers will back, a woman burned her chin on a McDonalds hamburger pickle. Not only did the lawyers represent her in her case against Mickey Dees, but also her husband. He was sueing for $40,000 because she was left temporarily unable to perform oral sex. A lawyer took the case, but it didn't make it very far into the judicial system.
Corporate lawyers get paid whether they win or lose. I can assure you they don't have as much problem losing as you might suggest.

Re:Stop it!

[seaan]

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.

Unfotunately, Tom7's statement is not true. It is true for the actual circumvention provided it is "encryption research" (there is an exception in the DMCA, although "encryption research" is not very well defined). The hitch is dissemination (i.e. publishing), which is the method the RIAA used to threaten Prof. Fenton. So it might be OK for the college students to try and break the code (assuming it was for valid encryption research purposes), but it is would be illegal for anyone to say how they broke it (assuming the same scheme was used to protect a copyrighted item). If they make money or might monteraly gain from publishing the break (does karma count) they could be subject to criminal prosecution under the DMCA. I highly recommend reading Jessica Litman's book "Digital Copyright" for more details on this complex subject.

The DMCA (to the best of my INAL reading) could even be applied retroactively. If I break the scheme before it was used to protect a copyrighted item, I could still be prosecuted under the DMCA. The clauses that talks about "dissemination of a circumvention device" provides no protection for already published breaks, hence a magazine that published my break might be liable to criminal prosecution if they sold back copies (the criminal part comes about because they are making money by disseminating a copy protection circumvention device).

The DMCA even allows the following doomsday scenario (note, I don't think this will actually happen, but the law as written could allow the following): Some party decides it wants to greatly hamper crypto research in the US. They take every bit of encryption technology they can find, and build it into one or more copy protection systems. Once that is done, encryption can still be studied and circumvention methods developed (the encryption research exception), but none of the results could be published (the dissemination hammer ).

The biggest problem with the DMCA is that it is written to be very over-reaching. It is assumed (and hoped) that selective enforcement will make it somewhat acceptable (thereby making my above doomsday scenario unlikely). My personal problem is that it is broad enough to effect me if someone had reason enough. I'm a specialist in logical security involving hardware security devices like smartcards. How do I know that someone won't go after me (perhaps retroactively) for publishing a smartcard vulnerability? After all, hardware security is very important to the future plans of the industry (SDMI, etc.). I truly don't think an anonymous researcher has much to worry about. But what about a person that has decided to become an activist like Prof Fenton? I really don't like the DMCA, or what the recording industry it trying to do, so I am considering becoming more politically active than just being an EFF member. Yet I wonder if my respectable work will provide leverage for civil lawsuits or even criminal prosecution by the DMCA.

Note: I do occasionally find flaws in this field, so this is not a purely academic worry. For example: I found a flaw in an optional feature of EMV-98 that allowed bank insiders to look at clear PINS; and I have found a number of single-DES attacks against industry standards that were supposedly protected by 3DES.

So now I have to worry: should I notify people of a security problem, or not. This is a concrete example of the "dampening effect" the DMCA causes, and why it is dangerous and overbroad. I strongly support the Fenton/EFF suit seeking to invalidate the DMCA clause that prohibits publication (dissemination) of encryption research.

Beg your pardon?

[cthulhubob]

A 16 year old person is probably about as intellectually mature as they're going to get. Their brains are pretty hardwired by that time as to what manner in which they learn and stuff like that. If it's meant to be challenging to a 16 year old, then it's meant to be challenging to an adult (16-year olds *are* adults, but that's another topic altogether).

The reason it isn't a huge deal to have solved it is because it wasn't meant to be *that* challenging -- they expected lots of people to solve it (and 100 did).
If it were targeted toward 6-9 year olds, then your statement would have more validity. As it is, you sound like you've got sour grapes because you coldn't figure it out, and so you're trying to denigrate not only the people who posted the answer, but the original class of people it was aimed towards.

Re:Beg your pardon?

[nomadic]

The brain is NOT hardwired by the time you're 16. If that were true you'd have trouble learning just about anything in college. The brain continues to make new neural connections throughout most of your life. As for the inane suggestion that I'm just bitter because I couldn't figure it out, that's just plain wrong. I haven't even looked at the problem. At my age I have better things to do than take college entrance exams.

Re:Beg your pardon?

[cthulhubob]

Sorry, I phrased that poorly -- I didn't mean the brain was hardwired by the time you're 16 :)

I meant that the connections by which one learns new things are pretty well ingrained by that time and the rate/quality of learning only decreases after that. Thus, you're about as intelligent as you ever will be (which is certainly *not* to say the same thing as that you have learned all that you ever will -- I know I didn't know anything about linear algebra when I was 16, and I certainly didn't know enough calculus...).

Sorry about the hostile nature of the earlier post, it just felt like you were attacking the people who legitimately did it to get their scholarship. I apologize if I misunderstood.

Re:Beg your pardon?

[nomadic]

Ok, I'll go along with that, but I wouldn't be surprised if intelligence does improve after 16, just not nearly as much as it used to. Sort of like how you can learn foreign languages no matter how old you are, but you learn them a lot faster at age 6.

My criticism was aimed at those people who were complaining about how easy it was; I felt they were the ones taking away from the legitimate 16-19 year olds who don't have that CS degree and mathematical training to help them. I have a great deal of respect for those who the problem was aimed at, and managed to solve it.

Trivial -- PHP Code:

[TheTomcat]

<?php

function to_letter($code) {
if (is_numeric($code)) {
return chr(64 + base_convert($code, 4, 10));
} else {
return $code;
}
}

$data = "110/033/ 113/021/032/ 001/ 103/003/020/033/030/001/102/103/020/021/100/\n";
$data .= "012/102/033/031/ 110/020/011/ 111/032/021/112/011/102/103/021/110/121/\n";
$data .= "033/012/ 030/011/110/020/002/102/021/010/013/011/\n";
$data .= "\n";
$data .= "010/033/ 110/020/011/ 031/001/110/020/.\n";
$data .= "\n";
// etc.

$data = split("/", $data);

foreach ($data AS $char) {
echo nl2br(ereg_replace("[0-9/]", "", $char));
echo to_letter($char);
}

?>

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Danse]

but you need to do at least something so you're able to prove legally that you wrote it.

You mean like emailing it out to 100 people?

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[csbruce]

If you read your spam, you can get degrees without even going to classes.

-Dr. Bruce

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Danse]

If that's the entirety of the message that was decoded, then you'd be correct. Since the previous poster claimed that "they didn't bother" to copyright it, rather than "they couldn't" copyright it, I assumed that there was more to it than just the math problem.

Let's see...

[pogen]

They're giving applicants some sort of test to see if they're savvy enough to qualify for the program. Okay, fine.

But isn't this what standardized tests like the SAT and ACT are for? And don't these standardized tests do a better job?

Maybe I'm missing the point.

Re:Let's see...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but Canada does not use standardized testing. (I will leave the debate as to whether they do a better job or not for someone else). Most Canadian universities will look at a combination of the transcript, a written package that usually includes a brief written section (i.e. tell is in 500 words why you want to study xyz) and possibly results from a (non-standardized) math or science contest if applicable. SAT scores are never considered for admission.

Re:Let's see...

[pogen]

Ah, but Canada does not use standardized testing.

Interesting. That clears up my question.

(I will leave the debate as to whether they do a better job or not for someone else).

To clarify my comment, yes, I believe that asking a large number of questions about mathematics will more accurately reflect the student's knowledge and aptitude than asking only one or two. Particularly when, as in this case, they are given ample opportunity to get the answer from another source (i.e., cheat). Is this really a controversial opinion?

Wolf Holzmann Rules!!

[b100m]

Easily the best prof. I have ever had came up with this. From the National Post:
"The problem was created by Wolfgang Holzmann, a Lethbridge computer science professor, using a computer code called Base4 to substitute numbers for letters of the alphabet."

Let's hear it former ulethians, give it up for Wolf!!

Well then..

[Anonymous Coward]

as I'm sure all of your parents will eventually tell you, "if you don't like the rules then move the hell out."

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[csbruce]

If you look at all combinations from 000,000 to 999,999 (might as well include zero), each digit in each position appears 100,000 times. So, since the sum of 0 to 9 is 45, the summation for each digit position is 4.5e6. So, the total for six digits is 27e6. Add 1 for the 1,000,000 final input number, and you get 27,000,001. Now where's my degree?

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Lord Omlette]

"(As a Troll-y sidenote, I'd like to mention with some degree of bitterness that I submitted this story, except when I did it, I got the facts right. Apparently this warrants a rejection, and irrelevant whining about the DMCA warrants approval. Do you ever wonder why /. gets a bad reputation from time to time?)"

Preach on brother.

OT/your sig

[Lord Omlette]

"Linux is only free if your time is worthless"

I'm curious, is that your quote or someone else's? Thanks in advance

Re:OT/your sig

[hyoo]

I borrowed/stole someones sig.. =P

Re:OT/your sig

[Lord Omlette]

nifty

Re:Wolf Holzmann Rules!!

[JMZero]

I had Wolf for Linear Algebra. Great guy.

The problem took me 10 minute 30 to solve...

-Dave

and the great answer is of course....

[dizzy_p]

925300204

The only valid idea I see, so far.

[NRAdude]

Vote libertarian against our own government... In the history books, liberty meant we were all to be self-sufficient from any *other* government, like the British government that tried to rape us 220 years ago. Now, our own government is trying to rape us and it makes us all inspire of the feats of honor and bravery that the signers of the Declaraion of Independence, on July 4, 1776, had endured.

It looks valid: Vote libertarian is what will help us more than anything

Big deal, did this a few years ago ;-)

[UnknownSoldier]

I did something similiar a while back (ACK! 6 years alread!) in CMPT 401 (Operating Systems II) at SFU (Simon Fraser University) one of the assignments was to
a) decrypt a RSA encoded message
b) Answer the questions, since the message was an assignment :)

The twist was that there the message didn't use ASCII, but a smaller subset. A table was provided of character set. E and D were small, so that you could brute-force it if you wanted to.

It's not funny, when you decode the message over a weekend, and realize the instructor didn't properly encode the message :)

Definately was a cool assignment, though

Example of RSA
http://world.std.com/~franl/crypto/rsa-example.htm l

feh,

[AnonymousCowheard]

I see better code on the box of my Wheaties.

Their puzzle s fuckin' lame too. It's just some stupid million dollar mystery guess that some english teacher pulled out of her ass as she played with her mentally retarded children. May as well ask "Holy cowhole batman, what's green, skinny, and smells like diaper lint?" Of'course it's not the penguin...it's the riddler. Their puzzle is no different. It's completely illogical and I determine such by beaming aboard the bridge of the Enterprise and asking Spock. He said to me, "Affirmative, AnonymousCowheard, the Canadians' code is indeed illogical." So there, Spock agrees with me.

Slashdot has a code just like those canux's. What the hell does pater@slashdot.org mean? I think it means that CmdrTaxo, hemos, or timothy attended one of those canux's classes. Oh that's super... And to imagine what the canux teaches is a code and the battle.net protocol is not a code.

You want a code, crack this!

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Stonehand]

No. Or, rather, it'd get thrown out and the prosecutor ridiculed. Go read the law.

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[Stonehand]

You're not doing your country any good if you mismanage to the point where you're unprofitable, then collapse so that neither your jobs nor your products (or services) exist anymore.

hmmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys and girls are all a bunch of Freakz ... (thats me being jelous for not finding it first :O)

For one this way the publisity they want they'll get :)

great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a simple extension of their idea, to determine which students to let into college: Rather than including only one math problem, give students a bunch of math problems. Make some of the problems easy, some of them hard. Include another section with questions about their knowledge of language, too. You'd have to standardize it somehow, so that students all over were taking the same test. Then, the students who get the best scores could be admitted to better colleges, and have a better chance at scholarships! This is a great idea!

Base4? Computer Code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Williams said that a large poster and contest information was created using a computer code -- called Base4 -- which substitutes a series of numbers for letters of the alphabet. .. Since when is Base4 considered computer code?

ENTIRE STAIT building GONE DOWN too

[Anonymous Coward]

Just went there folks and, its is down.
I just found a terminal to let you know first about the breaking news. I am sure there will be an article on the main page soon.

I'll keep you posted....

Encryption?

[Shadowin]

Since when is converting the alphabet to its base4 numeric value considered encryption?

Hey, MPAA if you're reading this, this would be a perfect replacement for CSS!

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[ryanr]

Anything you write is automatically copyrighted. You don't have to register it or anything anymore.

You have to register it if you want to collect damages when you are violated. Otherwise, if you just want to control use of your work, you're correct.

You probably didn't include a stupid DCMA comment

[TheAwfulTruth]

Seriously... And sadly...

By inspection, and a new problem

[spaceyhackerlady]

I figured the encryption algorithm out in about 30 seconds by inspection. There is probably a very clever solution to the problem the message poses, but I'd just work it out by brute force.

It's sometimes amazing what are considered "difficult" math problems. An example I read in the newspaper that was supposedly in a national mathematics contest:

Consider all the 9 digit numbers composed of the digits 1 through 9 in all possible orders. What proportion of them are divisible by 18?

I figured this one out in my head while eating at McDonalds.

...laura

Re:By inspection, and a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems to obvious to be right... but is it 1/18?

Re:By inspection, and a new problem

[spaceyhackerlady]

This seems to obvious to be right... but is it 1/18?

No, it's not quite that obvious...my solution was:

A number is divisible by 18 if it is divisible by 2 and by 9.

All these numbers are divisible by 9, since 1+2+3+...9=45, which is divisible by 9.

The numbers that end in 2, 4, 6 or 8 are divisible by 2. Since that's 4 out of the 9 possible endings, the answer is 4/9.

...laura

Re:By inspection, and a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Laura;

4/9 is only the first fraction; there is a second fraction to this problem.

Maybe you should go back to McDonald and have an n+1 BigMac and complete this problem.

DeadPoet.

Re:By inspection, and a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I should make myself clear;

999,999,999/9=111,111,111 times = 1/9

But the demain does not include zeroes, so 90, 900, 9000 ... thus the fraction is actually less, ie. 8/999,999,999 less to be exact. However, this number is so small thus can be neglected.

The solution is then (4/9)*(1/9)=4/81 and this is approximately 5 percent.

Now, to check if this solution make sense, say that 18 is approximately equal to 20 and ..... (insert original problem here + 1, w/all the zeroes) and the portion of the numbers which is divisible into 20 is exactly 5 percent. There you have a method to back check the correctness of your solution.

On another subject, I couldn't believe the number of slashdoters who had taken the time to devise an algorithm to solve this problem; I thought this problem is the type that you should/could to on the back of an envelope - not one that warrrant a computer algorithm to solve; but then it might just be me. Maybe I am speaking to the wrong crowd; the people here are very good with their keybroads. Wait, the secretaries at my office type super fast too!

Regards;

DeadPoet.

Smart Students?

[dghcasp]

Crack the code, go to Lethbridge? Are you sure this isn't some secret police sting?

Why would smart people want to go somewhere where the wind are so strong it regularly blows over the cows? Where a trip to the Hutterite community is considered a "grand weekend out?"

OBDisclaimer: I guess Lethbridge isn't that bad really. After all, it's not Regina.

How does crytography make you a good CS student?

[xg0blin]

I think they were watching that part from a beautiful mind, where John Nash saw the numbers lighting up that were the correct sequence of numbers. Is that what they're hoping for? Come on, CS has alot more to do with other things than crytography. We have crytography here as a two credit hour seminar in CS. Figuring out an encrytion key != brilliant computer science student. More likely means that they are good at figuring out patterns. What about the 7 bridge 2 river problem from discrete math. That would be a more logical problem to try.

The real answer

[Imrik]

the decrypted problem specifies the sum of the digits in the numbers 1-1000000, not the numbers themselves, the answer is therefore 4999996
(45*111111+1)

Puzzles are used frequently for job interviews...

[Out4Blood]

... especially management consulting where they use the dreaded case interview. Some of them include trick math problems like this one. The goal is not really to get the answer but to see how you think. The "correct" answer to this encoded math question is not an additive loop program but to recognize the 0+n + 1+(n-1) + ... function.

Re:The REAL Story ... (here's the solution)

[CaffeineAddict2001]

int Summation(int limit)
{
int i,j,l,k;
k=0;
for(i=0;i<=limit;i++) {
j=i;
l=j%10;

while(j>0)
{
j=j/10;
l+=(j%10);
}

k+=l;
}

Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff

[twilightzero]

Umm...not sure this would be acceptable - I'm not clear on the status of email in the courtroom. I think it would end up being personal testimony from the people you sent it to rather than material evidence in the form of email. I still hold that the most reliable poor man's copyright is just print it, mail it certified, and don't open it. Then you have the post office cancellation stamp and the thingy certifying when and to who it was delivered, which is usable as legal evidence in court.

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[hackerhue]

Perhaps figuring out the navigation to their site is another part of the challenge. ;-)

not that hard

[Anonymous Coward]

As a 14 year old with little programming knowledge in a below average math class, that code was pretty simple. The underlined url was the major tip off, www.uleth.ca. And the rest just falled into place after that. For those who are interested, her is part of what i've decoded so far....

TO WIN A SCHOLASHIP FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBBRIDGE.

DO THE MATH
FORMULAE:

FIND THE SUM OF ALL DECIMAL DIGITS APPEARING IN THE NATURAL NUMBERS FROM ONE TO ONE MILLION INCLUSIVE...

Theres still quite a bit left in the message, but I'm rather lazy. And as for the math problem, my TI-83 is calculating computing the total now (it's only 6mhz, it could take a while). But it's kinda sad how simple the encryption was. Not as bad as Adobe's ROT-13, but close.

One line simple substitution cypher generator

[Michael Woodhams]

for those who enjoy simple cryptanalysis:

perl -0777pe'$a="a";s/[a-z]/$b{lc$&}||=$a++/gei' filename

I use paragraphs of Jane Austin from Project Guttenburg to feed the cypher generator.

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Xerithane]

Don't they know security through obscurity doesn't work!?

The solution if anybody cares.

[CaffeineAddict2001]

#include #include #include int Base4(int limit) { int j,l,m; j=limit; l=j%10; m=0; while(j>0) { l += (4 * (m * j)); j=j/10; m++; } return l; } char Letter(int num) { return (char) num+64; } #define messagesize 1000 // Whatever the message size is void Decode() { int NumberList[messagesize] = { /* Put the message here */ }; for(int i=0;imessagesize;i++) { printf("%c",Letter(Base4(NumberList[i]))); } } void main() { Decode(); }

hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have helped by having a text version instead of just a graphic we have to type in ourselves *_*

That was too damn easy

[stonetemple]

That was damn easy. The hardest part was transcribing the numbers.

Re:the code and the SOLUTION in PERL5 =P

[Anonymous Coward]

Sum(1,n) = (n*(n+1))/2

Thus Sum(1,1000000) = blah (too lazy to get my calculator).

Hehh, Newton deduced this some 300 years ago.

I am not qualified, but who care?

Re:Ok, I was bored

[Anonymous Coward]

it says "THE SUM OF ALL DECIMAL
DIGITS"

I think they just want the sum of the digits.
IE: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+1+0+1+1+1+2+1+3+1+4 etc.
as in for 15 you would add 1 and 5 to your total...

but then again maby I'm wrong...

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Stacdaed]

not quite you have to find the total of all the digits in numbers 1-1000000 not the sum of all the digits of all the posible combinations between them.

IE: the lower numbners repeat many times.

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[csbruce]

IE: the lower numbners repeat many times.

So what? Each digit position ultimately shows each digit 0-9 the same number of times and addition is totally commutative.

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
long i, sum;

for (i=1,sum=0; i

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[csbruce]

crap...

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
long i, sum;

for (i=1,sum=0; i <= 1000000; i++) {
sum += (i/1000000)%10 + (i/100000)%10 + (i/10000)%10
+ (i/1000)%10 + (i/100)%10 + (i/10)%10 + i%10;
}
printf("sum = %ld\n", sum);
return( 0 );
}

$ a.out
sum = 27000001

What is wrong with Slashdot <TT> indentation?

the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

the code is not hard. But i believe that this is a trick question. It asks for the sum of the decimal digits of real numbers. Real numbers do not have decimal digits.

.010101 -decimal digits
3 -real number no decimals

so answer is: 0

gofigure.py

[NeuroMorphus]

Nice. I wish my school would have done that.

Well, I wrote a python script that will handle decrypting the code. It aslo takes decrypted text, and encrypts it (on the fly). There's also file encryption/decryption built in.

Check it out

https://sourceforge.net/snippet/detail.php?type= sn ippet&id=101008

Re:The REAL Story ... (the code isn't the challeng

[Stacdaed]

Yes, you were originally right.
(I was thinking of it more like an odometer) In that each number is only counted when it changes.

BTW: You didn't earn yourself a degree, but just admission to the college.