In July of 2007 I released eCoderRing, a Visual Basic program that encrypts and decrypts messages using a somewhat convoluted implementation of “book cypher” encryption. According to my own local IIS logs, eCoderRing has been download several thousand times. Included in the eCoderRing documentation was a code challenge. I promised a free copy of my book to anyone who could break the code. I am now adding $100 to that prize. The first person who successfully decrypts the code from this message will receive a copy of my book Commodork, a copy of my yet-to-be-released book Invading Spaces, and $100. To win the prize, you must e-mail me the decrypted text along with the method in which you decoded the message.
To those who plan on using eCoderRing to decrypt the text, I will tell you that the key is publicly available on the Internet. Neither the key nor the decrypted text appear anywhere on my website or personal computer, so hacking those things won’t help you. All, some, or none of the program’s options including start, shift, skip, and xor may or may not have been used in the encoding of the message. Using eCoderRing to decrypt the code is not a requirement; brute force or any other method of decryption is acceptable, as long as the method is documented and repeatable. The $100 comes directly from my own pocket and can be paid with PayPal, money order, or cash.
Please spread the word. I would really like to see a lot of people give this a shot. Here again is the encrypted message.
[Begin Code]
1011 162 1817 2046 1829 1234 1495 2273 2517 3823 3383 4763 5063 4160 4375 5772 5849 5200 5454 6791 6847 6181 6250 7775 7962 7250 8067 7168 8789 8738 8955 10135 10233 9498 9665 10266 10461 11960 11350 11402 11417 11574 11635 11755 12859 12652 12762 12729 12714 13959 14022 14236 14210 15318 15261 14448 15284 14549 14526 14798 14805 15991
[End Code]
EDIT: For 2010, the reward was upped to $500. No one has ever come close to cracking the code.