Can this qualify as a challenge?

[Jackalgirl]

The checksum would be posted before the test. The EXACT message that generated the checksum would be posted AFTER the spirit's answers are posted. Even a single difference in the message, like an extra space or the difference between the unix and pc end of line, will result in a completely different hash. You cannot reveal the word salad until after the test because this would leave too little unknown information in the message and allow a brute force attack.

Ah hah, I've got it now. Even if I monkeyed with the numbers later, the hash would be different, because any change is going to produce a different hash. I grok now -- well, maybe not grok, but I get it. Thanks for your patience in explaining that out. : )

So here's the hash, fresh from the guts of my wonderful Mac/Unix box:

SHA1(secret.txt)= e4322dabc5e55151b421e9030cb86c1206cd5788

The words have another purpose in that if the spirit has difficulty with the numbers, PC can ask the spirit to read the words instead.

This is certainly a possibility to fold into future tests, but I'd rather not introduce that or anything else into this test, at present -- simply because we've got an established agreed protocol. PeaceCrusader claimed that the spirit can remotely determine numbers, and did not say that a backup would be needed, so, I think it's important to stick to that without adding to or moving the goalposts. Offering other things to guess -- words, statues (sorry, Ravenwood) -- should be handled separately.

Note that there may be a language barrier because the medium does not speak english.

Agreed, which is why I think that guessing words should be handled as a separate test. Otherwise, we'll be treated to endless discussions of how the [insert medium's native language] words can be interpreted to mean [insert word list here]. PC said that the medium can do numbers; we should stick with that for now.

 

[Moochie]

<snip>


I don't want that my responses just be forgotten in a discussion forum that I participate in. And I would like to get my message across to as many people as possible and also get their opinions.

Best regards,
Aristeo Canlas Fernando, Peace Crusader and Echo

In a nutshell.

M.

 

[PeaceCrusader]

Dear GzuzKryzt and Fellow Forumers,

...
That's an interesting take on it, and I wonder if JREF would accept something like that: i.e., that it's PC who applies for the challenge, the medium simply being part of the "machinery" that he uses to remote view the resulting numbers. Of course, I'm sure she'd be miffed about him getting the $1 Million instead of her, but I'm sure they could work out a deal independently from the Challenge. I'll ask Jeff via the challenge email and see what he says. Good thought!

PeaceCrusader, would you even be willing to take the Challenge under the above quoted circumstances?

That is a good idea. If I apply for the challenge instead of Mrs. Alvaran, that would make the process easier and faster. If the prize is won, I leave to the spirit the decision of how much each will get. Please let me know what Jeff Wagg says about this.

As I have pointed out earlier and I would like to make that clear, the spirit does not appropriate my body. It is the woman's. So in your proposed scheme, Mrs. Alvaran will just be a part of the "machinery". It is the spirit who will be tested through the woman.

It's 11:15 PM. This will be my last post for today. I will go to sleep soon for I have to be in the office at 7 am tomorrow, Monday. I will read your postings tomorrow evening. Thank you for all your help.

Best regards,
Aristeo Canlas Fernando, Peace Crusader and Echo

 

[Oualawouzou]

Please let me know what Jeff Wagg says about this.

Ask him yourself. You are the one who'd be tested. Why would you want someone not affiliated with JREF to relay the words of a JREF representative when one is readily available to answer your questions?

 

[GzuzKryzt]

Dear GzuzKryzt and Fellow Forumers,





That is a good idea. If I apply for the challenge instead of Mrs. Alvaran, that would make the process easier and faster. If the prize is won, I leave to the spirit the decision of how much each will get. Please let me know what Jeff Wagg says about this.

I suggest you inquire yourself: challenge@randi.org

However, you have to make sure Mrs. Alvaran participates, you would have to handle communications between at least three parties (yourself, Mrs. Alvaran, the tester), etc. A lot of tricky timeconsuming work.

As I have pointed out earlier and I would like to make that clear, the spirit does not appropriate my body. It is the woman's. So in your proposed scheme, Mrs. Alvaran will just be a part of the "machinery". It is the spirit who will be tested through the woman.
...

As it has been pointed out to you earlier, PeaceCrusader, the JREF does not test for deities and such. For the purpose of the JREF Challenge, the person who applies does the "paranormal" part - or not.
You brought in the religious connotation, PeaceCrusader. How you explain it, by the existence of a "spirit", a "god", etc., is entirely irrelevant for the Challenge process.

A successful test - revealing the content of a number of boxes along an agreed upon protocol - would not prove that there is a "spirit". It would prove that the person who performed the test very likely has some power we do not know of yet.

Again: The "spirit" is not up for the test, it is the person who applies.

(And I predict right now, there will be no proper application coming from this claim.)

 

[Loss Leader]

The difference between a cypher and a hash is that the cypher is reversible if you know the key. The hash has no key and is not reversible.

How do you know that your cypher is unassailable? A lot of amateurs that "roll their own" cyphers find out very soon just how easy amateur codes are broken. Only the OTP is know to be unbreakable but it is unusable for our purpose.

Try to break it.

 

[Admiral]

Try to break it.

There's something in cryptography known as Kerkchoff's principle, which is that the security of a code must not depend on the secrecy of the crypto-algorithm, but only on the secrecy of the key.

In other words, assume the enemy knows how the code works, they just don't have your codebooks.

The reason for this is simple- a code that loses its secrecy if the enemy finds out the algorithm is nearly worthless in the practical world. The Polish obtained the German Enigma machine from spies fairly early in World War II, even before they were invaded- the hard part was figuring out how to crack it when there were millions of possible keys. (That is, the three letter codes and letter switchers that they input into the machine).

If German codebooks were stolen, they would be set back less than a month. The would just reprint new codebooks and distribute them. It was difficult, but compare it to the alternative- if their code had depended on the secrecy of the machine, then stealing a machine would mean they'd have to invent a new difficult cipher, manufacture thousands of new machines, and then distribute those. That's just silly.

And imagine such a cipher in the technology world- you couldn't build a program around it and sell it to multiple companies, because then anyone who used it could decrypt the messages of anyone else who used it.

Compare that to RSA. The mathematical details of how RSA works are completely and totally public- you can look up the algorithm on Wikipedia! But because everyone comes up with their own key, cracking a message is nearly impossible.

So my question is- tell us how your cipher works without telling the key. If it's still unbreakable, THEN it would be impressive.

ETA: You know, looking at the context, I suspect I geeked out when it wasn't necessary to (I hadn't read through most of the thread). Never mind about everything I said.

On the other hand, depending on how the encryption works, it might not serve its purpose. After all, using a one time pad (for example) would COMPLETELY destroy the point of publishing the encoded message.

 

[Blue Bubble]

Requirements:
Two ten-sided dice, one marked 10s (e.g., 10, 20, 30, etc) and the other marked 1s (1, 2, 3, etc)

Procedure:
The dice-roller (Jackalgirl) rolls the two dice to obtain a two-digit number from 01-99.

Nitpicking, but it's getting to the stage where we have to be very careful to get exact and proper wording.

I'm presuming that ten-sided dice are in fact marked 00, 10, 20 ... 90, and 0, 1, 2 ... 9, so that the two-digit number will actually be from 00-99.

 

[Moochie]

Nitpicking, but it's getting to the stage where we have to be very careful to get exact and proper wording.

I'm presuming that ten-sided dice are in fact marked 00, 10, 20 ... 90, and 0, 1, 2 ... 9, so that the two-digit number will actually be from 00-99.

Forget about it, dingbat. None of this is going to happen.

PC is here to instruct you, not to be tested.

Double dingbat to you.

M.

 

[Dan O.]

Try to break it.

Without any other information to go on, I could invent a cypher that produces "PDHWHCWVXRZOHEQPIJBOLWMMHUJKTF" from any message of my choosing. We could then argue about whose cypher is correct. Can you prove that "01 23 45 67 89" is not the correct answer?

By specifying the exact algorithm that we used (sha1^WP) we will eliminate any question that the numbers revealed after the test are the same numbers we committed to before the test.

 

[Loss Leader]

On the other hand, depending on how the encryption works, it might not serve its purpose. After all, using a one time pad (for example) would COMPLETELY destroy the point of publishing the encoded message.

Well, since Jackalgirl can always roll new numbers, I'll explain my encryption method without giving up my key.

I used a famous line of text and advanced the letters by the digit in its place. For instance, Pi is 3.14159265. Using the text "It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well" from The Great Gatsby, the coded message would be:

LUSDHDTXJ

Then, in order to prove that I have not substituted new text to cheat, the message repeats twice more so that the full encoded message is: LUSDHDTXJGUSNJCJGYWIISJFCYS

If one does not have the code, it should be gibberish. If one knows the code, "ITOCCUREDTOMETHATTHEREWASN," the message repeats three times: 314159263141592631415926. If one substitutes another code, the message does not repeat.

There are some drawbacks but, absent a huge computer and a hell of a lot of time, it should not be breakable by anyone outside the NSA.

 

[Dan O.]

So you are saying that Jackalgirl didn't roll any zeros at all. That makes the question of a double-nought moot.

I should have tried your cypher before posting.

What you have invented is on the surface a one time pad. As I stated earlier, a one time pad (OTP) is unbreakable. However, your implementation leaves it open to easily attack. To start with, the code and the pad don't have the same symbol space (the numbers 0-9 over the letters A-Z) and since you choose for the pad a famous text it is open to statistical analysis to identify potential words in the pad. Then you committed the biggest gaff of all by repeating the message. The pad in your example has repeated letters that can easily be seen by lining up the repeated code

L[B]US[/B]DHDTXJ
G[B]US[/B]N[B]J[/B]CJGY
WIIS[B]J[/B]FCYS

This will make a quick search of known texts for the pad rather trivial.

 

[Thabiguy]

There are some drawbacks but, absent a huge computer and a hell of a lot of time, it should not be breakable by anyone outside the NSA.

Your secret line of text is: "Had we but world enough and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime." The numbers are 83, 40, 31, 22, 13.

I didn't use any brute force to break it and would have done it sooner, if it weren't for two errors that you made (dropped 'u' in 'enough' and miscoded 'n' in 'and').

The moral of the story: do not try to invent your own ciphers, and if you do, never be so foolish to assume they are unbreakable. Randi made a similar mistake not a long time ago.

 

[Jackalgirl]

Nitpicking, but it's getting to the stage where we have to be very careful to get exact and proper wording.

I'm presuming that ten-sided dice are in fact marked 00, 10, 20 ... 90, and 0, 1, 2 ... 9, so that the two-digit number will actually be from 00-99.

D'oh! You are absolutely correct. Sorry! <hangs head in shame>

 

[Loss Leader]

Your secret line of text is: "Had we but world enough and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime." The numbers are 83, 40, 31, 22, 13.

Holy crap.

I am humbled.

I really feel like a fool.

Thinking about it today, I realized that there were ten possible letters for each number. Without spaces to denote word lengths I assumed there were just too many possibilities for anybody to be able to tease them out.

I assumed incorrectly. I further admit that I clearly know nothing about cryptography except what I once read in the novel "The Key To Rebecca" from which I got the idea. From now one, I will stick to my strengths ... as soon as I figure out what those are.

My deepest appologies to Jackalgirl and to PC. If she wants me to hold her new set of numbers again, I would be glad to without injecting myself into any cypher business and merely holding them secret without any clues or any other monkey business. If she never trusts me again ... well, I understand that, too.

 

[Jackalgirl]

My deepest appologies to Jackalgirl and to PC. If she wants me to hold her new set of numbers again, I would be glad to without injecting myself into any cypher business and merely holding them secret without any clues or any other monkey business. If she never trusts me again ... well, I understand that, too.

Oh, it's no problem. I understand the seductiveness of cryptography. But I just got done reading Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson, and have come to the conclusion that I would have to be smarter by several orders of magnitude to even dip my toe in the pool. Which is why I seemed so leery -- not because I don't think you're smart, but because I know how incredibly involved (and well-studied) the field of cryptography is, and when you said "it's my first cypher" and "it's unbreakable", I had a sense it would be a matter of time. ; )

Here's the hash from the new set of numbers:

SHA1(secret2.txt)= 92f55b32d370edd3879111075c32d3cbd02f4896

LL, I'll be PMing you the new numbers momentarily. : )

 

[Jackalgirl]

Okay, for all concerned (and especially PeaceCrusader):

I have generated a new set of five (5) two-digit numbers. I PMed them to Loss Leader, posted the SHA1 hash, as you see above, and have written down the numbers and sealed them in an envelope which is sitting on my tchotchke table next to the pic of me and my husband at Busch Gardens.

Once again, successful completion of this test requires that all five numbers be provided by the medium (5 out of 5), though they do not need to be in the order in which I rolled them. Inverted numbers will not count, nor will I entertain the attempt to break up the five numbers into a string of 10 digits and do a comparison on that.

Good luck!

 

[GzuzKryzt]

[Jon Stewart]
Mmmh: This thread should deal with PeaceCrusader's claim. Let him come forward. With something else than preaching. Mmmh, that's good evidence!
[/Jon Stewart]

(I appreciate your concern about encryption though.)

Vilsaaack.

 

[Loss Leader]

Glad to have a second chance. I'm a moron. Carry on.

 

[Dan O.]

There is one other basic problem with the protocol as specified. Even without LL posting the cipher, if PC were to successfully find the target numbers there would be other non-paranormal explanations (ie: what if LL were in cahoots with PC and sent him the numbers).

To solve this problem, Jackalgirl, and I will each create our own ordered set of 5 random numbers from 00 through 99. We will then create a text file containing our numbers followed by a list of 10 or more words . We will then post the commitment to our message which is the sha1 hash of the text file. The files will be locked and kept in a secure place. Other forum members that have the capability to produce a sha1 hash of a file may join in. Each member submitting a commitment will also choose one other forum member to hold a backup of the file and verify the commitment.

Jackalgirl will identify all the submitted verified commitments and create a document that lists the submitter, the backup and a blank table to list the numbers. At the bottom of the table will be a blank space to list the sums of the columns of digits. The sums will be single digits discarding any carry.

          subbmitted numbers           SHA-1 commitment
     a     b     c     d     e      submitted    verified
    ___________________________________________________________
A.                               -- SHA1(secret2.txt)= 92f55b32d370edd3879111075c32d3cbd02f4896
    _ _   _ _   _ _   _ _   _ _  -- Jackalgirl  Loss Leader
B.
    _ _   _ _   _ _   _ _   _ _  -- Dan O.     ??
C.
...

    ---   ---   ---   ---   ---      -------------------------
SUM _ _   _ _   _ _   _ _   _ _  --  Target Numbers

There needs to be at least 2 pairs of forum members submitting and verifying commitments. The files being committed should not all be exchanged using the same channel where an insider could view them (ie: avoid private messaging if possible).

The task of the test taker is to identify the target numbers that will be filled in after the test period is closed.

At the close of the testing period, after the test taker(s) have provided their answers, Jackalgirl will call for the submitters to post the full text of their numbers and word list. Jackalgirl will fill in the table, add the digits in each column and fill in the target numbers.

Note: this test may be opened to all forum members wether they claim to use paranormal resources or not.