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Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 11th, 2018, 7:06 am
by Longivitis
drsparc wrote:I'm having trouble finding a true 4-function calculator. Most of the simple ones also include percent and/or square root keys. Does anyone know if those are OK for this event?
As long as it doesn't have trig functions you should be set.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 11th, 2018, 12:26 pm
by nicholasmaurer
Longivitis wrote:
drsparc wrote:I'm having trouble finding a true 4-function calculator. Most of the simple ones also include percent and/or square root keys. Does anyone know if those are OK for this event?
As long as it doesn't have trig functions you should be set.
Per the Calculator Policy, square root functionality is permitted. If the calculator includes trigonometric functions, etc. it would not be allowed. Any calculator with modulus capabilities would not be permitted.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 11th, 2018, 1:41 pm
by UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F
nicholasmaurer wrote:
Longivitis wrote:
drsparc wrote:I'm having trouble finding a true 4-function calculator. Most of the simple ones also include percent and/or square root keys. Does anyone know if those are OK for this event?
As long as it doesn't have trig functions you should be set.
Per the Calculator Policy, square root functionality is permitted. If the calculator includes trigonometric functions, etc. it would not be allowed. Any calculator with modulus capabilities would not be permitted.
(Of course it's fairly easy to calculate the modulus anyway by just dividing, subtracting the integer part, and then multiplying again, e.g. 7/3 = 2.333333; 0.333333 * 3 = 1)

Codebusters C

Posted: November 12th, 2018, 2:13 pm
by someone1580
Do you guys have any tips or tricks on any of the codes in this event? For some reason in my area, they changed Game On B to Codebusters B.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 12th, 2018, 4:20 pm
by Jacobi
someone1580 wrote:Do you guys have any tips or tricks on any of the codes in this event? For some reason in my area, they changed Game On B to Codebusters B.
Too many. See the Codebusters Wiki for information.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 15th, 2018, 8:50 pm
by Avalanche
Rule 3.e.vi says "Xenocrypt - no more than one cryptogram can be in Spanish"
What does this rule mean besides that the cryptogram will be in Spanish.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 16th, 2018, 5:13 am
by Unome
Avalanche wrote:Rule 3.e.vi says "Xenocrypt - no more than one cryptogram can be in Spanish"
What does this rule mean besides that the cryptogram will be in Spanish.
A xenocrypt is a cipher in a foreign language, although this could inadvertently imply the possibility of xenocrypts in languages besides Spanish being allowed (which is probably not the intention) - I don't know whether another part of the rules is more explicit about that though.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 16th, 2018, 7:11 am
by Jacobi
Unome wrote:
Avalanche wrote:Rule 3.e.vi says "Xenocrypt - no more than one cryptogram can be in Spanish"
What does this rule mean besides that the cryptogram will be in Spanish.
A xenocrypt is a cipher in a foreign language, although this could inadvertently imply the possibility of xenocrypts in languages besides Spanish being allowed (which is probably not the intention) - I don't know whether another part of the rules is more explicit about that though.
I think that the intent of the rules is that xenocrypts are in Spanish only.

However, prepare for anything, and a liberal reading of the rules could allow for cryptograms in French, Spanish, etc., as well as Hill, Atbash, Affine, or Vignere ciphers - given that no letter encrypts to itself.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 16th, 2018, 11:15 am
by Riptide
Jacobi wrote:
Unome wrote:
Avalanche wrote:Rule 3.e.vi says "Xenocrypt - no more than one cryptogram can be in Spanish"
What does this rule mean besides that the cryptogram will be in Spanish.
A xenocrypt is a cipher in a foreign language, although this could inadvertently imply the possibility of xenocrypts in languages besides Spanish being allowed (which is probably not the intention) - I don't know whether another part of the rules is more explicit about that though.
I think that the intent of the rules is that xenocrypts are in Spanish only.

However, prepare for anything, and a liberal reading of the rules could allow for cryptograms in French, Spanish, etc., as well as Hill, Atbash, Affine, or Vignere ciphers - given that no letter encrypts to itself.
A post was made on Soinc FAQ addressing xenocrypts.

Re: Codebusters C

Posted: November 19th, 2018, 6:26 pm
by Avalanche
I was reading the rules to make sure I wasn't wasting to much time reading about the state/nats ciphers, and noticed that for the hill cipher it states, "Mathematical Cryptanalysis of the Hill Cipher - either producing a decryption matrix given a 2x2 encryption matrix or computing a decryption matrix given 4 plaintext-ciphertext letter pairs." What does this rule even mean.

Thanks