We had to take the comments, forums and polls offline today for a while as there was an increasing amount of spam and offtopic material. We have put it back online again, but please try to keep on topic to cut down on the moderation we have to do. Thanks, Harry
As with the first round Challenge 2 part B carries points for speed. Accuracy is more important so don't rush it, but be as fast as you can. You have until 1pm on Friday to get full points. If you think you have made a mistake you can correct it yourself and resubmit, but bear in mind that you are not allowed to submit too often (check the rules page if you are unsure what this means). The points will work as follows:
| Start Time | End Time | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 2/10/08 15:15 | 3/10/08 13:00 | 7 |
| 3/10/08 13:00 | 4/10/08 00:00 | 6 |
| 4/10/08 00:00 | 5/10/08 00:00 | 5 |
| 5/10/08 00:00 | 6/10/08 00:00 | 4 |
| 6/10/08 00:00 | 7/10/08 00:00 | 3 |
| 7/10/08 00:00 | 8/10/08 00:00 | 2 |
| 8/10/08 00:00 | 8/10/08 23:59 | 1 |
| 8/10/08 23:59 | 9/10/08 15:15 | 0 |
You can get feedback on your submissions at the feedback page
http://www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk/feedback.php
which is also linked from the Leader Boards.
In general we delay feedback until after the next points boundary so if you wait for the feedback rather than correct your own mistakes you will lose points, but for Challenge 1 we have started the feedback early so you can still get full marks for Challenge 1 even though we are giving you a hint.
This should be better than the old email feedback system as it does not rely on the emails getting through. To be clear there is no email feedback this year.
Several questions have been asked about spelling in the texts. You should always decrypt the text that is there, not what you think we might have meant. So if there is a spelling error in the text leave it in.
The speed points for Challenge 1 part B work as follows. We will take your most accurate solution to this part of the Challenge, work out when you submitted it and give you points according to that time using the following table
Accuracy counts more than speed, but both are important. You can read more about this in the Rules page. Good luck,
| start time | end time | points |
|---|---|---|
| 25/9/08 15:15 | 26/9/08 00:00 | 5 points |
| 26/9/08 00:00 | 27/9/08 00:00 | 5 points |
| 27/9/08 00:00 | 28/9/08 00:00 | 4 points |
| 28/9/08 00:00 | 29/9/08 00:00 | 3 points |
| 29/9/08 00:00 | 30/9/08 00:00 | 2 points |
| 30/9/08 00:00 | 1/10/08 23:59 | 1 point |