2006 Game Documents

[1075master]

ok if u figured they'd stop u from getting there why did u even bother??!!!!
theres only what 56hrs left until launch like whats 2 days more.. if u got the info now u'd have to wait and try to get everyone togethor tomorrow which would probably b hard as ppl are still on christmas vacation well atleast in canada.. i don't really know about every where else.. so u'de get everyone togethor friday most ppl would probably sleep in so u'd get a couple hours and then waste half a day on kickoff to get ur parts.. is it really worth it???
i have an idea how bout we end this very boring topic of how to get the info early!! CUZ IT AIN'T WORTH IT!!!

[Stu Bloom]

Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 12:37 PM
Subject: Early release of encrypted game information


Due to new information, edits and last minute changes, our plan to encrypt any of this season's game information has been delayed a bit. We still hope to have it available prior to the kickoff event.

Sorry for any inconvenience. Thank you for your patience.

~ FRC Team Support

In past years it has been posted on the FRC Documents and Updates page. I would expect that to remain the same.

I am sure there will be an email blast from FIRST, or you could just check the DOCs page once ina while ...

[savage301]

I emailed FIRST about the release and got a reply today that said that they don't have a date yet and to look for a email blast coming soon about the docs.

[Adam Richards]

Originally Posted by 1075master

ok since everyone likes the idea of getting documents early how about. U CAN'T GET THEM BY HACKING. We thought of that 2 years ago and our head programer greg inozempzev( one of the creators of open first) explained that to crack the code would take weeks!!! theres only what 3 days until launch.. if ur teams good enough waiting 3 days won't hurt!

In the sense of educational information, I'd actually like to contradict your statement.

The software to decrypt PDF files does exist, though it does take awhile. At the most, it would take 8 days to guarantee a successful crack on one Pentium 4 3.00GHz computer if you attacked the password through brute forcing the encryption algorithm (which is limited to 40-bits because of US export regulations, so its not uncrackable). Software does exist that splits up the workload on this, and you could extend it to several computers, reducing it to a day, or even a mere hour if you had the resources to do it with.

Note: I never have and never will condone doing these actions, as the software that does exist is ONLY to be used for PDF files that YOU CREATED. Breaking into unautorized files is highly illegal, and can land you in serious prison time for doing so. Also, it isn't in the spirit of GP to hack such files, for several reasons, such as: from the amount of time it took the Game Design Committee to design the rules, to the fact that you'd be cheating all the other teams who decide to play by the rules.

Brandon/GDC: If you'd rather this post be deleted, just PM me, and I'll take it down.

[1075master]

Originally Posted by Adam Richards

In the sense of educational information, I'd actually like to contradict your statement.

The software to decrypt PDF files does exist, though it does take awhile. At the most, it would take 8 days to guarantee a successful crack on one Pentium 4 3.00GHz computer if you attacked the password through brute forcing the encryption algorithm (which is limited to 40-bits because of US export regulations, so its not uncrackable). Software does exist that splits up the workload on this, and you could extend it to several computers, reducing it to a day, or even a mere hour if you had the resources to do it with.

Note: I never have and never will condone doing these actions, as the software that does exist is ONLY to be used for PDF files that YOU CREATED. Breaking into unautorized files is highly illegal, and can land you in serious prison time for doing so. Also, it isn't in the spirit of GP to hack such files, for several reasons, such as: from the amount of time it took the Game Design Committee to design the rules, to the fact that you'd be cheating all the other teams who decide to play by the rules.

Brandon/GDC: If you'd rather this post be deleted, just PM me, and I'll take it down.

thats a very good point but another thing i said was if the team is good enough the couple extra days shouldn't be much of a deal.most teams have been here a couple years and should be used to the strenuous deadline by now.

[BrianBSL]

Originally Posted by Adam Richards

In the sense of educational information, I'd actually like to contradict your statement.

The software to decrypt PDF files does exist, though it does take awhile. At the most, it would take 8 days to guarantee a successful crack on one Pentium 4 3.00GHz computer if you attacked the password through brute forcing the encryption algorithm (which is limited to 40-bits because of US export regulations, so its not uncrackable). Software does exist that splits up the workload on this, and you could extend it to several computers, reducing it to a day, or even a mere hour if you had the resources to do it with.

Note: I never have and never will condone doing these actions, as the software that does exist is ONLY to be used for PDF files that YOU CREATED. Breaking into unautorized files is highly illegal, and can land you in serious prison time for doing so. Also, it isn't in the spirit of GP to hack such files, for several reasons, such as: from the amount of time it took the Game Design Committee to design the rules, to the fact that you'd be cheating all the other teams who decide to play by the rules.

Brandon/GDC: If you'd rather this post be deleted, just PM me, and I'll take it down.

Acrobat 5 and higher support 128-bit RC4 encryption, and Acrobat 7 supports 128-bit AES encryption on its passwords, so your theory is flawed. I think on the order of weeks is the correct timeframe.

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Adam Richards

In the sense of educational information, I'd actually like to contradict your statement.

The software to decrypt PDF files does exist, though it does take awhile. At the most, it would take 8 days to guarantee a successful crack on one Pentium 4 3.00GHz computer if you attacked the password through brute forcing the encryption algorithm (which is limited to 40-bits because of US export regulations, so its not uncrackable). Software does exist that splits up the workload on this, and you could extend it to several computers, reducing it to a day, or even a mere hour if you had the resources to do it with.

Note: I never have and never will condone doing these actions, as the software that does exist is ONLY to be used for PDF files that YOU CREATED. Breaking into unautorized files is highly illegal, and can land you in serious prison time for doing so. Also, it isn't in the spirit of GP to hack such files, for several reasons, such as: from the amount of time it took the Game Design Committee to design the rules, to the fact that you'd be cheating all the other teams who decide to play by the rules.

Brandon/GDC: If you'd rather this post be deleted, just PM me, and I'll take it down.

This comment was included in the FIRST email blast announcing last years availability of encrypted manuals:

FYI, the method used to encrypt these files is secure. It is called 128-bit RC4 encoding, and is a current standard considered by the US Government as completely secure for short (weeks) periods of time.

...BUT I suppose you are much smarter than US Government scientists/programmers.

PLEASE utilize the search feature of this site and read some of the prior discussion on this topic, AND THEN PLEASE DO NOT WAIT for Brandon's request to remove your post ...

[1075master]

ok i didn't expect all this oput of my comment.. my main point was that its stupid and pointless so stop talking about the idea!!

[Adam Richards]

Originally Posted by Stu Bloom

This comment was included in the FIRST email blast announcing last years availability of encrypted manuals:
...BUT I suppose you are much smarter than US Government scientists/programmers.

PLEASE utilize the search feature of this site and read some of the prior discussion on this topic, AND THEN PLEASE DO NOT WAIT for Brandon's request to remove your post ...

I'm sorry, I happened to be at school, and I didn't have time to check everything. I wasn't completely sure if they used the old 40-bit encryption or the newer 128-bit. Also, your sarcastic tone is quite unnecessary, so please refrain from it next time. Thanks.

[devicenull]

An older version of adobe had a flaw, there were a maximum of 1024 keys to be tried to crack any pdf. Not so now.

Although, if security is an issue, theres always RC5, which, for this purpose is essentially uncrackable (Theres a distributed computing project goin on now, using a 72bit key, that cracks 138,905,230,942 Keys/sec, and its 0.287% to the solution after cracking for ~4 years)

It would really be nice to have them early though, I won't have internet where I'll be watching the kickoff.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Stu Bloom

This comment was included in the FIRST email blast announcing last years availability of encrypted manuals:
...BUT I suppose you are much smarter than US Government scientists/programmers.

The same government that has been known to post highly sensitive information regarding top secret missions on internet-connected Windows machines?

Or the same government that security was so lax that a man searching for proofs of UFOs was able to hack in?

Yeah, that government.

(Double posted for the sake of our threaded users)

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Billfred

I wasn't on CD during the 2004 season (scary, isn't it?), but wasn't there talk about cracking the manual then?

Someone will always bring it up, either out of being naive or being dumb. But with three days before Kickoff, three things come to mind:
a) Why bother? Three days, and you can get it without all the effort and guilt.
b) In order to crack the manual before Kickoff, you would need some black-magic, CIA-type computers (assuming one were to use a brute-force method). I'm sure your parents/school/sponsors would love the power bill that comes from running that much crunching power.
c) The DMCA prohibits circumventing "measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work" (source, page three at the bottom). Do you really feel like tangling with federal law just to get a short time advantage on a game for an extracurricular activity?

That said, I think FIRST will release the manual tonight or tomorrow. (Too much travel on Friday, I figure.)

b) Heh, talk about power bills. Experts have said that it is physically impossible to brute force a 128 bit key. With the most efficient, super-conductive, etc. etc. computer, it would take 10 gigawatts (~4 nuclear reactors) of energy, and STILL take over a century.
c) The DMCA is a failed law. I quote

`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems `(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

Therefore, it is illegal for me to attempt to find flaws in computer code. If the good guys don't find the flaws and patch them before the bad guys find them and exploit them, bad things happen.

Meh, just thought I would add my two cents. With all this being said, hacking is bad (mmkay?)

[Katie Reynolds]

C'mon guys, let's get back on topic.

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

Any idea if the documents are being pre-released this year? It worked well in the past. I hope that they are still not working on them

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by Katie Reynolds

C'mon guys, let's get back on topic.

Originally Posted by Ryan Foley

Here you go
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=484

Enjoy!

PS: technically they arent done working on the documents until the last team update

We already have an answer.

I stated a fact about last year's discussions, and apparently my wish that no one would even think about talking about trying to hack the manual this year went unfulfilled.

Thanks for letting me down folks.
(And, I know it wasn't everyone who posted since my last post in this thread)

I vote this thread be locked since the original question had it's answer already stated by Ryan.

Thanks for the link to the info Ryan, and that's all I have to say for now.