Another alternative would be to ask questions to lead someone through the challenge.

On a simple crackit for example, the hints/questions could start along the lines of

How long a password are you looking for?

Hopefully this would lead the person to the right section of code to look at, when they get the right answer they can see the next question i.e.

What is your answer being XOR'd against?

Again it would push them to try and find the XOR part of the code, both leading them through how to do it and pointing them in the right direction.

Of course, it would be a LOT of work to do this for 195 challenges!!! But its an idea ...

@ commcomm, those kind of point system open the door to another plague, multiple inscription

I agree with the "Earn-points-for-a-hint-system". That way ppl who want lots of hints won't get them until they solved some challenges him/herself (if they are out of points). This will stimulate the thought of first trying out the challenge yourself until you are really stuck and then you can "buy" a hint. With the other system everyone is going to watch the hints first and then try to solve the challenge..this way all the challenges will decrease in difficulty.

The "Earn-points-for-a-hint-system" is like money. Ppl who like to spend money usually don't have enough money to buy the precious things..in contrary with ppl who save their money and buy a nice big TV later..

GoMe

too many hints..
I think that with such a system people will strive to get new hints instead of the solutions of the challs
it's only a personal feeling

the idea with earning hints is not bad but it would take hundreds of years to create it. maybe we can create like a forum were you can see 1 or 2 hints for every challenge if you really stuck.

@ matrixman:
what do you want ? in your post, you dont need solve it,because you have then all

Hmm... I think we don't need stuff like that! Just reading the forum and googling is enough to solve challenges that the others have solved and discussed about.

If the hints system was in place, I would register a new account, solve some of the challs that I know how to solve, get a hint for a hard one, then use it on my main account.

You can't win with this type of thing. There will always be a loophole. I think that the private messages should be abolished. Sending someone an email out of the blue is much harder then writing this small private message.

I've gotten tons of pms for help, but no emails.

I've gotten mails too

yup yup TooManyHints...

theblacksheep your idea from the forum isn't bad at all but I think that it's the same as the forums that we have.

Talking about the other method, earn-hints-by-points (or whatever it may be) there are two main problems;
- It's pretty "hard and boring" build this Hinting system.
- There's also another problem, imagine two guys X, Y:
<X sends pm to Y>
Hi I'm so stucked at Crypto 1337 and I don't have any points to trade with HiNTeR-GuY(xD). Can you help me? Can you give me your hint?
help me please...

We're in the same case....