Challenges from competitors

[The-letter-wriggler]

INSANE SUDOKU ERROR REPORT

I profoundly apologize for the following errors.

In both INSANE 1 and 3 a 1 in the bottom left quadrant was missing.
This allowed for 249 solutions for #3 and uncountable solutions for #1, TRULY INSANE!!

The top left 3 digits are not affected, they remain the same in each corrected sudoku.

HERE ARE THE CORRECT SUDOKU

===================== INSANE 1 [26 digits given]
. . . | 2 . 9 | . . .
. . 7 | . . . | . . 3
3 . . | . . . | . 5 6
——+——-+——
. 5 . | . . . | . . .
. 9 . | . . . | 3 6 5
. 4 . | . . 6 | 7 8 .
——+——-+——
. . . | 6 . . | . 4 .
1 . 4 | . 2 5 | 8 . 7
9 . . | . 8 . | . . .

INSANE 1:
000209000007000003300000056050000000090000365040006780000600040104025807900080000

===================== INSANE 3 [25 digits given]
. . . | . . . | . . 2
. . . | . . 5 | . 3 .
. 5 8 | . . 7 | . . .
——+——-+——
3 2 6 | . . . | . 1 5
8 . . | . . . | . . .
. . . | 3 6 2 | . . 8
——+——-+——
1 . 7 | . . . | 4 . .
. . . | 5 1 . | . . .
6 . . | . 8 4 | 1 . .

INSANE 3:
000000002000005030058007000326000015800000000000362008107000400000510000600084100

[Madness]

@TLW, I believe you are mistaken. The originals have unique solutions. I checked with THREE different programs.
All three agree that the originals are valid with unique solutions. Here are two of those programs:
https://sudoku-solutions.com
https://dlbeer.co.nz/downloads/sugen.c

Furthermore, NO sudoku has uncountable solutions. Even an empty grid has less than (9!)^9 solutions.

[Jbrintcrypt]

@The-letter-wriggler
Sorry if it’s been annoying, I was trying to test a random idea that I had come up with to see if it worked. To make things easier: 1) You’re on the right lines with the letters in the wrong case. 2) Try writing the letters out in lowercase and seeing they remind you of anything. 3) The hidden text isn’t a five letter word itself, it just leads you to the word.
Once again, apologies if I’ve wasted your time with my puzzle.

[The-letter-wriggler]

Here is something I found on the internet good for math classes.

Solve the number puzzles drawn on the pavement of Trafalgar Square in London.

One grid remains unsolved and is the main reason for this post.
If anyone here can solve it let us know.

TS LEVEL 8
==========
[1000][1][11]
[0002][0][05]
[0010][1][__]

(I have used leading zero’s to keep the grid lined up)
Grids use fixed rules of arithetic (pavement shows the + – x / symbols)

Here is what is said…
Can you explain how to find the missing number in each of the grids in the photograph above? The first few levels are quite easy but then it gets difficult. The answers are available lower down this page for subscribers (except the answer to level 8 which I’m still trying to figure out). [I’m not subcribed so I’ve not seen the answers and have yet to do them myself]

Example:

1?1?2
?.?.?
1?1?2
?.?.?
2?2?x

1+1=2
+.+.+
1+1=2
=.=.=
2+2=4

Here are the other T.S. grids.
==============================
The level was written above the grid and the
right hand side had a step number.

LEVEL 1 (1 STEP)
=================
[6][2][8]
[3][4][7]
[9][8][_]

LEVEL 2 (1 STEP)
=================
[2][1][2]
[3][3][9]
[6][3][_]

LEVEL 3 (1 STEP)
=================
[5][2][3]
[3][2][1]
[2][0][_]

LEVEL 4 (2 STEPS)
=================
[02][08][14]
[05][08][17]
[11][20][__]

LEVEL 5 (2 STEPS)
=================
[08][10][20]
[08][02][04]
[16][05][__]

LEVEL 6 (3 STEPS)
=================
[12][08][12]
[06][06][07]
[10][08][__]

LEVEL 7 (3 STEPS)
=================
[11][06][07]
[09][09][03]
[05][00][__]

LEVEL 8 (Obscure STEPS)
=======================
(SEE ABOVE)

LEVEL 9 (Obscure STEPS)
=======================
[60][00][12]
[84][60][24]
[24][12][__]

There are some easier ‘Trafalgar Square’ grids below for you to complete. They contain fixed rules but randomly-generated numbers.

Level 01
============
[03][06][09]
[02][09][11]
[05][15][__]
============
Level 02
============
[02][02][04]
[03][05][15]
[06][10][__]
============
Level 03
============
[08][04][04]
[05][01][04]
[03][03][__]
============
Level 04
============
[04][01][09]
[05][07][16]
[13][12][__]
============
Level 05
============
[05][01][01]
[03][07][05]
[03][03][__]
============
Level 06
============
[03][01][06]
[05][03][18]
[18][06][__]
============
Level 07
============
[08][04][08]
[08][08][16]
[16][08][__]
============
Level 08
============
[06][03][15]
[04][01][15]
[14][14][__]
============
Level 09
============
[04][08][08]
[08][08][12]
[08][12][__]
============

[The-letter-wriggler]

@Madness
Thanks for the post it has reassured me. So folks forget the error post, sorry.
To err is human, to be a good human is to accept correction.

I made the 5 sudoku with a DOS program in the early 2000’s.
Thought I would recheck them with my latest pascal app.

It was telling me wrong, so I checked at
https://www.dcode.fr/sudoku-solver
there it gave one answer when I used COMPUTE ALL SOLUTIONS but when I used
the STEP BY STEP SOLUTION it said ‘The Sudoku may have multiple solutions’
(now I think that should be reworded to ‘The Sudoku may have multiple ways of solving it’)
but all this made me panic. When I put those 1’s in all was fine.

Today my app. is confirming just 1 solution, and no I have not altered it.
Must have done something else wrong, but what, I have no idea!

By the way ‘uncountable solutions’ was just a figure of speech…
😉 Sometimes Madness you drive me to your user namesake, ouch!!! 😉

[Madness]

Remember this spring when there were some challenges that were a Caesar or affine cipher combined with
a permutation (block transposition) cipher? Well, I was doing nothing yesterday, and I realized that
if the block size of the permutation is the same as the key length for a Vigenere, then it should be
easy to break a ciphertext that was encrypted with a Vigenere and a permutation. So here one is. Have fun.

SLIMNKRHTFULRWBCZPSYBOAWZYVOMHRPUIVHONZMVSPNOAISQEOGYEQAQRUVRTUPUSQOMVYXRPWVUQDZNRYVHQ
PDLSXPTBXEUYBQBHZWIWNIVNOGCIUYJHUXBPODYXUOFONMQSUHIIVPSSWXVPXOMPOTECZZLJUBCEVLOCZXXLIF
YZLFRBAEIQETYYOLSZXYJQTVNVRPIANPLROJCWRPDILSILTAIMFEMOFVDTURCSQTNGUHVDJHBHDDFFEIQNOHYI
VCFKBIDCPQWHLZUBAXKEFSFXHEFFBSXOFQBSQTISNRJXEOHCVLDHCPOOOMOIUZPGNHDZDBXQSPTFCHDSUBII

[67105112104101114]

That is a fun cipher Madness, it is especially interesting because if you know what cipher it is, it didn’t require anything special to crack it, just a combination of other cracking systems, I think this is it (with 67105112104101114) although it seemed to be cut one letter short of a word?: 6ee85eeafd092697b7dff2c601db0c9d5a009b18cf6e24e36bec9a107c41ff2c

[Cribbage]

10e1d9800f145daf68a43d9addd4f5e9

I agree – both fun and a letter short.

Thanks to Google, I found the source of the plaintext – neat!

[67105112104101114]

Sorry, Harry do you mind correcting the one above, I messed up and used md6 instead of md5, it should be: 7d49d2891d24c0d1917cac8c1f96e60f

[Madness]

@Cipher, I am not able to verify your checksum. It seems that you are not using MD5??
When you resubmit, use the plaintext in all caps and append your moniker digits, and make sure
there is no newline or spaces or punctuation. MD5s should only have 32 hex digits (you have 64).
And are you sure it is missing a lette?

@Cribbage, well done. I should have realized that one keyword would be ambiguous.
Smart of you to use the plaintext in the checksum.

Harry moved my difficult Vigenere challenges to a “new” thread, and dated them 3 weeks ago
to make it even harder. I think you can find them.

[The-letter-wriggler]

THOSE INSANE SUDOKU ANSWERS

===================== ANSWER INSANE 1
5 1 6 | 2 3 9 | 4 7 8
4 2 7 | 5 6 8 | 9 1 3
3 8 9 | 7 1 4 | 2 5 6
——+——-+——
6 5 8 | 9 7 3 | 1 2 4
7 9 1 | 8 4 2 | 3 6 5
2 4 3 | 1 5 6 | 7 8 9
——+——-+——
8 3 2 | 6 9 7 | 5 4 1
1 6 4 | 3 2 5 | 8 9 7
9 7 5 | 4 8 1 | 6 3 2

===================== ANSWER INSANE 2
7 9 3 | 1 8 2 | 4 5 6
2 8 1 | 4 5 6 | 3 9 7
4 5 6 | 3 9 7 | 8 2 1
——+——-+——
3 6 8 | 7 1 9 | 2 4 5
9 4 7 | 8 2 5 | 6 1 3
1 2 5 | 6 3 4 | 9 7 8
——+——-+——
5 1 4 | 9 6 8 | 7 3 2
6 3 9 | 2 7 1 | 5 8 4
8 7 2 | 5 4 3 | 1 6 9

===================== ANSWER INSANE 3
9 6 3 | 8 4 1 | 5 7 2
7 1 2 | 6 9 5 | 8 3 4
4 5 8 | 2 3 7 | 6 9 1
——+——-+——
3 2 6 | 4 7 8 | 9 1 5
8 7 4 | 1 5 9 | 2 6 3
5 9 1 | 3 6 2 | 7 4 8
——+——-+——
1 8 7 | 9 2 3 | 4 5 6
2 4 9 | 5 1 6 | 3 8 7
6 3 5 | 7 8 4 | 1 2 9

===================== ANSWER INSANE 4
6 1 2 | 4 9 7 | 3 8 5
5 3 4 | 8 2 1 | 6 7 9
7 8 9 | 6 5 3 | 1 4 2
——+——-+——
8 9 3 | 7 6 4 | 2 5 1
4 2 5 | 9 1 8 | 7 3 6
1 7 6 | 2 3 5 | 8 9 4
——+——-+——
9 4 1 | 3 7 2 | 5 6 8
2 6 7 | 5 8 9 | 4 1 3
3 5 8 | 1 4 6 | 9 2 7

===================== ANSWER INSANE 5
7 3 4 | 8 1 9 | 2 5 6
5 8 6 | 4 7 2 | 9 1 3
2 9 1 | 3 5 6 | 8 4 7
——+——-+——
1 2 3 | 5 4 7 | 6 8 9
8 4 7 | 6 9 3 | 1 2 5
9 6 5 | 1 2 8 | 7 3 4
——+——-+——
6 5 9 | 2 3 1 | 4 7 8
3 1 8 | 7 6 4 | 5 9 2
4 7 2 | 9 8 5 | 3 6 1

=====================
In String Format:
===================== ANSWER INSANE 1
516239478427568913389714256658973124791842365243156789832697541164325897975481632
===================== ANSWER INSANE 2
793182456281456397456397821368719245947825613125634978514968732639271584872543169
===================== ANSWER INSANE 3
963841572712695834458237691326478915874159263591362748187923456249516387635784129
===================== ANSWER INSANE 4
612497385534821679789653142893764251425918736176235894941372568267589413358146927
===================== ANSWER INSANE 5
734819256586472913291356847123547689847693125965128734659231478318764592472985361
===================== THE ADDITION ANSWER FOR ALL FIVE WAS:
516 + 793 + 963 + 612 + 734 = 3618

[Cryptness]

The Trafalgar Square Puzzles
I have only spent a little time on them. Done the first five of both the TS and Easier.
The rest will need more thought.
Going to come back to them again in the week.

[The-letter-wriggler]

@Cryptness
That is about as far as I have got too.
Here is an update, even more to solve, ahh.

The two brothers from Slovakia Peter Kardos and Daniel Kardos, creators of the Trafalgar Square puzzles kindly provided the site with exclusives below:
No steps given here and they were giving 60 mins to solve!!!

EXCLUSIVES
==========
LEVEL 1
[8][2][4]
[4][1][4]
[2][2][_]

LEVEL 2
[_7][_5][14]
[_7][_8][17]
[16][15][__]

LEVEL 3
[6][4][4]
[4][7][9]
[4][9][_]

LEVEL 4
[4][6][9]
[6][6][6]
[9][6][_]

LEVEL 5
[6][4][3]
[3][3][0]
[0][0][_]

LEVEL 6
[2][_3][19]
[2][_2][_0]
[0][19][__]

LEVEL 7
[_9][6][15]
[_5][6][_7]
[14][9][__]

LEVEL 8
[_8][_6][5]
[14][-3][8]
[-3][16][_]

LEVEL 9
[_9][_1][26]
[_2][_8][-2]
[24][-4][__]

(note in 8 and 9 there are minus numbers)

[Jbrintcrypt]

Back in October, I came up with a puzzle that, retrospectively, I shouldn’t have expected to get a response to since all puzzles since have clearly been set by people far more intelligence than me and as such their puzzles are rather more interesting. However, The-letter-wriggler made an attempt and told me that, fairly enough, I probably didn’t explain it properly. The puzzle was as follows:

i am InTerested In LearnIng To fInd, LogIcaLly, if ThIs conceaLed texT Is Truly invIsibLe If I hIde It so.
iT TruLy Took aT leasT tweLve mInuTes In Lining up The IndivIdual words.
i wIsh, Therefore, to see If a LoT of atTempTs couLd be Issued To solve It.
ThIs lasT senTence shouLd InsTantLy indIcaTe i am wrIting the Longest word, i ThInk its Length Is ITs cLear indIcation thIs word Is Longer.

As he/ she then said to post the answer if nobody solves it, and in the excessively optimistic and unrealistic scenario that anyone wanted to know the answer, I am writing a solution below. For those who might not have seen the original and would like to try, I am encoding the solution with a normal Rot13 cipher. (Context: the text above has a concealed message that then gives a five letter word, which is the answer.)

Svefg jr ybbx guebhtu gur grkg. Jung vf abgnoyr? Jryy, bs gur punenpgref va gur jebat pnfr, gur bayl punatrq barf ner V, G naq Y. Gur guvat gb abgr urer vf gung gur ybjre pnfr rdhvinyragf ner v, g naq y. Vs lbh erzbir gur y funcr sebz rnpu yrggre lbh ner yrsg jvgu ., _ naq [Oynax].
Guvf vf zbefr pbqr, jvgu rnpu fragrapr fvtavslvat n arj jbeq.
Vg jr genafyngr gur zbefr pbqr, jr trg SERAPU JBEQ SBE JNYEHF. Gur Serapu sbe ‘Jnyehf’ vf fvzcyl ‘Zbefr’, jub jnf gur svpgvbany qrgrpgvir va gur bevtvany uvag.

[The-letter-wriggler]

@jbrintcrypt

Ahh, you put it up before I came back!

Re: Your post #52078
First of all it was not annoying and second you did not waste my time.
It was my choice to attempt a solve, I like new forms of encryption.

I was there but for a meaningful decyrpt. When there are just 3 characters
it is usual to assume a binary or morse coding of some sort.
Trying Morse, what I got made no sense.

mord/ror/yarnus
TT/TTT/ITI/TII//ITI/TTT/ITI//TITT/IT/ITI/TI/IIT/III/

If it is meant to be

morse/for/walrus
TT/TTT/ITI/III/I//IITI/TTT/ITI//ITT/IT/ITII/ITI/IIT/III

then the capitals I,T,L’s in the text are not working out.

Here is how I worked it out (I have my own editer making it easy):
Put // at end of sentence (new word)
Change all L to / (letter spacer)
iT Tru/y Took aT leasT twe/ve mInuTes In /ining up The IndivIdual words//
i wIsh Therefore to see If a /oT of atTempTs cou/d be Issued To solve It//
ThIs lasT senTence shou/d InsTant/y indIcaTe i am wrIting the /ongest word i ThInk its /ength Is ITs c/ear indIcation thIs word Is /onger

Remove all lower case letters
T T/ T T T / IT I / T II //
I T I /T TT / I T I//
TI T T / IT/ IT I / TI / I IT / I I I /

Remove all spaces
TT/TTT/ITI/TII//
ITI/TTT/ITI//
TITT/IT/ITI/TI/IIT/III/

Change T to – (dash) and I to . (dot)
–/—/.-./-..//
.-./—/.-.//
-.–/.-/.-./-./..-/…/

I like your idea though.
It takes lateral thinking to take the dot of the i and the bar of the t to represent Morse.

Of course if I am wrong about the above please let me know.

[Author]

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