The path of angels

[Anonymous]

I love all of our activity in the MxO forums, and the follow the angel test is great and all, but I've noticed there have been quite a few posts out there that come extremely close to giving away the secret.  None of them from our guys, but from the ones who solve it and who may or may not have sent in an application.

Anyway, my point is that as time continues, more and more people are going to let things slip in our recruitment threads.  I know one of our higher-ups mentioned the torrent of applications coming in, so we can still filter who gets in and who doesn't, but eventually follow the angel will not be a major obstacle and an effective filter.  We may need to improve it, or change it slightly, to keep up with this.

I've gone through a few levels of try2hack, and there's a few cool ideas we could use.  Levels 2 and 3 are at just about the right level.  Given, this raises the curve significantly, which might be a bit too much.

So, any thoughts on this?  How long will we keep the follow the angel test the way it is?  Should it be improved as time continues?  If so, how should we adjust it?  I figured this issue might come up sooner or later, so we should probably discuss it early on, when it isn't yet a major problem.

[Anonymous]

What appropriate timing.  Check out one of our active recruitment thread.  Hertz and phear just gave away too much.  We should let that thread die, no more responses, and create another one in a few days.  Try to sweep it under the rug until nobody remembers.

Which brings us back to this issue...

[Anonymous]

How about we link the image to an off site that couldn't be traced to the real site. Then in a footer put a message in binary. Just an idea.

[Anonymous]

Good idea, but the binary would stand out in the html.  Right now, on our first follow the angel page, the link is very subtle.  Someone even posted the code and still hasn't seen it staring back out at him.  The binary would be an immediate red flag to whoever saw it.  I prefer a bit more of a subtle approach, myself.

[Anonymous]

In the old forums this has been a big issue, with stirfry posting the answer. Tbone made him an enemy and changed teh puzzle, but I do think that you are right, we NEED to change it to be slightly harder. And also I think that we should give hertz and Phear a warning, as they didn't blatanly post it. Well, not Qiute.

[Anonymous]

True.  The problem with warnings, however, is that others can see them, and realize the solution is somewhere in the thread, right at their fingertips.  There was another person who solved the puzzle and was beginning to drop hints.  g3n3r4lgr1zz, I think.  I sent him an email letting him know we prefer only FA members to drop the hints.  He apologized and hasn't been a problem since.  

Many of these people don't realize what they're doing hurts our faction.  They're not out to ruin us, per se, but they don't quite have the tact to see we don't want them to give the game away.  Email would be a better contact method, if possible, to avoid giving out unintended clues to others in the thread.

[Anonymous]

no matter what it is changed to people will still post teh answers, no way around it, other that the goodness of other people, in the current recuritment thread, som1 has actually posted the whole code of the first page, and didn't get it still, then aom1 else has posted to next page in html but blanked out the password and the name of the website, either way they shouldn't be there.

[Anonymous]

Write it in hexadecimal, sure people know it, but it would require someone with significant coding experiencing to decode it rapidly.  Significant hexadecimal experience means that they're either committed to learning code (committment is a good trait), or older which would taper down the risk of getting someone less desirable.

It might even pay off to put the url has every second character in a string then remark it.  Another trick would be to use another language (French, German, Japanese), forcing the person to use a search engine to find a language translator.

You could also put up a significant phrase such as: Follow the angel, search for your path along the the old cherry blossom orchards.

Then go make a page with the application, and register it in the search engines under "old cherry blossom orchard".  Whenever a person does a websearch, they'll pull that page.  The more obscure the better, minimizing other search results during the process.

Red herrings are also a great concept.

[Anonymous]

http://nickciske.com/tools/hex.php

translates hexadecimal aswell i think

[Tbone]

It is inevitable that whatever challenge we create, the solution will be found and exposed. Surprisingly, people have been very respectful of our challenge and it has only been threatened once or twice. There is a definite possibility of increasing the difficulty of the challenge very soon. We are almost at 100 users, and "Beta drifters" will begin to show up soon (those who have no intention of playing the game, but just want to get a free game for a while). The problem that arises with increasing the difficulty of the challenge is that it becomes more complex, so, when exposed, it will be harder to fix it again. Originally the challenge's primary objective was to get people's attention. It's second function was to weed out those who would, to put it nicely, "not fit in". We are receiving many applications, which is good, but I agree that soon we should start being more selective. Please continue to let the ideas flow!

[Anonymous]

How about a code crack of some kind. Where it takes some thinking to crack a pattern of code or have translated code and then have them sue that code somhwo to translate the next message. The possiblilties are endless.

[Anonymous]

In the meantime, that thread I linked to is heavily loaded with hints and such.  I would suggest we stop posting on that one and let it die, and create a new one to take its place.  Control where everyone is looking, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, that kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

I agree that someone out there will always reveal the solution to others, yet nevertheless, I am very fond of the hexidecimal suggestion. Adding another element or three would solidify the filter just that little bit more.

[Anonymous]

I think that the puzzles on the try2hack website could be mentally challanging, and would be easily incorporated into an online puzzle and would be significantly challenging so that the twats who usually post the answer probably wouldn't be able to crack it, but then they could be clever twats. Hmmmm.

[likwidtek]

www.cyberarmy.com is another place you can look for inpiration.