FRC Manual in Advance?

[dez250]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

Joe - I hope you weren't referring to This Thread which I placed in the rumor mill. I did a search on " manuals password" and that's about all that came up. Who took the heat and grief, and who did it come from? The only "claims" were Joe Ross's of "a friend of a friend" and Elgin's of the password starting with 2, 15 characters - not exactly right, was it? Not exactly questionable characters according to their reputations, but they love a good rumor like I do. If FIRST is making decisions based on rumors (especially obvious tomfoolery) or uninformed speculation and unsubstantiated claims they should be hanging their head in shame, not me.

Hopefully this was a misunderstanding.

Take a look at This Thread, that has left a bad taste since then in many peoples mouths.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Honestly, that thread is horribly misguided. It started out as a joke, and then someone came in with misinformation about it being possible for a large corporation to crack the encryption. This would be true if FIRST used the very, very basic 40-bit encryption. That can be cracked in a relatively short amount of time by just a single home PC. 128-bit encryption with a strong algorithm and a strong key like FIRST chose is entirely too hard to crack. You could throw dozens of supercomputers at the problem and you might have had last year's documents cracked in time for next year's competition. I'm sure FIRST understands that there is statistically no chance of the password being cracked in even a month, so I can only assume that the delayed release this year is for some other reason.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Honestly, that thread is horribly misguided. It started out as a joke, and then someone came in with misinformation about it being possible for a large corporation to crack the encryption. This would be true if FIRST used the very, very basic 40-bit encryption. That can be cracked in a relatively short amount of time by just a single home PC. 128-bit encryption with a strong algorithm and a strong key like FIRST chose is entirely too hard to crack. You could throw dozens of supercomputers at the problem and you might have had last year's documents cracked in time for next year's competition. I'm sure FIRST understands that there is statistically no chance of the password being cracked in even a month, so I can only assume that the delayed release this year is for some other reason.

Does it matter if it's a joke?

If I'm walking around in front of the whitehouse and make a joke about terrorists or George Bush dying, do you think the secret service agents are gonna go "yo dude, you makin a joke, or were you serious? cuz I really dont feel like getting up and doing anything about it right now" They're going to arrest me, no matter what my intentions were. Same as if you say "bomb" on an airplane.

Intentions don't matter for anything, it's all about perception and in this case FIRST perceived that these people were serious

[Max Lobovsky]

Originally Posted by Cory

in this case FIRST perceived that these people were serious

How do we know that?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Max Lobovsky

How do we know that?

We assume they did... Joe made a reference to it

[sanddrag]

Once I get the files off the FIRST site, I can upload them to a couple servers I have accounts on in case the FIRST server gets bogged down.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by dez250

Take a look at This Thread, that has left a bad taste since then in many peoples mouths.

Thanks Dez - wow, I didn't realize what a debate I jumped into. Had I read that thread I probably wouldn't have posted my thread last year even in the rumor section. BTW I do understand the difference between joking around with people and saying "bomb" in an airport, and there is a difference. I wasn't aware that so many people were sensitive about this issue. Sorry Dr. Joe.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

I'm sure FIRST is not releasing the Manuals in advance due to the discussions about cracking the password last year. I'm also sure that whatever they decide to do, everyone will be able to access the files they need in a timely manner.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

BTW I do understand the difference between joking around with people and saying "bomb" in an airport, and there is a difference.

Yeah c'mon, haven't you guys seen Meet the Parents?

Really this thread's point has turned into beating a dead horse... no one knows if the manuals will be released ahead of time for sure, but we can assume no.