I’ve been working on an idea for a community puzzle:
There is a prisoner who is sending encoded messages to people via postal mail. It is believed that he is continuing to run a criminal organization via these letters. The letters are written in an unknown language, and contain a section that is obviously coded.
We assume that the cipher he is using is relatively simple because as a prisoner, he only has pencil and paper to work with.
By law, the letters can be read, but can’t be stopped unless it can be proven that they are being used for criminal purposes. If we can show this, we can also add 30 years to the prisoner’s sentence.
The prisoner has a cellmate who knows or has guessed how the letters are being written, but is only willing to give clues in return for time off his sentence. This cellmate is just as bad as the prisoner in question so we don’t want to reduce his prison time any more than we have to.
To just give us the whole secret the cellmate is demanding 30 years off his time, which would set him free. He is also willing to give us smaller clues for less time off to help us read each part of the letters.
Our task is to decrypt and translate the letters to English, while buying the fewest clues possible from the cellmate.
Ideas on running the game:
A few example letters will be provided to players.
Purchased hints will be published to everybody.
Players are encouraged to collaborate.
Players can post a few questions to the prisoner every day. His lawyer will limit the number and type of the questions. He will be honest about anything that can be verified through public records or by asking his family. He may not answer or may lie about anything he believes can’t be verified. It may not be obvious if he is telling the truth or lying.
If progress isn’t being made on the problem, the prosecutor may become impatient and buy the next clue offered by the cellmate.
This seems like a good idea, but (just to be clear) is the goal to minimize the cell-mate’s time off when the ciphertext is cracked, or is it just to crack the code by using questions wisely?
The goal is to crack the code, minimizing help from the cell-mate. Asking the right questions could help. A perfect score is 30 -- reduced by each year taken off of the cell-mate’s sentence.
I’ve been working on an idea for a community puzzle:
There is a prisoner who is sending encoded messages to people via postal mail. It is believed that he is continuing to run a criminal organization via these letters. The letters are written in an unknown language, and contain a section that is obviously coded.
We assume that the cipher he is using is relatively simple because as a prisoner, he only has pencil and paper to work with.
By law, the letters can be read, but can’t be stopped unless it can be proven that they are being used for criminal purposes. If we can show this, we can also add 30 years to the prisoner’s sentence.
The prisoner has a cellmate who knows or has guessed how the letters are being written, but is only willing to give clues in return for time off his sentence. This cellmate is just as bad as the prisoner in question so we don’t want to reduce his prison time any more than we have to.
To just give us the whole secret the cellmate is demanding 30 years off his time, which would set him free. He is also willing to give us smaller clues for less time off to help us read each part of the letters.
Our task is to decrypt and translate the letters to English, while buying the fewest clues possible from the cellmate.
Ideas on running the game:
A few example letters will be provided to players.
Purchased hints will be published to everybody.
Players are encouraged to collaborate.
Players can post a few questions to the prisoner every day. His lawyer will limit the number and type of the questions. He will be honest about anything that can be verified through public records or by asking his family. He may not answer or may lie about anything he believes can’t be verified. It may not be obvious if he is telling the truth or lying.
If progress isn’t being made on the problem, the prosecutor may become impatient and buy the next clue offered by the cellmate.
This seems like a good idea, but (just to be clear) is the goal to minimize the cell-mate’s time off when the ciphertext is cracked, or is it just to crack the code by using questions wisely?
The goal is to crack the code, minimizing help from the cell-mate. Asking the right questions could help. A perfect score is 30 -- reduced by each year taken off of the cell-mate’s sentence.