
Worst Puzzle Ever  (2009) - lisper
http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/12/worst-puzzle-ever.html
======
cortesi
Mr Puzzle did a set of videos exploring the flaws of the ISIS Orb:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0sCGotCw2Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0sCGotCw2Y)

The Mr Puzzle channel as a whole is highly recommended if you're into puzzles
of this sort.

~~~
projektir
> The Mr Puzzle channel as a whole is highly recommended if you're into
> puzzles of this sort.

Or even if you're not, I found that video highly entertaining. :)

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floren
> And they know something much more important: every one of these people was
> affluent enough (or knew someone affluent enough) to spend a three-digit sum
> on a puzzle in the middle of the worst economic downturn in living memory.

Let's not hyperventilate _too_ much; on any given weekend you can find people
who hover around the poverty line spending hundreds of dollars on "toys",
although those toys will probably continue to provide value and enjoyment
significantly longer than this dumb puzzle.

Also, I would hardly consider the Great Depression to be out of "living
memory", and are we still going to say we're "in the middle of" a huge
economic downturn in 2028 just to support whatever histrionic point we need to
make that day?

Edit: Either the (2009) wasn't in the title when I first clicked, or I just
missed the damn thing. Thanks for pointing that out, Shaanie

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thaumasiotes
> I would hardly consider the Great Depression to be out of "living memory"

If you were 5 in 1938, you'd be 85 today. And your memories of the Depression
probably wouldn't be that good.

The older you were in the Depression, the more dead you are now.

------
lisper
Follow up post is here:

[https://blog.rongarret.info/2009/12/isis-
update.html](https://blog.rongarret.info/2009/12/isis-update.html)

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invalidusernam3
The puzzle website is obviously dead, but the domain is still registered:
isisadventure.com. Good luck to anyone doing anything with that domain

~~~
autokad
the domain is registered by info@chinacapital.com, which registered over 500
domains, 2 of them marked malicious. the cisco umbrella risk of the domain is
77, medium

~~~
code_duck
Yes, it’s just there’s certain bad publicity associated with the name these
days due to some other people known by the appellation Isis.

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vortico
Puzzle companies need a lot of trust from their customers for hobbyists to buy
them and spend hours working on them. To solve this problem, is there a
community review site for puzzles without spoilers? Solvers would want to
avoid Googling around, since the solution could accidentally be revealed,
making the $200 purchase worthless.

~~~
tudelo
I have seen youtube reviewers that give difficulty ratings etc before showing
solutions.

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shmageggy
So did he ever get spam at the fake address?

~~~
lisper
That's a good question. No, I didn't.

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bambataa
The comments on that post are particularly interesting.

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ada1981
Like the first one comparing the puzzles registration flow to the holocaust?

WTF.

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parliament32
It was an example of seemingly innocuous compliance with "please provide us
with your personal info, we promise we won't do anything bad with it!" leading
to horrific consequences.

~~~
ada1981
Oh I thought it was a brilliant illustration of the risk of complying with
ISIS requests.

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vorticalbox
Why would anyone call a puzzle Isis.

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cease
Isis was an Egyptian goddess before her name got coopted by a terrorist group.

~~~
invalidusernam3
My brother adopted a dog a few years back named Isis (after the Egyptian god).
Even though Isis now had a very different connotation, they felt bad to change
the dog's name. They recently adopted another dog which I jokingly recommended
they name Al Qaeda.

~~~
seszett
I didn't know the name "Isis" had actually seen its popularity affected that
much in the US? It still feels like a beautiful classical name to me, but then
we never used the English name "ISIS" for the organisation, here in France.

It's a shame that the multimillenial name of an ancient god could be ruined
for some people by an organization that lasted less than a decade, I hope this
effect doesn't last.

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IshKebab
He's clearly insanely paranoid about personal information, but that does sound
like a terrible puzzle.

~~~
justaguyhere
Maybe he is paranoid, but it is his information, so he has every right to be!
If only more people are like him, we wouldn't have all these multi billion
dollar companies doing whatever they feel like with their users' info

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bowmessage
Sure, but why not just create a fake persona and call it a day. Transient
email address, fake name, google voice phone number, done...

~~~
pdonis
_> why not just create a fake persona_

If you read the article, you will see that the author did exactly that.

