This is the final cache of a series of caches inspired by The Code Book:The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography written by Simon Singh in 1999. One of the chapters revealed a Cipher Challenge. The challenge consisted of solving 10 progressively harder codes with a cash prize of £10,000. The first person who could prove to the author that he had broke all 10 ciphers was awarded the prize. It took a group of Swedish students over a year to break all 10 ciphers and give the secret words to the author to prove that they had broken the code.
I hope it does not take over a year for someone to break all 10 of these codes. Collusion is permitted in solving these puzzles. As inspired by The Code Book, there is a cash prize for the first to solve all 10 puzzles.
Here are the rules of the game:
1. You must have a "Woo Hoo" from Homer for all 10 puzzles to qualify for the prize.
2. You must sign all 10 logs to qualify for the prize. (Sorry no virtual finds).
3. You may contact me to let me know you are the first to go for the final puzzle, I would like to meet you there if it is at all possible, but I do not have to be there for you to claim FTF.
4. The first to have 10 finds verified will receive a cash reward of $50.00 to be awarded soon after the FTF occurs. If collusion is involved in solving the puzzles it is the responsibility of the solvers to determine how to divide the money. I will award the money to the first to sign the log of all 10 caches.
5. If you cannot find one of the caches in this series, post a DNF and I will verify that the cache is still there as soon as possible, usually within a week. I will post a public note on the cache if it is still there or not.
6. This series is about the puzzles, so these will not be typical of my caches. There will be little bushwacking involved, but they will be unlikely to be muggled.
7. All caches are located in Tarrant County. They will be placed in my "The Code Book" bookmark as they are published.
8. Posting a code from inside the cache in an online log will get your log deleted and you disqualified from the prize.
Now for the final puzzle. As you find the other 9 caches in this series, be sure to record the code found on the log sheet Certitude Checker. DO NOT INCLUDE THESE CODES IN YOUR LOG. They will enable you to decrypt this final puzzle. Use the codes from the previous puzzles to solve this one.
7F
|
12
|
2A
|
25
|
02
|
27
|
56
|
5E
|
4D
|
0C
|
21
|
4A
|
07
|
17
|
0F
|
0A
|
5F
|
2A
|
3C
|
0D
|
0C
|
57
|
51
|
26
|
2D
|
5F
|
5A
|
32
|
4B
|
4A
|
09
|
20
|
57
|
2F
|
21
|
01
|
4F
|
24
|
05
|
49
|
19
|
26
|
0B
|
1C
|
27
|
44
|
20
|
3F
|
2F
|
4E
|
0C
|
39
|
5F
|
16
|
54
|
58
|
49
|
43
|
2D
|
2E
|
3B
|
2B
|
3D
|
2C
|
3B
|
2F
|
17
|
53
|
20
|
10
|
26
|
6A
|
49
|
48
|
5B
|
11
|
49
|
07
|
17
|
46
|
2F
|
30
|
59
|
07
|
14
|
3B
|
09
|
4A
|
5D
|
41
|
You may require freely available tools to solve this series of puzzles! As the cache owner, I represent that these tools are safe although they have not been checked by Groundspeak or by the reviewer for possible malicious content. Use of these tools are at your own risk.
Difficulty is for the series. This cache has a terrain difficulty of 1.5
Congrats BigKahunaTX, AggieMD & Quadwrays on co-FTF!!!
Congrats BigKahunaTX on FTS!
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
This cache was adopted by Lotus, me, in June 2019. This series has a very special place in my heart. I had hidden and solved many puzzles prior to The Code Book; however, this series was my first true deep dive into ciphers. It opened many doors for me, in terms of how I thought about designing puzzles and also in steps I now take to solve them. It is an honor for me to adopt this series as I want to ensure its longevity.