Spoiler: April Fool's Posts

wired · Post by **wired** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:10 am

I enjoyed the brief challenge this morning to decode the board. If I were a more experienced computer programmer, I'd code something that could decode the board with the following key I figured out.

WARNING: Do NOT read if you want to figure the code out on your own. It's relatively easy once you get started.

Ignore casing, I was a little trigger happy on the shift key this morning.
A-n
B-O
C-p
D-Q
E-r
F-S
G-T
H-u
I-V
j-W
k-x
l-y
m-z
n-a
o-b
p-c
q-d
r-e
s-F
t-G
u-h
v-I
w-J
x-k
y-l
z-m

OptimusPrime · Post by **OptimusPrime** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:29 am

I thought about writing something that would translate the whole page, formatting and all, but hosting it somewhere would probably give away my identity, so here's a simple solution. Copy paste this into a file and save it as an html file to "decrypt" the posts. As wired already showed, it's a simple substitution cypher, and just a shifted one at that.

<html>
<head>
<title>100 Hour Board April Fool's Decrypter</title>

<script type="text/javascript">
function convertText(text) {
var i=0;
var newText = "";
while (i<text.length) {
var c = text;
var n = c.charCodeAt(0);
if (c == '&' && text.substr(i,6)=="&aofc;")
{
newText += " ";
i+=6;
}
else if (n>=65 && n<=90) {
n = n - 13
if (n<65) {
n = 91 - (65-n);
}
newText += String.fromCharCode(n);
}
else if (n>=97 && n<=122) {
n = n - 13
if (n<97) {
n = 123 - (97-n);
}
newText += String.fromCharCode(n);
}
else {
newText += c;
}
i++;
}
document.getElementById("outputbox").value = newText;
}
</script>

</head>

<body>
Input:<br/>
<textarea name="inputbox" id="inputbox" rows="10" cols="100" ></textarea>
<br/>
<input type="button" id="gobutton" value="Decrypt" onclick="javascript: convertText(inputbox.value);">
<br/>
Output:<br/>
<textarea name="outputbox" id="outputbox" rows="50" cols="100" ></textarea>
</body>
</html>

chillygator · Post by **chillygator** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:45 am

Some of us just clicked the "April 1" date and read it normally without even bothering to crack it (o: I guess I'm just less nerdy that way (o:

Post by **bobtheenchantedone** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:01 am

I clicked "April 1" to read it, but I did figure out the code before doing that.

Yarjka · Post by **Yarjka** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:16 am

And some of us (myself) didn't even realize it was an April Fool's Day joke, even after clicking the April 01 date to read it ...

Sort of like last night when I was halfway through reading Sonnets from the Portuguese when I realized they were sonnets ...

Some people are too easy to fool.