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FBI Issues Code Cracking Challenge

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Dec 29, 2008 06:23 PM
from the test-your-skillz dept.
Security Encryption United States Technology
coondoggie writes to tell us that the FBI has issued another cracking challenge for a new cipher on their site. Tens of thousands responded to a similar challenge last year. In addition to the challenge, the FBI is also offering a few primers on the subject. There are a number of sites offering cipher challenges, but it's funny to see the FBI encouraging such behavior.
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Submission: FBI issues code cracking challenge by coondoggie (973519)
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  • First Post (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hadlock (143607) <chad DOT hedstrom AT gmail DOT com> on Monday December 29 2008, @06:25PM (#26263087) Homepage Journal

    Love the article:
     
     

    coondoggie writes to tell us that the FBI has issued another cracking challenge for a new cipher on their site. Tens of thousands responded to a similar challenge last year. In addition to the challenge the FBI is also offering a few primers on the subject. There are a number of sites offering cipher challenges, just funny to see the FBI encouraging...NO CARRIER

    Hillarious.

  • Oh, the fun and prizes! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29 2008, @06:28PM (#26263121)

    The winner receives an all expense 1 way trip to the tropical island of Cuba!

  • This will really piss of the Chinese (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alain Williams (2972) on Monday December 29 2008, @06:29PM (#26263137) Homepage
    or whichever foreign government owns the code that the FBI has just recruited the bright kids on the Internet to crack :-)

  • Harry you? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BadAnalogyGuy (945258) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Monday December 29 2008, @06:29PM (#26263143)

    Houdini was always searching for better, more clever ways to perform escape acts and illusions. After he would debut a new trick, others would immediately try to emulate the trick. The trick was on them, though, because Houdini would frequently expose their methods (because it was originally his) and prove himself to be the true master magician.

    No difference here. Just the FBI gauging the abilities of the community.

    • Re:Harry you? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Architect_sasyr (938685) on Monday December 29 2008, @06:43PM (#26263273)
      Or maybe looking for recruits? I'd imagine that if you're an American then working for some agency which will go un-named you would be earning a stack of money, and if you're a foreign national then they're going to set you up with a visa and a passport and some covert operation to fly your geeky self into the United States. Thus maintaining the "best of the best" cryptographic team, or at least trying to.

      Hate to see what happens to the guy who finds the flaw and then says "Sorry, I want to work for [the Chinese]"...

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by failedlogic (627314)

        It wouldn't be a far stretch of the imagination that the FBI would highly consider those that have applied to Intelligence organizations but didn't make it. Doesn't mean they are less talented at their jobs. There's all kinds of reasons to choose the FBI over some of the others - there's always +/- trade-offs.

      • I have an old great uncle in South Carolina, mid 80s. For years he has had me assemble or point him in the direction when he buys himself new computers or gadgets.

        And he is amazingly adept with them.

        Turns out my quiet old uncle was a brilliant cryptologist in the OSS.

        He told me they retired him quietly in his 30's with a big fat pensions, and he has been doing nothing and growing peaches ever since. And when he says it his eyes twinkle.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by JWSmythe (446288) *

          Years ago, I caught my girlfriend's daughter passing ciphered messages between her and friends. I wasn't trying to punish her, but I wanted to educate her. I explained how they're easily crackable. She wasn't even using letters. They were all symbols of all different kinds. Some were similar to runes. Others simple shapes and variations. It was good for a kid. :)

          I told her what she was doing right, and what she was doing wrong. She said I couldn't crack her message. I a

  • Link to the 2008 challenge (Score:5, Informative)

    by root777 (1354883) on Monday December 29 2008, @06:45PM (#26263287)
    The links in the article point to FBI challenges in 2007 and the kids challenge but do not point to the 2008 challenge.

    Here is the FBI Cryptanalysis challenge 2008 http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec08/code_122908.html [fbi.gov]

    Other helpful links for reference
    2007 challenge: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/nov07/code112107.html [fbi.gov]
    Kids challenge: http://www.fbi.gov/kids/k5th/jobs9.htm [fbi.gov]

    • Re:Link to the 2008 challenge (Score:5, Informative)

      by Chris Daniel (807289) on Monday December 29 2008, @07:30PM (#26263691) Homepage

      Also, here's the code (transcribed a damn Flash file; wtf you guys):

      VFWTDLCSWV. YD NSLMIJFWEJFD GSW SL NIJNQBLM FOBV EJFDVF DLNIGTFBSL. KBVBF YYY.AHB.MSK/NSCDC.OFZ FS EDF WV QLSY SA GSWI VWNNDVV.

      Lameness filter ... it was presented in caps on the original, so it is presented as such here!

      • Re:Link to the 2008 challenge (Score:5, Informative)

        by enFi (1401137) on Monday December 29 2008, @07:55PM (#26263885)

        Presuming that the text is all the information we need - maybe the got creative and did steganography, or a message hidden in the flash source.

        I agree with the characters; if newlines are relevant:

        VFWTDLCSWV. YD
        NSLMIJFWEJFD GSW SL
        NIJNQBLM FOBV EJFDVF
        DLNIGTFBSL. KBVBF
        YYY.AHB.MSK/NSCDC.OFZ
        FS EDF WV QLSY SA
        GSWI VWNNDVV.

          • Re:Link to the 2008 challenge (Score:4, Informative)

            by laddiebuck (868690) on Monday December 29 2008, @08:46PM (#26264281)
            It remains fairly trivial after your substitutions. vivit -> visit, then the last line but one is "to let us know of". After those chars, the whole thing falls into place. The final translation table is tr '[abcdefghijklmnoqstvwyz]' '[fideltybravngchkopsuwm]'. You're supposed to visit this trite URL [fbi.gov], which congratulates you. Maybe they really did mix it up with the kids' challenge.

      • Re:Link to the 2008 challenge (Score:4, Informative)

        by 93 Escort Wagon (326346) on Monday December 29 2008, @11:32PM (#26265233)

        Also, here's the code (transcribed a damn Flash file; wtf you guys):

        VFWTDLCSWV. YD NSLMIJFWEJFD GSW SL
        NIJNQBLM FOBV EJFDVF DLNIGTFBSL. KBVBF
        YYY.AHB.MSK/NSCDC.OFZ FS EDF WV QLSY SA
        GSWI VWNNDVV.

        Lameness filter ... it was presented in caps on the original, so it is presented as such here!

        Easy - "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!"

  • Hm. Hidden message.

  • FBI's "Add yourself to suspect database contest (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jason Quinn (1281884) on Monday December 29 2008, @06:49PM (#26263317)
    Dear citizens: Please inform us if you have the talents necessary to be suspects in criminal cyber-cracking cases. That is all. Love, The FBI

  • Except for video games and aliens, it'll be a bunch of crypto guys battling it out with Matlab.

  • Everyone is a Winner (Score:3, Funny)

    by retech (1228598) on Monday December 29 2008, @06:51PM (#26263341)
    It's interesting to note that all of the participants in the challenge last year got an all expenses paid vacation to an undisclosed location. I guess it was a really cool vacation since none of them returned home.

  • A similar challenge for linux web servers... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lamapper (1343009) on Monday December 29 2008, @07:01PM (#26263431) Journal
    Reminds me of a security company that issued a hacking / cracking challenge somewhere between 3 and 8 years back, no way could I find this article...perhaps one of your ./ will provide a link...

    The company offered over $10,000.00 for not only hacking and cracking their server, but showing the company how they did it.

    If memory serves (and it sometimes does not) they paid out the first and second years of the challenge, but in year three no one successfully broke into their web server environment.

    I believed they kept eliminating modules that had holes and were not needing and closing holes in modules that were needed.

    Based on what I read, they were able to 100% successfully secure their web servers from attacks only because they were using Linux as the OS.

    I remembered comparing their results with others attempts with other operating systems and really wanting to learn Linux.

    Now that I am using Unix and Linux and have a better understanding of what they were doing I can see the simple genius in such challenges.

    Whether just for security or for scouting talent, whatever their reasons, its money well spent when they offer cash prizes to the few that are successful!

  • It was not, shall we say, stupendously hard. A little common sense and some patience was all it took. I expected that I'd be looking at something a little tougher than I used as clues in the scavenger hunt at my 10th birthday party.
    • I got the first six words without writing anything down. Maybe they got it mixed up with the kids challenge.
      • I just started with what was obviously a URL, made a few guesses about that and everything else fell into place in about 2 minutes.

  • FBI as code crackers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by girlintraining (1395911) on Monday December 29 2008, @07:07PM (#26263477)

    Oh, come on. This is from an organization that cut funding for terrorism just before 9/11 to add resources to software piracy. Do you really think if they had the brains do do cryptanalysis they'd...

    oh wait.

    I suppose they are looking for brains, huh.

    • Oh, come on. This is from an organization that cut funding for terrorism just before 9/11 to add resources to software piracy.

      But if the Evil Content Pirates(tm) steal music, the The Terrorists Have Won(tm).

    • I suppose they are looking for brains, huh.

      You're saying the FBI are zombies..?

  • Interesting that FBI uses plone as their CMS and not Wordpress and they have IE compatibility CSS code like the rest of the planet.
    Clue: Is there a reason why they have the crypto code displayed as a flash file and not a simple png or jpeg file?

  • I cracked it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29 2008, @07:12PM (#26263511)

    "Be sure to drink your ovaltine"

    What the hell does that mean?

  • I have decrypted. Answer is: U R under Arrest.

    damn!

  • And the winners get all expenses incurred DMCA prosecutions!

  • There were some dead give-away cribs.

    Spoiler below...

    sed -e s/H/b/g -e s/D/e/g -e s/A/f/g -e s/M/g/g -e s/B/i/g -e s/S/o/g -e s/K/v/g -e s/Y/w/g -e s/V/s/g -e s/F/t/g -e s/W/u/g -e s/T/p/g -e s/L/n/g -e s/C/d/g -e s/G/y/g -e s/N/c/g -e s/I/r/g -e s/J/a/g -e s/E/l/g -e s/Q/k/g -e s/O/h/g -e s/Z/m/g fbi.txt

    • Re:Easy. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by laddiebuck (868690) on Monday December 29 2008, @08:48PM (#26264303)
      As one UNIX lover to another...

      tr '[abcdefghijklmnoqstvwyz]' '[fideltybravngchkopsuwm]'

      Happy man reading!

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Dice (109560)

        I actually started working on it with tr but then decided that I didn't want to bother with counting character placements to be sure I got it right. With sed I could just tack on extra '-e's as I deduced substitutions.

  • Why embed the text in a flash object? code [fbi.gov]... I would of given this a shot if I could of relied on some normalized text, but no... that would make sense. Sense and gov't obviously don't belong in the same room. Yea... I am a little disappointed.

  • what it should be:

    coondoggie writes to tell us that the FBI has issued another cracking challenge for a new cipher on their site. Tens of thousands responded to a similar challenge last year. In addition to the challenge the FBI is also offering a few primers on the subject. There are a number of sites offering cipher challenges, just funny to see the FBI encouraging 4J58I4JTK5NRO4844/4534852WDVJRIN67/368RB8XC0GJFNFXVXCVJVXV8R/GE8F/RETWQ8ER8WRHQ98CVUXHE8V09E8Q/WRWE8Q7T-E8THQEW/CHICKEN438R8SDFUEFNX7/4UDFJD7F

  • Cryptogram tool (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jade E. 2 (313290) <`ten.mrotslrep' `ta' `todhsals'> on Monday December 29 2008, @07:28PM (#26263667) Homepage

    There are automated ones out there that solve this in under a second, but if you want to figure it out yourself try this page:

    http://www.esg.montana.edu/meg/consbio/cryptogram/crypto.html [montana.edu]

    Here's the puzzle text to copy:

    VFWTDLCSWV. YD NSLMIJFWEJFD GSW SL NIJNQBLM FOBV EJFDVF DLNIGTFBSL.
    KBVBF YYY.AHB.MSK/NSCDC.OFZ FS EDF WV QLSY SA GSWI VWNNDVV.

  • What ever you do, DO NOT let the FBI congradulate you on your success.

    • Re:link to challenge (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29 2008, @07:21PM (#26263605)

      Wow. Cryptograms in the newspaper are harder than that.

      stupendous. we
      congratulate you on
      cracking this latest
      encryption. visit
      www.fbi.gov/coded.htm
      to let us know of
      your success.

      • Was the the only person who started this by guessing YYY.AHB.MSK was www.fbi.gov? Seems like including a fully formatted URL is a bad idea...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ZeroExistenZ (721849)

      it's funny to see the FBI encouraging such behavior

      It reminds me to the series of letters of George Mercies, about "Invisible Contracts [constitution.org]".

      [For example, in the U.S.S.R., the KGB is known to have secretly "created" (sponsored is more like it) -- various protester groups for the sole purpose of throwing out some attractive philosophy designed to attract a certain type of individual, and then having "extracted" those individuals from society, and having thus identified them -- then shutting down the organization

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