2007-01-06 20:39 UTC: the contest has been running for 40 minutes and nobody has cracked the script yet.
2007-01-07 00:52 UTC: 6 people have cracked the script so far (out of >120 who downloaded it)
2007-01-07 10:27 UTC: 160 participants, still only 6 people managed to decode the message. If you crack it, you can claim that your Ruby is stronger/you are more patient than 96% of the people.
2007-01-07 15:51 UTC: 8/182, 4.2% completion rate
2007-01-08 00:53 UTC: 9/206, at least ~120 people have had the code for over 24H now...
2007-01-08 20:03 UTC: 11/266, down to 4.1% :)
2007-01-09 23:50 UTC: 13/324, 4.0%
2007-01-11 00:04 UTC: 14/344, 4.1%.
2007-01-13 10:15 UTC: 14/456, 3.1%.
Task
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the secret message
hidden in that Ruby script, follow the instructions to generate the code that
will prove you've found the message, and claim your chance to win a (very)
modest prize at http://eigenclass.org/rubychallenge2007/YOURCODE .
The completion times will be recorded and Kernel#rand will also pick a few lucky winners.
Here's what people had to say about a similar puzzle I made last year:
Wow, I'm really impressed. That was a tough (and fun) puzzle. -- Kevin Ballard
Thanks Mauricio, you made my day! -- olivier
My head hurts. Took me nearly two hours -- aniero
How long will it take?
Anything from a few minutes (say 10-20 minutes if you're having a good day and
aren't easily scared off by tricky Ruby code) to several hours. Many will give
up before, though :-) I cannot really know, but I can say I've spent quite some time making this fairly tricky...
Sources
There's a different script for each supported Ruby version; get the one
corresponding to your ruby executable or you won't be able to run it at all,
let alone crack it.
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