Full encrypted manual?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

The type of encryption used is used by the US Government to keep Top Secret information secure for several weeks at a time.

Except for all of our personal information... yes I'm still bitter about the OPM hack.

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

You're trivilizing this by oversimplification. Can you come up with a set of rules that would solve the following passwords, assuming you knew the theme of the game? Note that only half of them have to do with the theme.

2015: R3C3CL3RU$H2015
2014: 3Zones2Goals1Alliance!
2013: sAucersFlyRobotsClimb!
2012: !HotShots!KnowBalance!
2011: 5Time4For3Robots2to1Dance!
2010: Breakaway4FRC!
2009: 1GiantLeap4FRC
2008: Drive!Straight?turn!LEFT!?
2007: 7sBg8H4x2f3R9C3tm5
2006: S1x240JrTBmsqf95DL06FdsTM33H
2005: 3XTr1pl3play2oo5
2004: FEma2X5E10vEir

Mostly this, you're almost better off brute forcing than trying to come up with a dictionary that would ever contain these words in these forms.

[philso]

Originally Posted by arizonafoxx

Who said anything about brute force. The password word clearly contains words relating to medieval times, conquering, capturing, etc. Typically all words in the password are English with a few substitutions of symbols and numbers. If you developed a list of common words in this genre/theme and used previous password examples it would not take 100 years. Another thing to consider is it would not just be one person trying this approach it would be groups of individuals with multiple computers attempting this. Kids who like hacking would work together to attempt this, which would also decrease the time needed. I think you are overly underestimating the CD crowd. Or overestimating the creativity of the game designers who made the password. Would they need to get lucky? YES! but will it take 100 years? NO! Does FIRST want to chance it by giving us the encrypted manual earlier than a few days? NO!

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Mostly this, you're almost better off brute forcing than trying to come up with a dictionary that would ever contain these words in these forms.

It would probably take most of the time between the release of the encrypted manuals and the start of the Kickoff presentations to get the people you want to work on this to agree what the rules for developing the "list of common words in this genre/theme" should be.