Today, while I was getting deeper into things on how crypto wallets work, one idea came to mind.
So I decided to give it a publicity, in the form of small challenge, a quiz.
What you would do, if one day you find on a street an old scratched wallet, with no documents inside, just a few currency notes, and a piece of paper?
Just like this:
We all have heard of "paper wallets" for crypto, right?
Doesn't it look like an encrypted info with a public ETH address? Ethereum paper wallet?
Well, maybe not in the most smart form, but...you know, not every rich man is very smart. 😃
If you understand this, it would not take long for you to go online, and check that particular ETH address.
And what you do, if (if!) indeed you see in that address lying 900 ETH?
Or $1.2M USD, by todays ETH prices.
If you ever learned how the paper wallets and HD wallets work, chances are you already recognized the pattern.
How long it will take for you to figure out the exact "PRIVATE KEY" of this address?
So here is the task:
First comment author, who will post a correct "PRIVATE KEY" of this ETH address, will get a prize from me - 20 LEO (staked directly into your account). Along with the answer - please tell us also how long it took for you get your answer.
For your convenience, besides the picture, here is also these two strings in plain text:
0x1E07018Ff906F03f9e0A0Dab894b1EcC3424742f
001 01010111000 10011100011 10100101010
11001110111 01100101000 10011100001 00011001111
10001000010 10100010001 11011001101 01011101001
11010101001 10100011011 01001111100 01111101010
00110101011 01000001100 11111000000 00110001011
11110111111 10110001000 01110101000 01110110111
If no right answer will be received in next 7 days, the most close, or most interesting, (or funny) reply will get a 5 Leo encouragement reward.
Spoiler:
Nothing very complex or sophisticated is required. Just right understanding, and copy-paste three times.
Well, maybe four - the last one will be required for sending the reply here on LeoFinance.
P.S.
To help you to easy verify, if your answer is a true and valid ETH key, here is another small spoiler:
The required privkey starts with characters "0x...." and ends with string ".....893fb600"
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0x610c8b06eac7fbd9aeb88b500fd6892b038cc60fc40e9381184130e6893fb600
I learnt a lot in the process 😊 Took about 2 hours total, but about 20 minutes once I realised what the binary actually is.
I've reposted because I edited my original post, I don't want someone to guess and it to look like I've copied.
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OK, great, Perfecta-menta!
this is exactly what I was expecting to see.
Your 44 LEO prize has been delivered to your account, powered-up:
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Thank you very much. Very well thought out challenge.
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Soon I will have another, separate post, explaining in detail how it could be foundn the shortest time, and why such format is NOT a secure "paper wallet" 😃
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nice - i figured out the bip39 part - but the tool i was using (https://iancoleman.io/bip39/) wasnt giving me the right keys , grrrr.
what tool did you use ???
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this (https://iancoleman.io/bip39/) was exactly what I was using, when creating this quiz. Wait for my detailed post
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grrrr, well i know that i got close at least - i tried changing #of words and a couple other settings
that was a good learning experience
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I used the same tool as you. Did you flip the "binary?"
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Congrats !
I used the tool too but never figured out to get the right key.
What do you mean by flip the binary ? Just take it from last to first instead ?
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yeah - the binary should be in reverse
leave all the other options default
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Really good job !
Didn't think to reverse for a second haha
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aww crap - that was it - i tried that but had changed some of the other settings and it wasnt on the default LOL
I was pretty close
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I was never good with numbers.. good luck to the winner lol
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I am to blond sorry
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lol :)
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It’s true and to make sure i can use it to my advantage I die it even blonder 😃
yeah it's difficult to say no to a pretty blonde, poor husband :P
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So what, no more attempts? 😃
Are you all waiting for the prize to be doubled?
P.S.
My self-upvote on this is only for better visibility. Will remove it later on
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Great contest and you've got me with this one. My brain is on pause for the moment and I couldn't decipher it. But will follow it up to see how it unfolds.
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Yeah, it seems interesting. Maybe I will not have to start increasing my rewards prize after 4 or 5 days, how this happened on one of my other contests on APPICS
This:
https://steempeak.com/hive-142013/@onealfa.appics/appics-v1-appics-im-295404
and this:
https://steempeak.com/hive-142013/@onealfa.appics/appics-v1-appics-im-297257
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I'll give it a shot
almost there
crap....
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I might be wrong...
2a e2 71 d2 ac ee ca 27 08 cf 88 54 47 66 ae 9d 53 46 d3 e3 ea 35 68 33 e0 18 bf 7f 62 1d 43 b7
It took me about 5 minutes to decide between HEX and DECIMAL. Other than that, it was just searching for a translator....
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starting with 2, it certainly look wrong.
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Nice game you are offering here. I guess I'll sit this one out as i would never access any wallet that is not mine :) I'll watch from the sideline :)
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This is just a game. Your are NOT accessing anybody's wallet. 😃
Just trying to win 20 LEO
and... If it really would happen...no ID, no docs inside...what you do?
Give announcement on local TV ? You will get hundreds of responses :)
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I know it's just a game :)
Why do you think that?
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If you would want to return this "paper wallet" to the owner, how on earth you could find him?
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Not by giving an announcement on TV anyway. That would be the end of my quiet life and pointless anyway.
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Mathematics was never my friend in school😂
Let's not look for my brain's trouble this night.
All the best to every participants ready to crack and disturb their brain :)
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No much mathematics is needed here.
Just a simple COPY-PASTE actions with your mouse. And yes, to know at least something what is private-key, HD wallet, and how it works.
At least - we all deal with cryptos here every day, right ?
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12b84e352a6773284e1cf4425196cd2e96a951b27c3ea1ab20c7c018b7bf5883a83b7
Don't ask me why I did it and how I did it. Don't ask me If I want 20 Leo or those precious 17 minutes more. Don't ask me If I see 00000111100111001111111 everwhere on the screen or on my wall. Don't ask me how I stumbled upon this post and don't ever ask me why I thought this was a cool challenge to reply to. Don't ask me what paper wallet is and what private key is :D :(
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There is more to this and I just can't put my finger on it. Most binary numbers are only 8 digits so I think it is something more than that. A direct ASCII conversion doesn't seem right either because it is much too long for a private address and you said that it should only require copying and pasting three times. I am not giving up, but I feel I am running out of time. It seems like it should be fairly simple and I have no doubt someone else will get it before me. Especially since I have a half hour drive ahead of me to get home from work!
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Don't rush. Drive safely. I think you have time.
I expect the answer in 1-2 days. No right reply as of yet, anyway
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Thanks, I appreciate it!
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Okay, here we go.
0x8db028d2fd8ad40d07968a26033de0cbe5c002ab
I don't feel like this is right but I used a binary converter to get the hash then I used that with the public key to calculate the private key.
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An interesting competition. My answer is 001
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001? An interesting try. 😃
Remember - the answer must be a VALID, working Ethereum private key
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I just wrote the wrong thing (confused 1 with 7th). answer 007 (agent 007)
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2B84E352A6773284E10CF4425116CD2E96A951B27C3EA1AB20C7C018B7BF5883A83B7
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I don't think it is even a valid ETH private key
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I already realized that I got 5 extra characters
I Will never found this.
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well, i won't be getting that $1.2 mil
the 001 in the front of first binary line is throwing me off
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VxPCjsKVZ3ZROEZ8QsKiOzV0w6rCmjbCnx9RwqtBwp8Aw4XDu8O7EMOqHcK4 i got this, not even sure how :D but i think rmsadkri is right, as he has the number of characters right :D
now looking i think he has more letters than needed. so probably non of us are right :D
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NOPE. No right answer yet
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i did get a 64 character one but it has / and = in it. i get it if i use 001 and not throw it out as just a number.
KsOiccOSwqzDrsOKJwjDj8KIVEdmwq7CnVNGw5PDo8OqNWgzw6AYwr9/Yh1Dwrc=
so i am doing something wrong, and i think i don't know what :D
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Yes, Your answer is WRONG
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ugh, i know how to do it, but i did not used binary in decades, so i let some other bright guy or girl. It starts 1 696 1251 and so on. 1 IS 1 ..while higher numbers can be numbers or letters. Come on, now is easy :P Just put it back in hexa and it is almost done.
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You will be surprised, how much different, and how easy it all is
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This is beyond me. Might just go down the rabbit hole of understanding how crypto wallet works
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Booom 🔥
Error 404 😂
My brain out of capacity😅
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my google skills are failing me, sry cant do
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Maybe you are googling for a wrong things.
Again, it is all about HD wallets
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I tried but i'm not really sure about the answer so i will give more than one if that's possible:
Converted the binary to base64 and then to Hex SHA-256 (A valid private key is 256bit blob, which it's 64 characters) :
d9f4e2ab13a72819a235375934cb5cb48b2a52df8ff363568fedfb2ac3bb8f5d
Converted the binary to base32 and then to Hex SHA-256 and got this:
701e0cb0c376951cd6cc90674d94b5c23439fae94caa1c9ecddcc89300e08ef5
But i still have a question like why there's "001" 3bit binary and others are 11bit binary code?
Example of valid private keys Found here
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*âqÒ¬îÊ'ÏTGf®SFÓãê5h3à¿bC
I think is this one pops, I'll edit if it's not.
Edit 1: I don't know what the hell am I doing.
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i will believe in the rest of the community to find the answer while i will be sitting back and eating some popcorns :P
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I tried different ways but didn't come up with any words as the code might be the secret phrase. Or it might not. I'm done for now. Will wait for an explanation.
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No, there is no secret codes involved.
All information needed to figure out the final answer - is given in my post's picture, in that lost piece of paper.
It is all easy and simple, if you are familiar with how HD wallets work.
Be it me, who finds such "paper wallet" , it's $1.2 M would be gone in 1-2 minutes. Depends on how high is GAS price of ETH on that moment
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0x4766AE9D5346D3E3EA356833E018BF7F621D43B7
About 3 or 4 copy/pastes, fairly simply arrived at but dunno if right :)
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Your answer is WRONG
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Definitely a good problem to have.
Me do not like problem.
Let's see who get it right.
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Congratulations @onealfa! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
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STOPI think I know the answer.
First can you share me your HIVE masterkey via hive memo ?
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Did you got any of those before ? 😃
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I didn't get anyone's private keys yet. But I have gave my private key away and lost 12k $LINK tokens in October 2017 and got scammed.
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Cool quizz! Unfortunately I'm too new to the whole blockchain thing to even know how to start! I might have to wait until the next one!
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Interesting! I sit on it!
Ok... the sequence of 0s and 1s is actually 256 long, so it is a 32 byte or 64 hex numbers strings. I was thinking about a funny string hidden into a binary form, but taking the bits 8 by 8, there is no meaningful answer.
I've rewritten them 8 by 8 as:
00101010 11100010 01110001 11010010 10101100
11101110 11001010 00100111 00001000 11001111
10001000 01010100 01000111 01100110 10101110
10011101 01010011 01000110 11010011 11100011
11101010 00110101 01101000 00110011 11100000
00011000 10111111 01111111 01100010 00011101
01000011 10110111
Now, don't let me check one by one their HEX equivalent... but this should be the key!
Ps: 0x means that the following string is an hex number.
The eth adress is actually empty, as per ethscan:
https://etherscan.io/address/0x1E07018Ff906F03f9e0A0Dab894b1EcC3424742f
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Your answer is WRONG
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@onealfa
Idk if anyone did post this!
Wallet Address
0x1E07018Ff906F03f9e0A0Dab894b1EcC3424742fb
Private Key
2AE271D2ACEECA2708CF88544766AE9D5346D3E3EA356833E018BF7F621D43B7
I converted Binary code to Hex!
Copied and pasted.
Wallet address in Ethscan shows a 0$ balance tho' 😂
I used the private key in metamask and I was able to import it! But still it's value it's still zero 😂
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Sure it's balance is zero.
You do not expected to find there 900 ETH, did you? 😃
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Hahah no I didn't! But expected another kind of troll or another hint!
So did I get it right?
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I don't think so.
While your version
seem to be also a valid ETH private key, it leads to a totally different ETH pub address, which is
0x9394230666cdcEB91ED10862bA87840c1751Ee6b
I have verified this in Metamask and MyEtherWallet, and both of them gave me the same result:
As you may imagine, one PUB address can not have more than ONE private-key,
while at the same time - ONE private-key does not control more than just ONE Public address.
So, the Quiz task remains unsolved.
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A private key can control many public addresses.
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Many? How many?
Any source to backup this statement?
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Multiple public keys hash to the same public address, as the public address consists of a suffix of the hashed public key.
Wallets for various coins provide you a list of public addresses all of them derived from the private key, in order for you to preserve your privacy. e.g. You use one public address only once, then for a different txn you use another.
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2AE271D2ACEECA2708CF88544766AE9D5346D3E3EA356833E018BF7F621D43B7
Please don't ask me how I got this lol.
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Your answer is WRONG
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I'm lame, I don't understand why I reach the wallet 0x9394230666cdcEB91ED10862bA87840c1751Ee6b instead of the one in the riddle :D
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Your answer is WRONG
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Great idea :D
To help you to easy verify, if your answer is a true and valid ETH key, here is another small spoiler:
The required privkey starts with characters "0x...." and ends with string ".....893fb600"
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or rather begins with 0x... has string "...500fd6892..." in the middle, and ends with ".....893fb600"
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With all the respect you deserve:
I have not seen Private Keys that begins with "0x".
Wallets do start with "0x" but Private Keys do not.
Maybe I'm wrong.
You must look to DEX exchanges. Some of them do use 0x before priv key (IDEX.io)...
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mmm... I don't think so.
Remember, it's an ETH Wallet that we are talking about.
Love this kind of thing and also when you say your answer is WRONG with all the calculations on the comment above. If it is so easy then it just shows we have no clue and would need help if this happened to us. Still cant believe 900 Eth is $1.2 Million now.
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I'm not very good with numbers, so... Haha!
Anyway... It's a nice challenge, @onealfa.
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🤣🤣🤣
You made me try a few different things since a direct translation from binary to HEX doesn't seem to provide the correct answer (see also a few comments to this post).
Therefore I think the binary contains a little trick. This little trick can be anything, from writing the binary in reverse and then convert to HEX, adding a zero to each grouped row, and remove some digit at eg the right side, or the start of the series, or end. Read the series from the bottom down per row, and so many more or less easy to remember manipulations.
The reverse one I tried but didn't provide the correct answer. Result: EDC2B846FEFD1807CC16AC57C7CB62CAB97566E22A11F310E45377354B8E4754
Grouping not from left to right and top to bottom, but from top to bottom per row, and then from left to right, gives this result: 39DE216A9357EFD5C328A2346D065889C738766A7CF80EA2950CF5D2FA8C5BB7 - again not according to your spoiler.
To investigate if other suggested tricks provide the correct answers, I leave that to the wider community :) Now, in case the address would indeed have the 900 Eth, I probably would've spend the night without sleep and trying to get to the answer, but now am a little too lazy to dig further 🤣🤣🤣
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I think the right answer is given already here, still I will try a few things tomorrow because this is interesting. Very interesting, and a good opportunity to learn something more about crypto. And this only shows that many of us have much to learn ... Including me.
Thank you for bringing this up @onealfa
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0x1E07018Ff906F03f9e0A0Dab894b1EcC3424742f14characters14893fb600
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Yes this is a PUB address, where 900 might be hiden.
It was published in my original post
But, the task is - to find a corresponding PRIVATE KEY to this ETH address.
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This looks like fun. No idea how to solve it but I will show it to my son and see if he wants a go. He likes stuff like this but doesn't know crypto or wallets so maybe won't be able to do it.
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Is this not a good reason to go and learn a bit more about HD wallets ? 😃
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Nice and fun quiz game but I can't solve it .. Not too good with all this stuff.. Looking forward to the right answer btw. Thanks.
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Yes, the answer will come once my post expires, after 5 more days
I will make a separate post on that, and you all will be surprised how simple and basic this task was ( provided you ever interested deep enough in crypto, and how the HD and hardware wallets work
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I got it :-)
0x3456897dfa452346978ef2354613abbc32664987465546987cde4413893fb600
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This is not right. Have you seen my last helping spoiler...at the very end?
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This is a lot of fun @onealfa. I think it's a great challenge. I'm reading to see if I can do something about it. :)
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Congratulations
Awesome contest. it would be fun to figure that out but first i need to study somethings. See you back when i get the answer. Thanks
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