I didn't solve all the riddles, but I didn't really do anything like brute-forcing either.
- I solved #2.
- meta.p02 posted the solution to #5, although I'm familiar with Caesar cyphers and don't think that one would have stumped me
#2 and #5 game two names that fit into your meta-puzzle (second[] = "mates"), leaving the letters "m", "t", and "s" to be matched to usernames. "m" would not fit many users and a single well-known name came to mind; "t" went the same way. That left "s". I couldn't think of any names I knew that'd fit "s" so I went to the members list, sorted it by post count, compiled a list of the first several pages, and regex searched it for usernames matching "s"; I was honestly kind of shocked that my strategy worked so well when the second passphrase I tried produced the keys.
- I solved #2.
- meta.p02 posted the solution to #5, although I'm familiar with Caesar cyphers and don't think that one would have stumped me
#2 and #5 game two names that fit into your meta-puzzle (second[] = "mates"), leaving the letters "m", "t", and "s" to be matched to usernames. "m" would not fit many users and a single well-known name came to mind; "t" went the same way. That left "s". I couldn't think of any names I knew that'd fit "s" so I went to the members list, sorted it by post count, compiled a list of the first several pages, and regex searched it for usernames matching "s"; I was honestly kind of shocked that my strategy worked so well when the second passphrase I tried produced the keys.
Thanks for the report and congratulations
I'll make sure in the next set that you can't deduce the whole solution with just 2/5 riddles solved, I guess... Still improving!
For the record, the "s" one was escrow.ms, which I promised to include in this set as he was really kind and rewarded the "sherlocks who didn't make it" from the first set.
