Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: ARG Puzzle with 3.5 BTC Private Key Prize, Game Over
by
judie.f
on 29/07/2014, 06:11:58 UTC
Also, can the person who brute forced the private key, provide us with the script that has done so and a step by step guide on how we can do it too?
You have been asked that many times before.

I was the first to post an algorithm after which the 'bruteforcing' can be applied (see posting 2093 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=661781.msg7704707#msg7704707)

(Many others were stuck at the same step privately.)

The next step was to iterate over every position in input string (z69JZqlJn862D1ndx7oLVEMmVOlP1zewEeUCrsI7Roahzpeny7P) and, if the character was a lowercase character, change lower case to upper case and run the algorithm again. Then if the corresponding public key matched, you found the answer. (This happens when you turn the 'w' into 'W')

I would not classify this as 'bruteforce', actually, since the problem space is so tiny. Even if you iterated over every position and rotated through all 128 printable ascii chars, it can still be done in a matter of milliseconds (provided you had a quick way to generate the public address from the private key, which I did).

My initial reaction was that it was a mistake.  But now that I thought about it, I think it was intentional.  It was just one more barrier.

My beef was that there was no _reason_ to attempt this type of mutation until the OP gave the final clue 'what was once tall is now small'. But in retrospect, it was not that much of a leap to try that. I tried so many other dumb approaches.

Indeed you did, and apparently the Gatekeeper used your script.
That being said, have you seen ANY kind of clues (other than the OP updates) coming from the Gatekeeper along the way?

Also, after reading this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=683366.0
what makes more sense to you?

That the game creators made a mistake and had you blindly trying to brute force the private key?
(and also had you in the dark for days when they said NO MORE CLUES)

OR

There is a perfect version of the game outlined here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=683366.0

Btw what does the marked area in the Wow.jpg mean if not what was presented on the link above?
Also, what does 0=0A=10BABYA=36WOW mean?
(Regardless of the fact that it has been stripped after someone cracked their riddle).

It simply does not make sense that the game creators made a mistake yet there is a perfect version of the game which uses ALL the clues provided by the game creators.
Does it?