DarkBlizz

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1553/1

QuoteHowever, it is virtually guaranteed that a powerful geomagnetic storm, capable of knocking out a significant section of the US electrical grid, will occur within the next few decades. In fact, this may well happen even within next few years as we approach the next period of elevated solar activity, known as "solar maximum", which is forecast to peak in 2013.

QuoteThe possible extent of a power system collapse from a 4800 nT/min geomagnetic storm (centered at 50° geomagnetic latitude) is shown in Figure 2. Similar levels—10 times those experienced during the March 1989 storm—were reached during the great magnetic storm of May 14–15, 1921. A nuclear weapon would need to be a ~multi-megaton size to cause the equivalent E3 damage [15].

Figure 2:

So I got really bored and decided to check this site out, I was initially very skeptical about having anything to do with this site.
Well, it turns out this site is pretty neat. You can pass a series of staged tests in order to gain points and get to new levels.

One level in particular that I would like to discuss involves very basic cryptography. This is level 6, where you are given an encrypted string, the generator, and an input to enter the decrypted string.

Now, in order to pass this level you have to understand what it's doing in the first place.

Try entering something simple like "1111".
You'll see it displays "1234".

This is a common method when testing types of encryption, you'll be able to spot consistencies and figure them out right away. (assuming they are simple. ROT13 uses a similar method.)

Now, you can probably already tell what it's doing to encrypt strings. Increasing each succeeding character by its index in the string.

Now, in order to decrypt this encryption, you obviously have to do the reverse. Just subtract the ascii character by that of its index in the string.


Below is an AutoIt script I wrote specifically for this level.

Global $string = "string", $x = StringLen($string), $buffer = "", $i=0, $leng=0
do
    $i+=1
    $char = StringMid($string, $i, 1)  ;select each char and parse it
    $asc = Asc($char) ;get the current ascii code
    $new = chr($asc-$leng) ;increase it by the index we are at
    $buffer=$buffer&$new ;apply the new character to the buffer
    $leng+=1
until $leng=$x

ConsoleWrite("Decrypted: " & $buffer & @CRLF)


Enjoy! If you're interested in AutoIt there are a few things that could be done better with this code, Feel free to play around with it.

Hello, I was recently strolling along the internet and stumbled into your site.
It has a very unique feel, and looks nice. But, enough about my ass-kissing.

My real name is Kevin, and i'm currently apart of clan null on USWest. Most of my time is spent working on websites, or playing Diablo II/StarCraft. I can be found on *Glyph89@USEast, or *Glyph13@USEast. On USWest my aka is Glyph89. I'm always up for a game of D2, and possibly StarCraft. I'm not very good at StarCraft, but I still find it fun. Let me know if you're ever up for a game. >

It's been quite a while since the they first announced the new patch (april -.-), I have great expectations for the patch. If something took this long, wouldn't you? Lots of changes will be put in place and I look forward to it. I say let them take their time, Blizzard has always been about better quality games.