The Furious Angels
FA Discussion => General => Topic started by: Anonymous on May 07, 2004, 03:00:48 pm
-
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.
-
What appropriate timing. Check out one of our active recruitment thread (http://thematrixonlineboards.warnerbros.com/newboards/thread.jspa?threadID=2000000329&start=45&tstart=0). 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...
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
http://nickciske.com/tools/hex.php
translates hexadecimal aswell i think
-
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!
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
www.cyberarmy.com is another place you can look for inpiration.
-
Hmm just had a brainstorm...
You remember them annoyign little games u used to get when u went to birthday parties as kids. You know the ones where u slide the square blocks accross to make an image and you can only move 1 at a time.
(http://bb.domaindlx.com/Facup/Picture%20game.jpg)
Just like that but without the dog in it.
I know its corny, but we could have a picture of the angel that Tubias made.
Lets not beat around the bush, it is corny, but it would solve the problem of people giving the game away, u can't give it away if its not straight forward.
I would not be able to make this as i have absolutly no skills in flash or any other program capable of making somthing like this.
Or mayb somthing like the little game used in the Enter the matrix hacking part.
-
I really really really like the idea of making a html version of the Enter the Matrix hacking game. REALLY REALLY REALLY like that idea.
-
no i ment like when u have to change the picture of the chinese symbols to what the password is, the hacking bit typing in the code is gonna be to easy for people to just copy and paste in the forum, but somthing like this would make it a lot harder.
Althought the idea is good, if there was a way that it was unique each time.
-
Iagree with Quantum - bout using that picture thing...We could make it as hard as we wanted, you know cutting it up into larger pieces for more easiability (we could do this when our recruitments are low) or cutting it up into smaller piecies to make it more hard (we could do this when we're recruiting only like 1-5 people and it's a general small amount of openings.
This would be great, it would be consistent, but we could change it however we wished. Plus ppl wouln't be giving ot the answer cuz we can jsut change it whenever we wanted.
-
Yea, i think trying to hack past something in a certain ammout of time would be good, so after 3 minutes the page resets or something and you have to make it past three or four levels. Who likes that idea?
-
I like that....good thinking Oronos
-
Just doing my part ;)
-
You would need to do it in flash.
-
Not only no, on that picture but HELL NO!!! I could never get those things. Plus as stated before, we don't want to make the challege too hard.
-
Ok I like the idea of hacking things, but when MxO comes out not everyone is going to be a hacker.I don't remember Neo knowing everything on code :?
-
Thats not really the point, what i meant was joining the clan but making it harder for people to do so and ruining it would be harder
-
We do reject a lot of the applications already, I believe that it will need a rehaul eventually, yet for the present, we don't really need any pointless mind games to determine who's for real and whose not. The Application itself shows the captian's who is putting in the effort to write something thoughtful and how much they really want to be an angel.
-
Thats not really the point, what i meant was joining the clan but making it harder for people to do so and ruining it would be harder
I know that, but if we actually need to hack into a website and look for clues or hints, then it is starting to become a little too much.
I was thinking before that maybe just some quiz's would be better but then that would not be very fun...
-
What would be quizing be about? Just because you play Matrix Online, doesn't mean you know the Matrix info.
-
I'm not too sure, maybe rules of the furious angels perphaps?
-
But they aren't members of the FA, how would they know the rules?
-
I dont mean hack the site, i mean make them hack like a game, like try2hack. You know what i mean?
-
The challege already has pieces of that. How many more pieces of it and what pieces would you like?
-
i think they should have to work out the password, or you need to seperate it from the same place as the link to make it harder
-
If we could get some kind of random thing, like where it always changes but can still be figured out, then we'd be set.
-
you could use a number for letter system...
12345678910...
ABCDEFGHIJ...
or mayb take a value of 3 away from that
12345678910...
XYZABCDEFG...
but that would be to easy to say on the forum...
Turn the numbers into letters and take 3 from them.
Its that easy.
the reason i suggested the picture thing was to stop people making it public knowledge, as people have said it can be as big or as small as we wanted it to be, a 4X4 grid is give to 8 year olds at partys, i can't actually remember when i got 1 of them actually finishing it, but determined members will want to finish it and get an application off.
-
The sliding picture idea....know what would be REALLY challenging? instead of an angel just have it straight out matrix code. if its done in flash, when you get it correct an image of the angel could fade into it.
just my 2 cents
-
Ronox, that'd be really cool, but really, really, really, really, really, really hard. How can you tell one symbol from another?
-
hey eclipse, maybe thats the point or maybe that could be used when there are alot of people in our group. but either way if someone did solve it, they would definetly be showing commitment which is a good trait if you ask me.