Still having trouble? It might pay to take a look at where those troublesome extra characters are appearing! There is a technique called "padding" where the cryptographer includes some extra characters which don't represent any of the letters. Sometimes these are thrown in at random (that can be pretty tough to deal with) and sometimes they are added systematically (not a good move from the security point of view, but easier to automate). In this case there are some combinations which appear quite often and that might be a hint about where to find the padding.
Good luck!
Here are the winners for Challenge 4A
The book prize goes to ST Francis Xavier 6th Form College for the entry by the team Supremacy Vol 2
The following teams each win one of our £25 prizes:
Christopher Dias, Anthony Pisarski and Riccardo Rossi from The London Oratory School
MCOL, MCOP and MMUR from Honywood - Coggeshall
Josh Cutler, connor Brooks , marshall Parr and liam Spensley from Guilsborough
Benise Aulak, Stefanie Tann and Kari Clark from Gravesend Grammar School For Girls
Jacob Baldwin and 9KE from Ermysted's Grammar School
Bryden's Brains from Dedworth Middle School
Tom from South Dartmoor Community College
Bex from Arnewood
Well done to all of you.
Here is the schedule of points for Challenge 5B. The dates and times refer to the end of the period for which the points are allocated, so to get full marks (28 points) you need to submit on or before midnight 23rd of October, to get 27 marks you need to submit before 2pm on the 24th.
28 points 24/10/08 00:00 day 1
27 points 24/10/08 14:00 day 2 morning
26 points 25/10/08 00:00 day 2 evening
25 points 25/10/08 13:00 day 3 morning
24 points 26/10/08 00:00 day 3 evening
23 points 26/10/08 13:00 day 4 morning
22 points 27/10/08 00:00 day 4 evening
21 points 27/10/08 13:00 day 5 morning
20 points 28/10/08 00:00 day 5 evening
19 points 28/10/08 13:00 day 6 morning
18 points 29/10/08 00:00 day 6 evening
17 points 29/10/08 13:00 day 7 morning
16 points 30/10/08 00:00 day 7 evening
15 points 30/10/08 13:00 day 8 morning
14 points 31/10/08 00:00 day 8 evening
13 points 31/10/08 13:00 day 9 morning
12 points 1/11/08 00:00 day 9 evening
11 points 1/11/08 13:00 day 10 morning
10 points 2/11/08 00:00 day 10 evening
9 points 2/11/08 13:00 day 11 morning
8 points 3/11/08 00:00 day 11 evening
7 points 3/11/08 13:00 day 12 morning
6 points 4/11/08 00:00 day 12 evening
5 points 4/11/08 13:00 day 13 morning
4 points 5/11/08 00:00 day 13 evening
3 points 5/11/08 13:00 day 14 morning
2 points 5/11/08 23:59 finish
Harry is fairly busy, but he is playing with Twitter, so if you want to keep up with him, you can head over to
http://twitter.com/Harrys_place
to see what he is up to.
The following have won prizes for their entries for Challenge 3 part A. Well done!
This week's book prize goes to Dame Alice Owen's School for the entry by Kolobok.
The £25 prizes go to the teams:
Emma and Emily from Wycombe High School
The Incompetents from Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Faversham
Izzy Xxx Ingham, xx Eilidh-95 Xx, Danii X, and MC Princess from Holmfirth High School
Josh Appleby, Jo Tivey and Simon Caruana from Yateley School
Tom and A-J from Needham Market Middle School
Team China from Liverpool Bluecoat School
George Day, Ben Stratford, Chelsea Mitchel, Jack Neale and Jesse Foderingham Thompson from Whitecross School
The Mighty Three from St Anne's Catholic School
We will be in touch by email to check your details. Please reply as soon as possible so we can get your prize to you. All the best,