Puzzles.

Puzzles - Introduction

Welcome to the humble beginnings of a puzzles page. Don't get me wrong, these are to be no ordinary puzzles. These are software puzzles. They cannot be solved by anyone, and they should provide endless hours of almost light relief (!) for programmers, reverse engineers, cryptographers and gurus of assembly. Puzzle submissions are welcome, and the first solution to any puzzle will be uploaded. The puzzles will be divided into those solved and those that are unsolved.

Submission Guidelines

There really are no rules to what constitutes a puzzle, but here are some ideas and guidelines:

  • Any puzzle should include some instructions with a clear objective.
  • A sample puzzle might be to find a code given an executable file, which when entered in some way produces a congratulatory message (get the idea now ?), or a name/code combination.
  • Puzzles should be submitted by their authors, with a valid email address, a name for the puzzle, and an idea of the language/style of puzzle.
  • Puzzles should give an indication of difficulty (a rough guide anyway), with a grading of 1-10, being very roughly 2=suitable for people with little knowledge of assembly language, 4=suitable for people with an understanding of assembly and the ability to code small programs, 6=suitable for people that could code in assembly and at least one hll, 8=requires a good knowledge of algorithms, advanced assembly knowledge or other advanced ideas, may require some programming, 10=hard (!)
  • No puzzle should exceed 64k in size! No leeway. You can do a lot in 64k, and overbloated exe's with no thought to compilation will not be accepted. Any dll requirements should be standard (kernel, user, gdi) or commonplace (mfc, vb, msvcrt), or linking should include the libraries. If you think you can't do it in 64k then be creative.
  • Solutions - a brief solution will be accepted and the puzzle will be 'marked' solved, with detailed solution pending. You then have 1 week to write a more detailed account (it doesnt have to go to the nth degree, but should be an account of how the problem was solved), before it reverts back to unsolved. Alternatively just send me your solution in detail.
  • Looking for ideas, check out "In The Beginning" the first puzzle. If you want to see the sourcecode, and a mathematical solution to it by alf, then get that here.

    Unsolved Puzzles
    Date AddedAuthorNameRatingCommentsSolution

    Solved Puzzles and Solutions
    Date SolvedAuthorNameRatingCommentsSolution
    20-jan-20010CronosThe Seven Gates6The third puzzle, again in Borland C and 4.5Kb. With a very detailed solution and analysis by B4tM4N.B4tM4N
    04-dec-2000CronosBrain vs Brawn7The second puzzle. Written in Borland C it is a 4.5Kb executable for Win95/98/ME. Should run under NT but untested.Reus
    27-nov-2000CronosIn The Beginning8The first puzzle. Written in Borland C it is a 4Kb executable for Win95/98/ME.Reus

    Most extraordinary, no really.