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ICFP Contest Releases Codex

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the but-not-the-decodex dept.

howie writes "The ICFP Programming Contest begins on Friday and organizers have released the first part of the contest, the "codex". Contest organizers haven't (yet) given any details, but there's been lots of speculation on the discussion list -- the file contains some suggestive strings like "i love bees" and "MKULTRA". The organizers promise more information by noon (ET) on Friday."

7 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. My Speculation is They're All Blogs by eldavojohn · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Ok ok, so I've only looked at this thing for five minutes in Textpad but there are some very interesting clips of readable text in the file. Early on they say:
    ignoti et quasi occulti
    Which I believe is a latin phrase for something like "unknown and partly hidden." It's also the motto for Societas Eruditorum in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon book.

    Next:
    Evan Chan was murdered
    It's a reference to a game centered around the film A.I. and refers to a society called the Cloudmakers.

    Next:
    evalso dark the con of man
    The phrase "so dark the con of man" is actually a religious blog.

    A funny thing about the first three phrases I picked out is that they are all blogs online if you google them. Is this a coincidence or are all of the phrases here blogs? They seem to refer to direct blog entries, perhaps the html or text from these blog entries can be used as a hash encryption for the "junk" binary loaded in between each of the entries.

    Again, this is just speculation. MKULTRA refers to the CIA's mind control program in response to rumors of the Soviet, Chinese and North Korean programs of the smae nature ... not sure how that would tie in.

    Perhaps the purpose is to develop a blog scanning program that will accurately identify blogs and retrieve information and try to figure out a way to crack this document? It's very large so I am guessing automation would be necessary as opposed to human googling by hand.
    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. programming with brain by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 2, Funny

    So if I am able to crack this from looking at it, they'll have to declare my brain the "programmers tool of choice?" Or would it go to notepad?

    --
    stuff |
  3. I can't wait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    come on, QBASIC don't fail me now!

    FP?

  4. Is Doctor Who scheduled to make an appearance? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you look at the end of the file, it seems that Rose managed to plant "Bad Wolf" in there. So I wonder when Rose and the Doctor are going to show up and stop the alien monsters from crashing the contest? :P

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  5. Re:Interesting things I've found by SQLGuru · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dude, check this out.....

    After MKULTRA and before abracadabra......using Notepad (the best programming tool ever?)

    Basically, take that chunk of text and put carriage returns after every 64th character. A pattern that matches the GIF image appears using text. [I tried including it, but of course filters killed that idea]

    BTW, the text looks more like a GBV than a CBV.

    Layne

  6. Here's the gif. by sleepingsquirrel · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here's the gif.

  7. Re:Interesting things I've found by mypalmike · · Score: 4, Funny

    It turns out "plbndetibh u ou rvcofalt ea" is an anagram of "unfavorable botched tulip". I think I'm onto something... ;)

    --
    There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.