How to set up a treasure map? | Bitcointalksearch.org

tholenst

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Quote from: shamoons on October 17, 2013, 09:12:59 AM

I'm imagining a series of clues (think National Treasure), but not too obvious. If it's to be a world-wide hunt, it must therefore be difficult to crack. I don't want to hide the private key on a website or anything, but rather have the pieces be freely found in the public. So perhaps

Code:

E9

could represent the 233rd page of some book and so on.

Would love feedback and ideas.

Why not ask in a geocaching forum? They are experts in creating treasure hunts.

zimmah

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one way to give people more chance and to avoid someone cracking it near instantly (and also give more people a chance of participating) is by giving several hints at several times.

for example one hint every week.

StarfishPrime

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Quote from: shamoons on November 29, 2013, 12:24:51 PM

Any other ideas on this?

Instead of using hexadecimal fragments parts of the actual private key, you could use a bunch of words, numbers, phrases, etc strung together as a password for an encrypted key (using the BIP38 encrytion available for many paper wallets).

You could also have a sequence of 'prizes' that could only be claimed in sequence since a portion of previous key could also be used as part of the passphrase to the next one:

password = "test 1234 word 5A23d ..." etc

edit: Someone already suggested using a 'brain wallet' phrase, but BIP38 would be significantly more resistant to password cracking attempts.

Kouye

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Cuddling, censored, unicorn-shaped troll.

What exactly do you mean by a treasure map?
A riddle book such as https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-clock-without-a-face?

My advice would be to make a first attempt at a national one, and craft a real treasure hunt pointing to a location where the private key is buried. This will solve both the brute-force issue raised by grue and the riddle=>private key conversion.

shamoons

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Either, both. Local cache, online treasure map - whatever.

rarkenin

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Quote from: Elwar on October 22, 2013, 02:51:56 AM

One clue could include geocaching...where you place the clue somewhere and provide hints on how to get there.

That's too preferential for a given geographic region--good for a close group of friends or a town council, not for the bitcoin community. Or are you speaking of an online "cache" of sorts?

shamoons

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Any other ideas on this?

Buffer Overflow

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Quote from: Taras on October 17, 2013, 08:24:09 PM

1,000 bitcoins? That's enough to feed 70,000 people for a week.

The Bitcoins aren't destroyed after being spent.

Elwar

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Viva Ut Vivas

One clue could include geocaching...where you place the clue somewhere and provide hints on how to get there.

shamoons

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Quote from: phirex on October 19, 2013, 05:48:02 AM

just an idea i have
take a picture of a wall in some parking lot preferably with some graffiti on it, and the parking spot above it "2D" will be one of the strings..
you could then hint with the city it was taken ....
that's of course not fair for everyone who lives far or in a different country...

That's actually a pretty great idea!

Dabs

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The Concierge of Crypto

If it's a treasure map, you want people to actually go to the first physical location, then get a clue for the next location.

If you're not making odd riddles, you could simplify it by just putting GPS coordinates, sort of like geocaching.

phirex

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just an idea i have
take a picture of a wall in some parking lot preferably with some graffiti on it, and the parking spot above it "2D" will be one of the strings..
you could then hint with the city it was taken ....
that's of course not fair for everyone who lives far or in a different country...

shamoons

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So how do I make it extremely challenging, but not impossible? If the bounty is large, presumably a lot of people would try to solve it. It can't be simple questions and answers.

Noitev

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The Last NXT Founder

Quote from: shamoons on October 18, 2013, 05:59:01 PM

Quote from: MatthewLM on October 18, 2013, 10:27:03 AM

Quote from: grue on October 17, 2013, 11:04:01 AM

have you considered using Shamir's Secret Sharing so a person with enough pieces can't bruteforce the rest?

A simple way is that maybe the private key could be derived by a hash of many pieces of data, where each are long enough so that you would need all of them to practically compute the private key. And then you could have arbitrary amounts of data as well.

Also the clues could be clues to find the next clue, which ends by finding the entire private key.

That's interesting. So the first clue would be something like "Who is John Galt?", the answer to which might be "The man who stopped the motor of the world." And if you concatenate those strings, SHA256 it, there's your private key. Something like that?

Yeah, or you can do what a few others have and just build a brainwallet string of words/ sentence.

shamoons

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Quote from: MatthewLM on October 18, 2013, 10:27:03 AM

Quote from: grue on October 17, 2013, 11:04:01 AM

have you considered using Shamir's Secret Sharing so a person with enough pieces can't bruteforce the rest?

A simple way is that maybe the private key could be derived by a hash of many pieces of data, where each are long enough so that you would need all of them to practically compute the private key. And then you could have arbitrary amounts of data as well.

Also the clues could be clues to find the next clue, which ends by finding the entire private key.

That's interesting. So the first clue would be something like "Who is John Galt?", the answer to which might be "The man who stopped the motor of the world." And if you concatenate those strings, SHA256 it, there's your private key. Something like that?

MatthewLM

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Quote from: grue on October 17, 2013, 11:04:01 AM

have you considered using Shamir's Secret Sharing so a person with enough pieces can't bruteforce the rest?

A simple way is that maybe the private key could be derived by a hash of many pieces of data, where each are long enough so that you would need all of them to practically compute the private key. And then you could have arbitrary amounts of data as well.

Also the clues could be clues to find the next clue, which ends by finding the entire private key.

shamoons

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Quote from: Taras on October 17, 2013, 08:24:09 PM

1,000 bitcoins? That's enough to feed 70,000 people for a week.

I guess I'm asking more for ideas on how to construct the treasure map rather than how much the bounty should be.

Taras

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Please do not PM me loan requests!

1,000 bitcoins? That's enough to feed 70,000 people for a week.

shamoons

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Quote from: coinslut on October 17, 2013, 10:59:42 AM

Kinda cool, make it extremely challenging though or someone will get it too quickly. Might want to look into "A Treasure's Trove" and books of that sort for the basics. Also 1 btc seems low for a worldwide hunt, but I guess for some it isn't about the money but the thrill of solving the puzzles.

Thats the question... How do I make it challenging? And the prize would probably be 1,000 bitcoins

grue

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have you considered using Shamir's Secret Sharing so a person with enough pieces can't bruteforce the rest?

Topic: How to set up a treasure map? (Read 3354 times)