+gCFhtX5ZKXwmEEjpXm1ESBNFPbgBabLZdJ/WE8dtZYp2Ppr9Vf7uv6Z3UMJ71CVolENUHRb479koVF6LKyb5Dfp437x/Hho2eTGwuDUvZXxZNkPXCpsxZM1w56Up0N+IdteOdOa45URu5Qh6a+ZOQ==

Above I have left a seemingly random string of characters. Random as it seems, it is the instructions for how to receive your million dollar prize.

The first person to get this right will win $1,000,000.

This contest is on going, so until there is a winner, you are free to try as many times as you like.

I have decided that because some people have come to me with questions, I will periodically post hints.

Hint 1:
This piece of encrypted plain text has had an encoding done to it, after having been encrypted, thus making it readable by the human eye.

Do we just send you our answers, or post them here?

Diego: If you have the correct decryption then you would know the answer to that.

To make sure I'm reading this hint correctly:

I translate it as -- "The plaintext was enciphered and the resulting cipher text was then encoded (Or decoded perhaps in the case of binary, hex, etc) to produce standard characters"

well is that right???

SemperWaffle, what i mean by that hint is that I encrypted the original message, which created some non-readable characters, so I had to perform an encoding on these characters so they would be readable here.

Hint 2:

You must 'decode' before you can 'decrypt'

Hint 2 makes sense...I'm still contemplating Hint 1 and its implications. Binary, Hex, or any of the obvious candidates could be read here, as could numeric values. I'll see what I come up with -- right now I'm wondering what is not viewable here on a computer but could have been generated as a cipher...maybe some sort of coordinate mapping on an image or something.

I'll ponder and watch for additional hints

I have managed to decode it... however I need a hint or something for the decryption. Like... go blow a fish or something :p

earpZmdWFocjMLpbB5CxrfhujokRvNZT

FYI.

My guess is Pigeons. Yep, that should be the answer. Everyone can go home now.

Ok, due to me not being able to remember the key (as a very kind member of our community commented "lol fail") I have decided to cancel this contest, and pay $500,000 to SyrupWaffle for at least realizing it was base64 encoded, and decoding it.

For those interested, the message reads:

Decryption:

To receive your prize of $1,000,000 send Aybabtu a mobmail with the body "Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner."

Dun dun dun! Success SyrupWaffle turned into a .... geek!

:p


Looking forward to the next :)

This is so me.

this was a easy challenge since i missed it it sucks but you can search google for things to decode stuff like that shouldnt have gave the challenge up so easy

also it takes more than putting it in a base64 decoder! SINCE ITS NOT BASE64 WOW PEEPS YOU ALL LOSE

THIS IS WHAT I GOT SO YALL WRONG ASK HIM WHAT PROGRAM HE USED OR IF HE JUST TYPED BS

Brian, you are making yourself sound stupid. I suggest you stop trying to refute his system. The entire point of a cipher is that you can't read it without the cipher key. All you did was translate it back to the cipher text before he applied the Base64 code to make it display better on the forums. This is what SyrupWaffle had already done that got her the credit.

The problem at that point was that the original key had been lost, so even the original cryptographer was unable to recover the initial plain text. Hence he called the competition off and awarded partial credit to the first person to get past the first step.

Steps to this cipher:

Plaintext was *encrypted* using an unknown method with an unknown key resulting in the original cipher text. The original cipher text was then *encoded* using Base64. The Base64 was posted on the forum.

If I had to guess, what he probably did was convert his original text to binary then run an encryption algorithm to flip a combination of bits determined by a one time pad generated by his key. This resulted in Binary that did not form valid strings which could be displayed, hence why he then encoded it in Base64 before posting it on the forums.

The reason being that if he had not done manipulation to the binary it is very unlikely he would have ended up with unreadable text that required the additional Base64 step.

But the last part is just theory since the contest was ended before a solution was found.