[EricH]

Originally Posted by team-4480

Oh....my bad. I thought the reason they put out the manual early is so people could try, albeit probably won't succeed, to crack it. That was the feeling I got from seeing it, but I guess I was too ignorant or something. My bad.....

It's out early so that their servers don't totally crash. On Kickoff, EVERY website related to FIRST slows down--CD got better when they were able to get more of a dynamic server setup so they could get an extra server or three for build, but FIRST itself hasn't gotten much better. The basic idea is that a lot of people download the manual early, and then the password is given out at the end of the broadcast. Then people can download the non-encrypted manual whenever the traffic permits.


And part of the reason for the encryption being as secure as it is is to slow down attempts to get in--it's rated as secure for a couple of weeks, and it's released less than a week before Kickoff. If anybody does crack it successfully, their best bet is to tell FIRST and then go have a chat with the CIA about employment.