Shell Scripting

————Update————–

Here is the link to the code for this contest, I posted it earlier today.

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Ok everyone, so I have thought about this for a really long time and decided to bring this idea to all of you. Once upon a time there was an article on digg.com from a guy that said if you can hack into the PS3 that is hosting this webpage, you can have it. Ring a bell? It might sound familiar, it drew a huge crowd.

Anyway it got me thinking that something similar to this would be a great way to do a couple of things:

• I am a junior in Computer Science and Engineering and want to do some independent research. I would like to test the power of a targeted audience at breaking non-standard encrypted words (as in it’s not encrypted with blowfish, DES, ect.), but instead with just good old pen and paper. For example, using binary representations of numbers/letters, having the letter z = a, you know, “old school” encryption if you will.
• Test the power of social bookmarking sites at spreading the word about such a contest as this.
• Lastly, attempt to raise some money so I can finish my undergrad degree in Computer Science

I want to get see if I can get some feedback on all of this (either on my blog or in the comments section of this article on digg.com) before I post the first code in a couple of hours. The way it will work is I will post the encrypted word. It will only be one English word and the first to tell me what the word is will win a Wii or PS3 game of their choice (it must be easily attainable or I will just be sending you $50 via PayPal). The way that you would submit a guess is to send me $0.50 via PayPal with your guess in the comment section. For the first contest on winning a game I will not ask you to tell me how you broke the code. I will however ask you to tell me how you broke the code for future contests when I can get my hands on a Wii to give away. Feel free to asks questions. Thanks everyone.

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