Cracking Crypto To Get Into College 373
Kallahar writes "New Scientist is running a story about a Canadian university who had students break an encrypted message in order to get into college. A good idea to grab a good student, but here in 'Free' America these kids would have been thrown in jail for violating the DMCA ..."
Re:The DMC is bad enough - you needn't make stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea sounds interesting, but kinda gimmicky. Especially with a scholarship for speed--with a problem it took 30 minute for _New_Scientist_ to solve (or did I misread something) that seems a bit silly. Now, waiving the application fee for anyone who solves it, that seems a more commensurate prize.
Re:Doesn't make you a good student (Score:2, Interesting)
The article states that New Scientist took 30 minutes to decode it - since the scholarship went to the first person to email a correct answer to the university, I fail to see how this differs substantially from "first post" trolling.
Education should not be a gimmick.
I Agree With This - To A Certain Extent (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I think the major problem is the *lack* of creativity. This doesn't quite show that you have creative thought, only that you can deduce something logically. Now, as I understand it, that applies to programming, but really, if you're going to be a college student, life is more about creative problem solving than it is about logical.
Although, it is a neat idea. Will physics students be allowed to design experiments, or will others get similar "bonuses" to their college application process? I'd like to hope so.
Down with Standardized Tests, In With Creative Applications.
Re:I Agree With This - To A Certain Extent (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, I remember my first year in the dorm over a decade ago. A friend of mine had some weed, but neither of us had a pipe or bong. I ended up taking my pocket knife to an apple and we were smoking within 5 minutes. Damn I miss that creative college life...
It's A Clever Gimmick (Score:3, Interesting)
I lived in Lethbridge for a few months over ten years ago. It was a small town then and still is, as you can see here [lethbridge.ab.ca] (less than 70,000 population).
IMHO, Southern Alberta is an attractive region if you're into farming or ranching, but doesn't generally have a large enough population to support the University of Lethbridge on its own. Calgary is only a couple hours away by car, and tends to draw the more city-minded students.
It seems the U of Lethbridge has to use these clever gimmicks to attract enough students from outside the region to keep itself viable. By making the crypto test relatively simple, it taps into the ego of a wider number of prospective students.
Pretty smart marketing move, actually.
Re:The REAL Story ... (here's the solution) (Score:2, Interesting)
This would give you the summation of all natural numbers between 1 and 1000000. The question, however, is to find the summation of all decimal digits appearing in the sequence.
For example, 324 would contribute a total of 9 to the total sum.
So, the sum of 0..10 = 46
the sum of 0..100 = 901
the sum of 0..10^n = (n * 10^(n-1) * 45) + 1
In our case, we're looking for 0..10^6, so
= (6 * 100000 * 45) + 1
= 27000000 + 1
= 27000001
As I said, a little more complex, but not impossible to figure out if you take out pencil and paper and think about it.
To verify, simply create a brute force algorithm that loops from 1 to 1000000, where the loop code either uses mod and div to isolate the value of each digit of a number, or some funky string-integer transformations.
Cracking exams (Score:4, Interesting)
They passed, but not with high marks; after all, they had only a couple of hours to prepare it. They would have been better off studying thru the night...
Re:But I was bored longer... (Score:3, Interesting)
I happened to find the same result as the parent ((45 * (10 ^(n-1)) * n) + 1), which makes it likely to be right. That gives 27.000.001.
Method: See that all possible combinations of 6-digit numbers are in the range 000000...999999. Then for a given digit all numbers occur with the same frequency due to symmetri. Then the average contribution of that digit is sum(0..9)/10=45/10. Then the average contribution of a 6-digit number is 6*45/10. There are 1.000.000 numbers in 000000...999999, so we multiply the average with 1000000. Now we have the sum from 1-999999, but we needed the sum 1-1000000, so we add digitsum(1000000)=1.
The result is then 45/10*1.000.000*6+1 = 45*100.000*6+1=45*10^(6-1)*6+1. Generalize the number of digits and you get the formula above.
Re:Doesn't make you a good student (Score:3, Interesting)
No, but that's what you're going to study to learn. The test is looking for logical deduction and reasoning skills that can't be learnt through academic study, but are necessary for it.
Re:the details (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. The web site gives lots of hints, and even offers live help via E-mail. They are trying to make it almost as easy as possible. Why?
"The University of Lethbridge is holding a contest to attract computer scientist students",
This wasn't done as a scolarship program for deserving students. It's a PUBLICITY STUNT.
The hardest part is either translating all the letters by hand, or typing it into a program to translate it for you.
As for the math problem in the message -
Any Math major that can't find a pattern to get the answer deserves to be rejected.
Any Computer major that can't write a program to get the answer deserves to be rejected.
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How does crytography make you a good CS student? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't make you a good student (Score:2, Interesting)
No, they are generally based on grades and SAT scores. The essays are just to make it look like the college is interested in a well-rounded person, and not just someone who scores well on tests. Other than being a measure of basic literacy, the essays really have very little to do with admission, in practice.