ELITE?

[Harry]

We are really not sure what you will make of this, but just for fun, there is one last challenge for you – a coda to this year’s story, and perhaps a pointer to the 20th anniversary in the Autumn …

There are no prizes and no leaderboard, and it does not count towards the final placings this year, which are of course already set and published, but If it turns out to be as hard as we think then the first ten to break it will be awarded ELITE status just like the ten who found and cracked the hidden last challenge in the spring. If not, then you will all (hopefully) have had fun cracking it and can use it as practice. We might (only might) publish hints.

You will find it over on the Challenge pages listed as Challenge 8, and it will be published at 3pm this afternoon (28/01/21). We will stop marking at 23:59 on 18/03/21 and will publish the solution the next day.

Good luck. We hope you enjoy it.

Harry

[The-letter-wriggler]

No Mission 8 showing only the dates (at 3:10pm)

[Sorry, forgot to add the title so the link couldn’t show! Fixed now. Harry]

[The-letter-wriggler]

OK it went up at 13mins late!

[Not strictly true! It went up on time, but the link to it was attached to an empty string so you couldn’t click on it. Such is life. Harry]

[The-letter-wriggler]

Sorry Harry, it was not meant as an impolite remark, it certainly doesn’t make any difference to anyone (me especially).
[No offence taken. I was amused by my own error! Harry]

Who else was reminded of a Grill cipher (which it isn’t) on first sight of 8B?

[Madness]

OK, now I think there will be enough suffering.

[Mattyrat2027]

@Harry when you post the cipher in March, will you also put up the algorithm? (A bit of a silly question, I’m sure you would), I think that I would like to decipher it with just the method, if I don’t do so in time.

[I don’t see why not! Harry]

[Madness]

There doesn’t seem to be any chatter on this thread. Is anyone making progress?

If you don’t break the cipher, you will hurt Harry’s feelings.

[I think they are all stunned into a catatonic state! We have had about a dozen people decipher 8A, so presumably they are looking hard at 8B, but only one person so far has broken 8B, so 9 ELITE qualifications still up for grabs … Harry]

[Cribbage]

Definitely trying.

I keep finding things and I think ‘Oh, that would make a beautiful cipher…’. I then get side-tracked attempting to persuade the ciphertext that this is how it was encrypted. It’s not listening!

[Mattyrat2027]

@Madness quick question. I have heard this is really hard, but to give me an idea, could you position it in comparison to your cipher from #52830 in difficulty?

Thanks

[Madness]

@Mattyrat2027, how should I know?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha …

[Not sure you will get way with that! Harry]

[Mattyrat2027]

@Madness
Okaaaay, I guess I take that as a hint towards my going about 8B?

[Madness]

I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I have an idea to share. To make it interesting, it is in PEM format.

—–BEGIN SECRET STUFF—–
MIGRDHFUbyByZWFkIHRoZSBjbHVlLCBtdWx0aXBseSB0aGUgdGhyZWUgaW50ZWdl
cnMgdG9nZXRoZXIgYW5kIGNvbnZlcnQgdGhlIHJlc3VsdCB0byBiYXNlIDM2ICh1
c2luZyBkaWdpdHMgMC4uOUEuLlopLgIBKQIEARXjjwITQ3u2k4zcfcCSrIUQnUQY
W9DV0Q==
—–END SECRET STUFF—–

[F6exb]

[Interesting] you said?

My English teacher never taught me that [interesting] and vicious are synonymous!

[Cribbage]

If Madness’ clue is correct, then I have been using the wrong raw materials for the last week …

[You can be suer that he will be very pleased to hear you say that, especially given the clues you already had available!]

[Mattyrat2027]

You see @Madness, every single website I have tried has produced roughly the same message, but alas, I cannot find the… hmmm let’s see… the MyBpbnRlZ2Vycw== [3 integers] mentioned in the text. I guess this is what we have to find. Am I right by using that <– method, every PEM decoder didn’t work…

[Author]

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