Good idea. Way too many silly cryptos now.

What is a silly crypto ?

hi erik, is this still up to date? why didn't you split them?

Summary:
ItsMeTristan, obiwan, Martes13,Corso, doOdzZZ, phatcat42141, bender0,CyBeR,Louis, moose: 10: +
0: -

I think that is a good idea but...
Split in "Classical" and "Modern"
make classical things to think.... paper and pen, research in books, in old methods (don't need computer to solve)
modern, things to search, know algoritms, like, md5, sha1.... (need computer to solve)...
Good ? Bad ??
what you thing about ?



cya....

I can't really see its sense. Does it help me to solve a crypto if I know that it is a "known/modern/classic/ etc." crypto? Minimal, I guess. And most forums already contain posts like "is it a well known?"/"print it out and solve it with pen and paper"/...

The "silly crypto"-issue is another topic.

ps. furthermore, I want to get back to the 12 smileys. I don't like the third row. (/dev/null don't need smileys.. "ha ha, I'm the master in the worst challenges!")

I think the third row looks strange ... only one smilie ... try to get 5 more categories

the crypto-thing: well, I would like to split them into group 1 "only with computer solvable" and group 2 "also without computer solvable" (in max. 5x the time you would need with a computer or less) as pandini0 proposed. but I think the crypto-masters are the ones whose opinion is important...

Imagine someone would have 3 x 6 = 18 smileys. Quite frustrating for new users which want to get their first smiley, right? It's also one of the main criticism aspects I have read about bright shadows. "339 Challenges are too many."

moose, the question is: Does the splitting help to solve challenges? I don't believe that.



What do you mean?

well, I don't think a user like me (not thaaaat good at the moment, but I read every hint in every forum and I read some pdf-files/books about programming/crypto/exploits) can realy say if its helpful to split the challenges.
I don't have solved enough crypto-challenges to know if its important to know if its a well knowen method/not or if its important if its solvable by computer or not. and I have read enough hints in the forum to be not a real beginner .... in most cases I can imagine which of these cases is the correct one.
but I think the splitting-idea was good
crypto: 69
crackit: 52
stegano: 67

I don't know anything about cracking (ok, the few things I know are worthless ...) so can't imagine if its useful to split.
but I think stegano would be nice to split in categories:
=>hexcode: you have to work with the color-values
=>content you see: you just need a program like gimp / photoshop and your eyes
=>"difficult ones": Most significant bit/ you have to view the file in another way (like searching plain text direct in the file)
here we have to ask bara ... most of these challenges belong to him and I think he doesn't want it => okay, bad idea, topic can be closed


Well, I think its animating. As I came my first time to this site (less than 11 months ago) I was at http://www.mibs-challenges.de/ and http://www.hackquest.com/. (and I also started with 0 solved challenges and so others having solved over 250 ... now I have 100 solved and 5 smilies) Both sites have much less challenges.
I tried all challenges on both sites, but after a day I was through and frustrated because I had no idea how to solve more challenges (I solved mainly JS and logic ones).
In bright-shadows I had
1. a good forum
2. a nice community
3. lots of challenges to solve with almost every degree of difficulty
4. a nice ranking system which allows me to compare my skills with others (I came to these challenge sites from ogame.de and I quit ogame because I was the best and no target to reach .... and I am interested in computers)
5. a good design
I was very happy as I reached my first smilie ..... and it didn't take that long, I think a week or something like that and no help
With splitting challenges, reaching a smilie is easier (because you have to solve less challenges for the smilie and its quite supposable that one part of the splitted has more of the difficult challenges)

Referring to stegano (but its similar in other challenge types, too): In most cases, its the task of the player to find out which method of the ones you mentioned. Wouldn't such a categorization just spoil the challenge?

(Correct me if I am wrong) Your main point is to make challenges easier. I think everyone has more fun in an interesting implemented and presented challenge than in an easy-to-solve challenge (I know, this is not a "why do you play at tbs"-discussion but somehow this topic is related to all kinds of tbs-discussions). I also believe that these kinds of challenges are ('relatively seen') also easier to solve.

Back to original topic:
The only senseful reason to split categories, are splits by the "obvious challenge type" (crypto: Easy Starter, crypto-programming: KPTA <- I know, I stole that idea from someone) but not by the "solution type". And this would just "look better" and not help me to solve challenges.

Greets,
theAnswer

339 challenges are too many ?

i would like to see at least 3000 challenges here