How do I get the encrypted competition manual?

[Tetraman]

The first password I'm going to attempt is "5892rockwellFIRSTparts" as that's the number of total quantity from game hint 1.

It always helps to have the files beforehand. I remember one year I couldn't get the manuals on game day until about 6 hours after it was released. Frustrating. It's like trying to register for college classes at 6 in the morning.

[Garrett.d.w]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

Why do you say it's cheating?
What rule has been broken?

The opening paragraphs of the rules (don't actually have the rulebook so no quote, sorry) state that the build season is six weeks. By opening the rulebook beforehand you have extended the amount of time that you have to work on your robot. Even if you don't build anything, you have thought about the game and how to solve the challenge.

[Gray Adams]

Originally Posted by Garrett.d.w

The opening paragraphs of the rules (don't actually have the rulebook so no quote, sorry) state that the build season is six weeks. By opening the rulebook beforehand you have extended the amount of time that you have to work on your robot. Even if you don't build anything, you have thought about the game and how to solve the challenge.

If you're going to argue that, then you should have the entirety of January 7th to look at the manual as part of the 6 weeks.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Garrett.d.w

The opening paragraphs of the rules (don't actually have the rulebook so no quote, sorry) state that the build season is six weeks. By opening the rulebook beforehand you have extended the amount of time that you have to work on your robot. Even if you don't build anything, you have thought about the game and how to solve the challenge.

I commend you for reading the rules.

However, by your own statement, you have opened the rulebook beforehand and thus extended the six weeks (even if it's only a portion of the rulebook).

Also, where does it say that the six weeks starts when you get the rulebook? (I personally have counted the time from kickoff to shipdate)

I just have never seen a rule that prohibits attempts at figuring out the encryption key. Again, I'd not do so, but thats because I WANT to be surprised on FIRSTmas (err...kickoff).

[Trent B]

Getting off the complete tangent of cracking which we already shouldn't be on.

Last year I helped host a manual that was downloaded a couple thousand times. I may consider doing that again but I need to decide if I want to spend the money hosting it because my host has changed from one with a flat fee for a flat amount of services to a one with a dynamic fee based on use (pay for everything basically).

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Trent B

Getting off the complete tangent of cracking which we already shouldn't be on.

Last year I helped host a manual that was downloaded a couple thousand times. I may consider doing that again but I need to decide if I want to spend the money hosting it because my host has changed from one with a flat fee for a flat amount of services to a one with a dynamic fee based on use (pay for everything basically).

I'll probably just put it on Dropbox with a public link.

[Trent B]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I'll probably just put it on Dropbox with a public link.

Apparently the bandwidth limit is 10GB/day which is higher than I expected. I may do the same granted our bandwidth hit on kickoff was even higher than that.

[Clinton Bolinger]

FIRST should really torrent the manual files on the day of Kickoff, I think enough people would seed to take care of any server crashing issues.

-Clinton-

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Clinton Bolinger

FIRST should really torrent the manual files on the day of Kickoff, I think enough people would seed to take care of any server crashing issues.

-Clinton-

While that is probably a good idea, Torrents have such a bad reputation that it'd be nearly impossible to download them on a school's network, as apposed to a simple PDF

[flameout]

If you have any Linux people on your team, Evince (the standard GNOME document viewer) (and probably others... maybe KDE's one?) can print directly to PDF, thereby allowing you to save a decrypted copy of an encrypted PDF (you need the password, of course, and it increases the file size).

I'm not familiar with software for Windows that can do this, other than Adobe's official PDF creation software. It shouldn't be too hard to find something, though.

Then you can distribute the new PDF among your team (and other teams), removing the need for any form of internet access.

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by Billfred

While I can tell the light nature of this discussion, it does contravene the ChiefDelphi forum rules:

I thought we were on the safer side of a grey area. We never mentioned how one would "figure out" the encryption key, we were simply discussing the ethical implications of the READING the manual before it is release. At least that is where the conversation started.

^What Par_Wig said.

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by Trent B

Getting off the complete tangent of cracking which we already shouldn't be on.

Last year I helped host a manual that was downloaded a couple thousand times. I may consider doing that again but I need to decide if I want to spend the money hosting it because my host has changed from one with a flat fee for a flat amount of services to a one with a dynamic fee based on use (pay for everything basically).

I can host game documents on our team website, like I did last year, too.

[GaryVoshol]

Part of the problem with teams hosting game documents is that they don't always get updated in a timely manner when the GDC issues a revision. We found that last year, especially considering several major changes that came out regarding the minibots. But every year it's something.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I'll probably just put it on Dropbox with a public link.

+1. I plan on doing this for my team.

Originally Posted by Trent B

Apparently the bandwidth limit is 10GB/day which is higher than I expected. I may do the same granted our bandwidth hit on kickoff was even higher than that.

I suppose if a group of people on CD upload and then publicly post their links, then we can get a nice, safe network to download things.

- Sunny G.