Cracking Contests

Overview As long as there have been secret codes, there have been people trying to crack them. Modern day codes are much more difficult to crack than earlier ciphers, but there has yet to be a code that couldn't be cracked with enough time and effort. Want to try your hand at cracking some codes? Follow the links below.

• RSA Laboratories hosts a series of popular cracking contests. Monetary prizes are offered to the winners. Want to try one? Check out their Questions and Answers page for information on upcoming and current cracking contests.

• Try your hand at cracking ciphers very similar to World War II ciphers at this Nova Web page.

• NTRU, authors of an encryption algorithm called NTRUEncrypt, offer a set of description challenges with monetary prizes. Find out more about the contest at their Challenges page.

• Look at the "Important Information About PGP & Encryption" page for useful information related to cracking.

• Mod-X is a game based on cracking codes - you even have to crack one before you can sign up to begin the game!

• Ma's Reversing is a game similar to Mod-X, but you can't even see the Web page without solving the first challenge.

• Find hundreds more of these types of challenges at hackergames.net.

• Some new challenge problems were announced by NTRU Cryptosystems  to stimulate interest and research into their NTRUEncrypt algorithms. Cash prizes are available for successful attempts.

Additional Links Read about how a group of XBox hackers have attempted to crack an encryption key at XBox Hackers Throw in the Towel and XBox Hackers Resume Effort. Distributed.net is a group dedicated to cracking codes. Read about how EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)  and Distributed.net cracked the 56-bit Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm in  less than 24 hours together at this CNET News.com link.