
The Matasano Crypto Challenges - tptacek
http://blog.pinboard.in/2013/04/the_matasano_crypto_challenges/
======
tptacek
Just a quick note: we have a good idea of how many people make it through
these challenges versus how many start. As long as that ratio stays remotely
sane --- and as long as the whole Internet doesn't secretly turn out to be
full of people who can bust out crypto attacks better than most vulnerability
researchers can, which is a concern because _an English professor finished
these_ \--- we'll donate $20 to PIH or Watsi for everyone who finishes.

Sean, Marcin, and I are watching the cryptopals at matasano address, so if you
have questions or get stuck on one of the later problems, don't hesitate to
ask; the worst that'll happen is we'll take too long to reply.

 _Update: We WILL get to you. We're definitely getting your emails. All of
your emails. All of the emails. Give us a little bit though._

~~~
grinich
>> which is a concern because _an English professor finished these_

Occupations aren't necessarily a good signal for intelligence or domain
expertise... even a patent clerk will surprise you once and a while. ;)

~~~
tptacek
I'm just trolling the STEM grads. I got the professor's permission to do that!

~~~
jiggy2011
Was he _just_ an English professor , or is there some important qualifier?

Good troll either way.

~~~
stephencanon
An English professor of computer science at Cambridge, no doubt. =)

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cespare
Tangential note: if you noticed that this was quite well-written for a blog
post, and if you've never heard of Maciej Cegłowskiv[1], then you should
absolutely start reading his blog, Idle Words[2]. The essays are simply
sublime. Even though he only occasionally writes about tech stuff (it's mostly
about his extensive travels), this is hands down my favorite blog and I await
every new post eagerly.

[1] <http://idlewords.com/about.htm>

[2] <http://idlewords.com/>

~~~
tptacek
Could not possibly agree more. Start here:

<http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm>

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tptacek
Hey, real quick, all:

We got an overwhelming response to this, which is awesome. Good news/bad news.
Bad first: slight delay, while we change up the way we manage the email
responses (we're pulling the emails into Mailgun, which is fantastic btw). The
good news is we should have everyone squared away by the middle of this
afternoon, and should be much more responsive moving forward.

We're _really_ looking forward to watching people run through the challenges.
We'll post aggregate stats when everything's done.

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infogulch
My favorite quote from the article:

In the real world, if you build a bookshelf and forget to tighten one of the
screws all the way, it does not burn down your house

~~~
pwg
Walter Maner - "UNIQUE ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY" -
[http://www.cs.bgsu.edu/maner/ethicomp95/keynote3-THE.html#He...](http://www.cs.bgsu.edu/maner/ethicomp95/keynote3-THE.html#Heading17)

"In a stimulating paper "On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer
Science,"[35]Edsger Dijkstra examines the implications of one central,
controlling assumption: that computers are radically novel in the history of
the world. Given this assumption, it follows that programming these unique
machines will be radically different from other practical intellectual
activities. This, Dijkstra believes, is because the assumption of continuity
we make about the behavior of most materials and artifacts does not hold for
computer systems. For most things, small changes lead to small effects, larger
changes to proportionately larger effects. If I nudge the accelerator pedal a
little closer to the floor, the vehicle moves a little faster. If I press the
pedal hard to the floor, it moves a lot faster. As machines go, computers are
very different.

A program is, as a mechanism, totally different from all the familiar analogue
devices we grew up with. Like all digitally encoded information, it has,
unavoidably, the uncomfortable property that the smallest possible
perturbations -- i.e., changes of a single bit -- can have the most drastic
consequences.[36]"

~~~
chrismsnz
In fact, that is one of the key tenets behind modern cryptography!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalanche_effect>

------
haberman
Best sales pitch I've read in a long time. Makes me want to cancel everything
for the next week and take a crack at them.

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shawabawa3
I hate to sound impatient but I love crypto and can't wait to get started on
the first set of challenges.

How long am I likely to have to wait to receive them? It's been 5 hours so far

Again, I'm not meaning to be rude, I just want to know if I should set aside
time to do them this evening, this weekend, or in a couple of weeks

~~~
marcinw
We're working on it, but you can expect to start them this evening.

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hkmurakami
I'm getting a 404 for the crypto-challenge link in the blog body. Is there
somewhere else I'm supposed to navigate to?

<http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/>

~~~
vikramls
I am seeing that too. Can tptacek fix this?

~~~
tptacek
The link you just pasted and the link in Maciej's article work for me. Which
URL isn't working for you? I'll fix promptly.

~~~
pmh
It's flapping between a 404 and the actual page for me.

~~~
tptacek
That's super weird, because it's just a static web server.

I'm lookin!

~~~
tptacek
Our website is so secure that I don't even understand how it works. It turns
out we have a load balancer. I only updated one of the static servers. Go me!

~~~
michaelkscott
That gave me a good chuckle. Well played.

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jcr
Does the linked article have spoilers?

I'll save it for later if it does.

~~~
tptacek
Nope. People have been pretty awesome about that.

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twilde
I have to say, I've been hearing about the challenges for several months and
have been far too intimidated to attempt them as I'm a total newb on the
crypto side of things.

After reading this article though, I figured it would be safe to assume that
I'll learn as I go through them.

Awesome work guys! Cant thank you enough!

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spinlockmusic
Just finished the first batch. My mind was blown after solving the big
question (you know which one!). This is very cool stuff, can't wait for more!

I'm using this challenge to help me teach myself Python. As it turns out, it's
a great language for these types of problems!

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marcamillion
This is a wonderful write-up.

I think I want to try, but given the current front-page status of this I think
I will wait a week or so before emailing for my instructions.

~~~
tptacek
We can handle it! Shoot us an email!

~~~
marcamillion
Oki doki...will do.

I don't even know if I can manage to take this on...but we'll see :)

~~~
tptacek
They're not going to go away any time soon.

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eridius
Looks cool. I'm surprised that you haven't already received submissions in Go
yet (or if you have, then you need to update the page).

~~~
lunixbochs
I was planning to do mine in Go for this very reason.

~~~
eridius
When I receive the challenges, I'm not sure if I'm going to use Go or Rust.
I'm more familiar with Go, but I'd like to learn Rust.

~~~
lunixbochs
Go submission sent.

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marcamillion
I think this challenge is a brilliant piece of marketing - if it is indeed
marketing.

Love it.

~~~
tptacek
It's something we did because we love this stuff that just seems to have
worked out.

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iagomr
Great initiative! I'm in

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infoseckid
Sent the email, no challenges received yet :( you should make it easier to get
started.

~~~
pc86
My guess is this makes it easier for them to prevent 42 blog posts in a week
about solving Challenge _n_.

