Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the new challenge. A sort of advent puzzle to give you headaches for a good cause.
I'll give an encoded message, you will have to give me the solution.
Rules
1) No PMs: if you think you have the answer, you write a comment to this post formatted as
SOLUTION: this is my answer
2) I'll drop a clue or hint every day (I hope). Some will be crucial, some will be near to useless, some will be encrypted, some will be mysterious, some will be about other clues...
3) The challenge will close at midnight (GMT), -EDIT: I Have decided to extend the deadline by 24 hours- in the night between the 25th and the 26th-
4) The solution is NOT the decoded message, that is just the beginning
5) Number 4 will be clearer over time...
Prizes
There are several prizes:
1) I will donate to charity a sum corresponding to 2£ for every day of December this challenge stays unsolved. For instance, if the puzzle is solved on the 13th, I'l donate 26£
2) The winner will be given the prizes that willful authors on this forum want to donate. Several people have agreed to contribute so far and the prize is very well worth competing with. Maybe I'll reveal something during the challenge.
3) I will match the name value of the prizes offered by the authors (up to a certain limit) and add it to the variable sum in 1). Just to whet your appetite, I'll tell you that at the moment this sum sails around 50£.
Notes
1) The amount donated will be given on the 25th of December (possibly) to Save the Children.
2) No programming skill is required. A certain geekiness could help, but is not necessary: this challenge is for everyone!
3) Only freely available resources have been used. No software is necessary (although might help).
4) In principle the puzzle is immediately solvable, but it is VERY hard. It will become easier and easier with the daily clues.
Note for authors
Several notable people around this forum have agreed to contribute. I strongly encourage to add your products (just PM me) to the pool of prizes: it costs you very little, it adds a lot, it is a good deed AND I will PM you a special clue that others won't receive before the very last days of the challenge...
And, finally, hoping that I wrote everything correctly,
The Puzzle
0 f353:76e6:1327:2733:8446:3325
A 0302:0708:0a01:0407:0605:0c04
D 4b01:4306:4308:1401:5202:7608
Y 7301:6f04:3303:7c03:3401:8805
Good luck to everybody! (this is not part of the puzzle
)EDIT: I'll add the clues here:
Clues
1) Computer skills are useful, not necessary. Of course Google is your friend, but you could even solve this challenge without it (although you should be very VERY smart).
2) Geeky clue (almost useless):
The infamous stage n. 5
3) 39167A398849 x2y3
4) 21600A205986 x2y10
5) 4205A28153 x1y28
6) For those not-so-geeky, this website could be useful: http://home2.paulschou.net/tools/xlate/
7) Some of the clues can actually be "metaclues" (i.e. clues about other clues), some are not. Some clues will reveal which clues are metaclues and to which clues they refer to. Some clues are not exactly metaclues, but only make sense if considered together with other clues...
8 ) 8499
9) A=p
10) 0x
11) Clues 3 and 4 actually should go together
12) x=l y=n This and clue 9 refer to clues 3,4 and 5.
13) clues 10 refers to clue 8 (!)
14) Clue 5 decodes as "Italian"
15) The key is in 3 parts. As well as the puzzle.
16) The first line of the puzzle is a red herring! Ignore it, or try to decode it for fun! (This was actually the special clue I gave to the authors who decided to participate)
17) Clue 8 (together with clue 10: see clue 13) is actually a KEY clue. Use clue 6 to get the real number and apply it in the right place.
18) Clue 3 decodes as "book".
19) Clue 2 is related to this http://www.codebook.org/codebook_solution.html
20) Clue 19 is HUGE! Use it!
21) Clue 4 decodes as "cipher"
22) Clue 3+4 decodes, thus, as "book cipher". Remember: Wikipedia is your friend!
23) Each group of 4 characters (between ":") decodes as one single word!
24) "Book cipher" "Italian" "Dante's Inferno" This is what clues 3+4, 5 and 8 say...
Final EDIT:
Writing down the solution unfortunately I noticed that I screwed up the puzzle in a couple of points: clues 3,4 and 5 were unfortunately browser dependent (but that didn't matter after the last clues) and, most importantly, I got one digit wrong in the second line of the puzzle (0a01 should have been 0a02). This was not a huge mistake, it just made the riddle slightly most difficult.
Everything is clarified (I hope) in the solution that I posted here.
MANY THANKS to Tomo, Ian Kendall, Beardy, Stephen Ward and a 5th lovely person for participating. If someone had solved the puzzle, he (or she) would have won something from each of these generous people.
