After quals ended...

* GB300
[03:39] <[ddtek]mars> gb300 content when properly reassembled was base64 blob
[03:39] <[ddtek]mars> after dropping non-base64 chars
[03:41] <[ddtek]mars> gb300 from the author: The string is encoded via Signed fibonacci sequence bit-packed encoding, with each character stored as an offset of the previous character, padding with 1 bits to the byte boundary

We got base64 blob but... how the hell were we supposed to guess the 2nd part???


* GB400
[03:43] <[ddtek]mars> gb400, again from the author: This is a headline puzzle of porn titles that cropped up post death of BinLaden. There are a number of online versions of Headline Puzzles, but the best paper that describes them is "Chains and Symmetry" by Dave Smith.  The puzzles are generally meant to be solved by hand, but online software exists to assist.
[03:45] <[ddtek]mars> gb400: The challenge to this problem comes in three parts.
[03:45] <[ddtek]mars> gb400: in the title are concatinated together, which makes many of the basic published methods not feasable.
[03:45] <[ddtek]mars> gb400: - The puzzle itself uses 3 words for keying the algorithm.  The key, hat, and setting.  Just decrypting each of the titles is not enough.  You must know that this is a Headline Puzzle and reverse out the hat, setting, and key.
[03:45] <[ddtek]mars> gb400: - Not all of the phrases are dictionary words, making brute forcing the problem difficult.  However, in the published descriptions of the puzzle, this is part of the fun.
[03:46] <[ddtek]mars> gb400 NOT SOLVED
[03:47] <[RIC]Phicar> and what were thw hints to came to the idea of using headline puzzle?
[03:47] <[ddtek]mars> yess supposedly the hints lead to the technique for solving
[03:49] <[ddtek]mars> for the interested the por title input for gb400 were:
[03:49] <[ddtek]mars> death to the nymphidels
[03:49] <[ddtek]mars> talibang bus
[03:49] <[ddtek]mars> dead men dont wear rubbers
[03:49] <[ddtek]mars> persian rug munchers
[03:49] <[ddtek]mars> youre turban me on

No comments. How were we supposed to guess that? :-/

-Roman