Believe me or not, but my "super-crazy-complicated-weird" puzzle have lived less than 28 hours.
Congratulations to @krishare, who found the "secret phrase" so quick.
Yes, indeed, the secret hidden 5 words were given back precisely and EXACTLY as I was expected:
DeFi = the future of LeoFinance
But first of all (as I will refer to a brain-wallet description page), my important warning again: Brain wallets are NOT SAFE. Never use them!
I know this not only from reading reports online. I have learned it myself the hard way. By loosing Bitcoin.
Back in the days when this happened to me (2014), not many people knew, how unsafe the brain wallets can be. No matter how long and complex the initial seed may seem to you, a 100-150 character string of words, names, dates, figures is still "easy money" for todays sophisticated cracking methods.
Seven years later I still can feel the pain of loosing "x-digits" large amount of Bitcoin. With prices ever surging, this pain seems will never go away.
So, here is a whole story.
I was browsing various pages about differences in HD wallet derivation path, about signing and verifying messages on blockchain. At some point I came across this page on github. I think I have seen it before, but this time my attention was grabbed by the implemented converted, converting various strings in Heximal, Decimal, Binary, Base58, Base64 formats. As there is an offline version to download that page, I saved it for my future use. Soon, while playing with it, I got hooked with POETRY cipher format. I said "What?" Never heard about it before. Tried to google - not much found either.
But it seemed this "poetry" method producing some interesting, good looking results:
Do you like this "been leave leave believe point coat around fail soar" ? 😀
Here came the idea to make a puzzle. I encoded my first from the top of my head phrase with a childish, probably well known ROT13 (just to make task a bit more difficult), and then converted into "poetry". If somebody has seen this "poetry" format before, my puzzle would be easy-money. If not - maybe a bit harder. I had no idea if the reply will come in 7 minutes, 7 hours or 7 days. Or never.
This made my second option to come - to make the price variable, slowly increasing with time.
Was it really a one, single copy-paste?
May sound ridiculous, but here is a proof (which you can easy duplicate):
Yes, perhaps quite a few mouse clicks in trying various TAB combinations, but only one real copy-paste 😀
Two cascaded encryption methods from the past century, right?
Does puzzles attract new people?
I think it does.
My pervious "lost paper-wallet" puzzle was published on 2021-01-19, and was solved by @cryptosneeze on 2021-01-24, who got registered his HIVE account just one day earlier, on 2021-01-23
This time things were even more extreme:
Puzzle published: 2021-03-05, 13:48
Winner @krishare got his HIVE acct: 2021-03-06, 12:08 (+22.3 h)
Puzzle answer publish: 2021-03-06, 17:46 (+5.5 h)
Time span from "days" came into "hours". How crazy it is?
Someone reported, people were even asking for a help in solving this on REDIT. Huh?
You can always find your own way !
Another interesting thing is, that winner have found his own way of solving the task. Which I was myself completely not aware of.
You can read about all this in the TOP comments thread under the original puzzle post.
So what do you think?
I think puzzles may be a good way to suck-in new people.
If you can create a good puzzle, but are not able to sponsor a good, proper prize for it - contact me on Discord.
I will see if we can do something together about it.
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This puzzle was great fun. I was immediately caught up in it and both me and my uncle @krishare are interested in cryptography. I knew he was the right person to involve with his deep knowledge on the matter. Not only did we manage to solve it together but I also managed to recruit him to HIVE and LEO in the process! Great success!
Thank you for for this amazing puzzle @onealfa. If you come over any other cipher and decryption methods on your travels we would love more challenges!
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@pusen thanks for bringing in such a wonderful genius,we will need people like him on this platform.....
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Just curious, but did it tempt you to hold off on posting the correct answer since the prize would keep increasing the longer it remained unsolved?
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Since @krishare was the one to fully solve the code it was for him to decide. I’ll let him answer this one. :)
I would probably have waited a day or two myself.
Cryptography and steganography has intrigued me for years, and solving this together with @pusen was great fun, learning a lot along the way!
As a very big bonus, I was introduced to HIVE and LEO, totally new concepts for me which I'm really looking forward to explore!
Who knows, maybe I'll write something on steganography...? And geocaching, a very precious hobby for both @pusen and myself...?
Thank you very much for the puzzle @onealfa and for quality messenger-time @pusen - looking forward to new puzzles!
wow? Steganography? Very interesting
What can you say about OpenPuff ?
I have been Geocashing too for a few years. (been GARMIN GPS distributor for 20+ years) But not anymore the last ~5 years
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OpenPuff is a tool, I know THAT much 😁 My interest is more about the concept of stego, and methods that are simple enough to use with simple programs - like Gimp, over even Paint when it's about image steganography - and even by hand or any text editor for text stego. To make a secret message almost impossible to find (unless you know how, obviously) using only pen and paper, in a way that doesn't reveal there's a hidden message at all - that's very satisfying 😊
congratulations @krishare you did a wonderful job...nice one
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Wow, this is really bad news. Does that also affect MetaMask seed phrases? If so, they are a security risk and hackable, since they are all brain wallets based on words and can easily be memorized - or is that something else than a brain wallet? That would basically break the entire DeFi market, wouldn't it? I assume there is a difference to what you consider a brain wallet and the MetaMask seed phrase but I don't understand what it is.
As a former memory athlete, you can memorize dozens of words in minutes, the concept of brain wallets is VERY important to me. But apparently there seems to be great differences.
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Metamask seed only looks similar, but in fact is a totally different thing. I think in uses BIP39 (correct me if I'm wrong) and the hashing and address derivation methods there used are very very different. Not even comparable. I think we can keep calm regarding BIP39
Ok cool. That is a relieve, although I already assumed that would be the case.
Then how do we get something like this BIP39 seed phrase for HIVE/LEO? I really want to memorize my keys but even though I would be able to memorize the full key, it is troublesome even with memory techniques. Memorizing 20-30 words is much easier.
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In Hive what you really need to keep save is only ONE private key- the master password (key). All others , posting, active, owner and memo - can be retrieved from the master with a few mouse clicks. There is a method to replace long string of master key with a bunch of more easy to remember meaningfull English words. Which possibly are more easy to remember. But I would not recommend to rely on memorizing anything. Very riscky. Smth you can remember tomorrow or after 4 weeks, can become "mission impossible" after 5-10 years. Proven many times.
@onealfa through the puzzle i also learnt so much about the importance of security of our keys,a bad security of our keys is dangerous for us because we loose all what we have if criminals get hold of it.....so learning how to secure our passwords and keys is very important....
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yep. $5 wrench is still effective :)
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I have made my living as a memory coach for nearly two decades and I would trust my own memory far more than writing my master keyword on a piece of paper or save it on flash drive or even engrave it on a plate of copper and bury it somewhere. What do I do when I travel and don't want to take my key with me and maybe never return? None of these techniques are really something I find entirely comfortable. However, memorizing 20-30 computer generated words with maximum entropy is something incredibly easy and the memory would get better every day - not worse, even after 10 years or more. All you need to do is repeat your associations regularly and more and more protein called myelin will be wrapped around the neurons, multiplying recall speed and accuracy. It would become a stronger memory than your own name. I have done that many times and the only way to forget is by stop doing regular recalls and let a long time pass or by having a major brain defect like a stroke.
Besides, holding the master password in your memory like this could be an additional option, next to having a physical or digital copy somewhere, just in case. You could then rely in 99% of all cases on your memory and only in the worst case scenario need to get the shovel and dig out your copper plate. And like you said, you could rely on your Posting Key and Active Key anyways most of the time. Which you could ALSO memorize like that, given the right encryption method.
I admit that I am probably an exception when it comes to that but to me this is the ideal solution. I have been looking for an option like that since I joined Steem in 2017 and not yet found one. So IF you should stumble upon an open source encryption tool that uses BIP39 for Hive keys (or whatever might work as safely as the MetaMask seed phrase), I would be incredibly interested in knowing about that.
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I learned something new today
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I never would have solved it, but it was interesting to read others trying to solve it. :)
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Hi @onealfa how interesting, I didn't know you were doing a puzzle contest that really appeals to me.
I do a riddle contest but super easy, everyone gets the answer right, it looks like my contest was designed for Preschoolers, 🤣 but everyone has fun and wins that's the idea.
I have been looking for sponsors, by next week I will have one and if you want too you are welcome.
I'm interested above all in making it more challenging, that's what I'm sure you can help me with.
I congratulate you for your initiative, very good. Greetings and a big hug 🤗
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Good to see newcomers exploring the challenges and solving it so quick - definitely, its good for Leo / Hive platform. May be we should have more of this.
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This was a great contest I have enjoyed them. I was scratching my head trying to figure it out. I knew it was a seed phrase but nothing worked! 100% upvote for you my friend.
Great work!
And the answer is so true!
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Congrat's to @krishare, I gave up after a few minutes when I realized it was way over my head!
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@tbnfl4sun lol...honestly the puzzle was difficult for me to handle....
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Waooo. I too tried various decoders. Never heard of POETRY Cypher, so stood no chance. ::(
And amazing to see people discussing the giveaway on Reddit. So Puzzle Giveaways are proving to be a nice way to attract attention of outside community to Leo(Hive).
I think this kind of rewarding puzzle should be more frequent. If we could attract outside audience with these, than these puzzles are far more worth it for us(than the puzzle reward itself).
Regards
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It's a great way to attract intelligent and ambitious people it seems, I didn't imagine it would bring people from outside the hive/leo ecosystem
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You make them too complicate 😁
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I will not agree with this statement as long as they keep getting solved in the 7 day post expiration period. 😃
Which is the case so far.
Well in my case they are... Maybe one day I will be able to solve some of your puzzles and similar posts. They're interesting though because they generate a lot of commenting and community interaction.
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Is there anywhere that explains how the poetry cipher works? I can only find information on the old WW2 poetry cipher which seems different.
I was miles off 😂
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@onealfa good to know that someone finally solved the puzzle,what an awesome contest,i would love to see more of this amazing puzzle,it is a kind of puzzle that makes you put your brain into use just to crack the great puzzle..good job done sir...
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This was the last time I wasted time on your "puzzles". They are not solvable if you do not by chance stumble over exactly a specific web page. Maybe you should stop call them puzzles because just by thinking you can´t solve them.
Recent puzzle winner @krishare just proved your statement is 100% wrong . He got a perfect and right answer without knowing and/or finding the page which I was using while creating the task.
Similar was about previous HD paper wallet. If you know how HD wallets work, the private keys can derived even using pencil and piece of paper. Without any specific tool or page. It only would take much much longer.
Feel free to make your own puzzle that requires "thinking" and see how minutes it takes for people to Google the answer.
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That was fun! I'm glad someone solved it fairly early though. It was definitely soaking up too much of my time. :-) It was also fun to see I was on the right track. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have gotten to the answer because even after reading your explanation I'm not quite sure I know the proper steps but...it was fun delving into the world of cryptography for a few hours.
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This is really great , now it looks so funny what kind of search i did , in google your phrase was searched more time an your post was on top results . Thank you again.
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I bookmarked the puzzle and was hoping to try it on Sunday(in the US) but I guess it's over. Now that I look at the solution, I don't think I could of got the answer.
I think it's great that your puzzles are attracting people from outside HIVE to join. I hope they continue to stay active here even after receiving their prize.
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I say give people more puzzles. Finance should be fun too ;)
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Interesting but this is scary such an app created that can sweep millions of crypto.
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These puzzle are popular with the Reddit crowd. I think it’s a great way to brewing new users.
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Congratulations @krishare and @pusen.
The method, described here, is very easy but not in everyone's reach, so you guys well deserved the reward because how you decrypt it is a hard work.
Once again, CONGRATULATIONS!
Hello @onealfa,It was a beautiful puzzle.
Congratulations to the winner @krishare, I confess that it was very complex and you were too good at unraveling it!
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Very good quiz, keep on posting this. Thanks in advance.
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2 winners two onboards but possibly more who got them wrong. It would take a while for mass adoption lol but you are still pulling new accounts in. I looked at it and had no clue and need to look again how this all works.
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This is really interesting to see. I hope that I am quick enough to enter next time.
Dang, I was on the right track, I just wasn't looking at the right kind of cipher. I knew I would be taking a long break for the weekend so I wasn't too confident it would remain unsolved that long. Congrats to the winner. That was some impressive detective work. I've never seen a cipher like that before, so I was starting from ground zero.
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Thank you for increasing the feelgood factor on LF with this contest.
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I must say that this enigma had me intrigued, I do not know many things about this topic of seed phrases and when I saw the puzzle I racked my brain trying to find a solution until I gave up waiting for someone else to achieve it.
Beyond the game, with the explanation of how the solution was reached caused me a lot of concern, since we always take for granted that certain security methods are the best, not knowing that there are thousands, perhaps millions of people in the world who prove otherwise by innovating ways to hack accounts.
I am surprised by this, with our money we should always be careful and be aware of all information we share or request online, I appreciate the didactic way @onealfa raised this reality, on the other hand I regret his loss of money, at least something so unpleasant could learn a lesson and share it with all of us, which I appreciate very much.
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awesome, i really like it. i will contact you on discord soon. I created some for other projects and would love to create one for leo. let's make it a joint effort.
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you're making me excited to solve puzzles, lol
I'm very excited waiting for the next one, even if I need to go hours without sleep
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