Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

Discussing doing it for malicious uses (such as gaining access to the game manual early) is not welcome. Discussions about the mathematics behind encryption is actually quite fascinating and I think should be encouraged. I would even go so far as to say that discussion of techniques for defeating encryption and why it is often not worth trying are incredibly useful.

Of course, if the mods disagree with this view please delete this post and let me know.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

The practicality of cracking the password is negligible. The passwords have historically been strong enough that unless someone uses a botnet there simply isn't enough time to crack it successfully before Saturday. 0-day hacks into Adobe as attempts to crack encrypted files have simply resulted in 0-day exploits for internet browsers instead of actually unencrypting the files, so I also doubt there are circumvention measures available.

In short: 128-bit SSL is still going strong, so don't get your hopes up of actually reading the contents before Saturday.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

Could you explain why? (Not saying you are wrong, just because I think it would make an interesting read)

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

If that were the case, you'd use roughly 12x less energy* time traveling into the future to find out the new game, and time traveling back.






*Assuming 1.21 gigawatts to travel through time one way, 2.42 gigawatts round trip.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

I have a flux capacitor if someone can get the 2.42 gigawatts, and a Delorian, too.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

The Questions is, do we attempt to build a Mr.Fusion, or do we go for the Plutonium from the Libyans?

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

Neither. We go for the lightning bolt.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

128-bit encryption means 128 bits.

The number of permutations is 2^128, or 340282366920938000000000000000000000000 possible permutations.

Even with really fast processors, it would take months to brute force that. Assuming you don't really have access to some kind of supercomputer or massive distributed computing network.

Although a few recent papers have called into question the security. AES-128 encryption. If you like technical stuff, here:
http://eprint.iacr.org/2009/374.pdf

Although they conclude the encryption is fairly secure at this time, some flaws have started to appear.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

It's something I've worried about since "DriveFastTurnLeft"... If the passwords were random strings of alphanumerics, then they'd be for all intents and purposes impossible to crack in the time frame -- but game hints combined with cribbed passwords, that's just bad cryptology right there!

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

Here is a question regarding NOT cracking the code..

I am new to the Mac universe, I am trying to download and save the files to my computer and open them with adobe which i have just downloaded. Instead of being successful, it says that the files are damaged and I don't even get the prompt for the password. Anyone with a Mac have a tip or two?

Help would be appreciated.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

Just use the default Preview.app instead of the Adobe one. I never had a problem in the past. You could also try redownloading as they may actually have been downloaded corrupt (it happens).

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

Got it! Thanks! Computer was being temperamental.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

this happened to me (albeit on Windows), after downloading and renaming the file. I tried again, this time not renaming the PDF (keeping it as Complete_FRC_Game_Manual_05Jan2011.pdf) and it worked fine.

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

Uhh...the passwords aren't usually just alpha. "Drive!Straight?turn.LEFT!?" is a good example. Punctuation adds a little more complexity

"Breakaway4FRC" was "simpler", but would still take a while to bruteforce.
I'm wondering if anyone's just run a bruteforcer during build season to see how long it would actually take...

Re: 2011 Encrypted manuals are out.
 

On another note:

Does anyone else find it significant that the decryption test file features our favorite picture of our favorite singer? Perhaps FIRST is trying to tell us something more about that hint...

Or perhaps they're just messing with our minds.