[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

I was wondering, though...what would happen if someone managed to decrypt it with significant enough lead time to give them an advantage? Even a couple extra days before kickoff would make a difference, so what would FIRST do? Would they disqualify the team?

Then that person should apply to the CIA, FBI, and NSA. Immediately. With that all the documentation of the decryption. Let those three figure out who gets first crack at employing the person.

And whether FIRST would DQ the team... Nobody's ever done it. Therefore, there is no precedent. However, I would anticipate both some form of penalty (bag 2 days earlier?) and some form of change in later seasons to prevent it from happening again.