Bug reporting

[Harry]

We try hard to avoid them, but bugs are a feature of coding, so if you spot anything then let us know, here or by email. If you think you have found a security issue or someone is posting info about the solutions online, then email us instead at [email protected] with the word Security in the subject.

Thank you!

[The_Cryptanalyst]

The forum link on the main page does not send you here.

[Harry]

@The_Cryptanalyst: Thank you, it does now!

[f6exb]

idem here:
On the home page, (not the login/register), the link to the forum opens a window (cipherstaging.wpengine.com) asking for an username/password, but the pair used to login doesn’t work in this window.

[Harry]

@f6exb, Thank you, good catch.

[Yeetcadamy]

I believe that challenge 1A is broken as you are unable to submit the correct answer, and it flags the second non-whitespace character in the answer

 

[We had quite a bit of traffic at the start, but everything is working as expected now. Do let me know if you are still seeing a problem. Harry]

[ThompsonJ]

I suppose this counts as a bug, although it’s more something that was (probably) overlooked about the design…

When the certificates are generated, if you get a gold/silver certificate, the extra line/spacing used is enough to displace the sponsorship logos onto a second page.

[Harry]

Thanks for pointing out the issue with the certificates. I will get the team to take a look.

[ThompsonJ]

I also realise that the heraldic arms used on the certificates is rather faded this year – although there are numerous 3 × 1 pixel rectangles that are clearly less faded. Unless someone is trying to use this to hide another message…!

[Becky]

I noticed in the “Account” section of the website it now says to choose the “homeschool” option if you are home educated. But when I try to do this it keeps bringing up an actual school in Wednesbury that is called “Homeschool”!! Is there a way I can say I’m home educated? At the moment have had to leave my school entry blank 🙁

[Thanks for pointing this out. I will ask the web team to rectify it. Harry]

[Update: You should find “Home schooled” listed as an option now. Thanks again, Harry]

[Attempt 2]

I think some of the frequencies of letters on the BOSS frequency analysis thing might be wrong, because letters like V and Z are 10x lower than what wikipedia says they should from what I’ve seen. Wikipedia has 0.98 for V and BOSS has roughly 0.098, and the same for some other letters. We spent ages assuming V and X must be padding characters due to the low percentages shown on the BOSS tool, when it is actually reasonable they could occur without being added.
[I don’t think the BOSS Frequency counter is wrong, but if you email me screenshots then I can take a look, Harry]

[Cyvann]

The deadlines for 10B are incorrect; the 300 point bracket | 16/12/2022 12:00pm -> 16/12/2022 11:00pm | has the end time before the start time.

[You nearly got me there! As we all know, midday (12pm) precedes 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, … 11pm. Nice try though. Harry]

[madness]

In the historical case files, links to 2020SE are broken. There may be more broken links, but I didn’t check.
The symptom is an error establishing link to database.

[Thanks Madness. The BOSS computer has been borrowed by the Elves to compute Santa’s delivery schedule. It’s a fairly hefty travelling salesman problem so there isn’t much power left to power the archive. Harry]

[Mattyrat2027]

I notice the links to previous challenges (e.g. https://2021.cipherchallenge.org/) are not working, instead saying ‘Error establishing secure database connection’.

[Thanks, see the reply to Madness for the explanation. Harry]

[kford-academy]

On the subject of 10B deadlines (post #87610)…

…the 40-point bracket (last line) reads “05/01/2023 11:00pm –> 05/01/2023 11:00pm”; is this even possible?

[Thanks for catching the typo. Fixed now I think. Harry]

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