The Thirteenth Labour

2006-10-28T00:10:23Z

Loser707:

=={{Card|251|The Thirteenth Labour}}==
[[Image:Thirteenthlabour.JPG]]

==Card text==

{| border="0" cellpadding="10" style="border: 2px solid #ddddff;" bgcolor="#f3f3ff"
|
64/12/8

69 A9 3A FD C5 AD 43 8F 48 53 56 0F

1D 35 3A 8C 5C 44 A6 90 1B 76 46 C7

65 53 C8 A1 E4 B0 40 41 85 2B B7 81

59 E0 D2 39 35 A3 27 3B C3 AF 2E 2E

2F 3B 3B 0B 01 FE 67 51 FE 73 A8 E9

36 0A 93 85 55 2E 9A 4A AE C9 84 CF

18 F8 AB 4D B5 6D 45 07 4E 17 23 A5

7C F1 E8 BD A5 8A BD C8 FE FC DA 2B

6B 71 76 88 1F C0 D1 95 61 8D DB DC

D8 17 2E D7 1D D5 F7 AB AD AB 3E 52

2A 9A 9B BA 37 FE 80 FB 53 95 C9 1D

A2 22 AE 72 85 4A 43 1F 7C 2A BF 2A

79 3A 15 03 8D F2 5B 43 98 90 6D CC

A0 BB E2 A9 6A 52 D1 CB 2B 83 DE D8

BF EC 20 11 70 71 AA 22

[[Image:Cowhead.gif]] [[Image:Cowhead.gif]] [[Image:Cowhead.gif]] [[Image:Cowhead.gif]] [[Image:Cowhead.gif]]
|}

==The absolute basics==
*We assume a block of text has been scrambled (encrypted) so that we cannot read it
*the RC5.64 standard refers to how it has been scrambled
*This scrambling requires a 'Key' to unlock it - we are searching for that key.
*So there are two camps
**one camp is supplying thousands of words randomly as keys to see if that produces anything reasonable
**The other camp is trying to figure out the appropriate word (perhaps using the Labours of Hercules as a clue) then trying that word
**http://www.connected.ltd.uk/pxc/

*Of course, if we are wrong about the encryption standard, then we are fairly fubarred, but it would appear that all roads point to it.

*Of course, there was some speculation that the 12 referred to the fact that there were 12 tasks of Hercules, and 12 RC5 challenges posted by RSA security
** This was therefore the '13th Challenge'
** Also, if this does need a brute force or grid computing attack - this would be a 'Herculean Challenge'

The distributed assault is currently underway, see below and at the [http://www.13thlabour.tk Assault on 13th Labour] site.

==Cowheads and 64/12/8==
*The cows represent the symbol of [http://www.distributed.net distributed.net], who first cracked the RC5.64 protocol, possibly indicating that this card requires a simple RC5.64 crack as well

*However, the card doesn't say RC5.64, it says 64/12/8. The assumption is that:
**the 5 cow heads is a pointer to the RC5 standards, as worked on by the folks at www.distributed.net
**The 64 would therefore be the encryption standard (RC5.64)
**The 12 is supposedly the number of rounds, and the key is 8 characters long
**That is why the brute force using 8 character words and phrases

==Distributed Effort==
Recently, work has been done by [[User:chimera245|chimera245]] to set up a coordinated Grid Computing solve on this Card. There is more information on this [http://www.13thlabour.tk here] kindly maintained by [[User:GuiN|GuiN]]. The Grid Client is running nicely and is available [http://www.e-wire.net.au/~eb_oakla/pxc/13labour_1_3_1.zip here].

Earlier efforts included some work by [[User:Scott|Scott]] who did some math, and observed how long it would take to work out an answer here. See: [[Rccrypt Work Unit checkout]] for the original proposal for a combined effort.

Update:

As of 23-SEP-06, the client has tried every single combination of letters and numbers. That is, every single 8 character combination of the characters: ''abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789''. Nothing has come of this. Basically, this means that the key to unlocking the code HAS to contain at least one symbol. [[User:chimera245|Chimera245]] has updated the program, adding 5 more characters to test - ''<space>'' ''.'' '','' ''?'' and ''!'' - This will double the size of the possible keyspace.

{{CardCat}}

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The Thirteenth Labour