Tag: otp

Radio Free Redoubt: 2022 Young Partisan OTP Contest

Radio Free Redoubt recently announced this year’s OTP contest:

YOUNG PARTISANS!  (17 AND YOUNGER) GET READY!

WIN AN OFFICIAL CHRISTMAS STORY COLLECTOR EDITION, 200-SHOT, LEVER-ACTION, REPEATER AIR RIFLE, WITH A COMPASS IN THE STOCK, AND THIS THING WHICH TELLS TIME, FROM THE DAISY MUSEUM!

INCLUDING CUSTOM RADIO FREE REDOUBT LASER ENGRAVING!

We are gearing up for the annual Young Partisan Red Ryder BB Gun Giveaway! (17 yrs old & under) Be sure to listen to the John Jacob Schmidt Show this coming Sunday evening, Dec, 11th, at 8pm Pacific (or the uploaded podcast the following morning) for your chance to enter the drawing!

PLUS, PRIZES FOR 2ND AND 3RD PLACE RUNNER UPS!

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INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. PRACTICE USING OTPs (instructions and resources linked below in this posting)
  2. Listen to the weekly RFR podcast live, Sunday evening, December 11th, or the RFR Podcast on Podbean uploaded on Monday.   Write down the numbers read by Lady Liberty during the show.
  3. Use the ‘STAR‘ One Time Pad to decrypt the numbers read by Lady Liberty in the radio show.
  4. Use the Conversion Chart (below) to convert the decrypted numbers into letters, revealing the secret message.
  5. The secret message that you will decode IS the password to open the 2022 OTP Christmas Red Ryder Contest Page.  Follow the instructions!  You’ll have SIX WHOLE DAYS to work on decrypting the secret message and getting your entry submitted.  Entries must be received by Saturday, December 17th, midnight (Pacific Time).
  6.  Tune in to the John Jacob Schmidt show (Sunday, December 18th) on Radio Free Redoubt to see if you’re one of the winners!

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THIS YEAR’S CHRISTMAS ONE TIME PAD (OTP) CONTEST INVOLVES LETTERS AND AT LEAST ONE SPECIAL CHARACTER.

(Scroll down in this posting for practice exercises and One Time Pad encryption resources.)

The 2022 One Time Pad, titled ‘STAR‘, is required to decrypt this year’s secret message.  Save it in a secret place!

Remember, you have to ADD to decode the message.

CONVERSION TABLE YOU WILL NEED FOR THIS YEAR’S CONTEST

Once you correctly add the secret message numbers to the STAR One Time Pad, you will have a set of numbers that you will then need to convert into a message that you can read.  You will need the Conversion Table below to convert those numbers to readable characters.

(the conversion table is always the same)

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PRACTICE!  PRACTICE!  PRACTICE!

===== GREAT PRACTICE RESOURCES BELOW =====

The resources below are for practice only, and are separate from the specific 2021 contest instructions at the top of this posting.

Besides the practice exercise below, here is a link to the excellent 2019 practice page, so you can learn how to decode One Time Pad (OTP) encrypted messages:  https://radiofreeredoubt.com/2019/11/21/2019-young-partisan-otp-contest-primer/

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Here’s another practice exercise that should help you to get ready!

NOTE:  Numbers will not be used in this year’s decoded message, but this practice exercise shows how numbers have been included in previous contests.

Up until this point we have converted letters into numbers and then converted the numbers back to letters using the one time pads and conversion tables. There are times when you will need to send or receive numbers also. Exact numbers are important parts of the message. Times, weights, telephone numbers need to be exact. You can’t guess what the sender probably meant when it comes to numbers. Our conversion table doesn’t even have numbers on it. How do we send numbers accurately?

Numbers are sent by repeating them three times. For example if you wanted to send “123” you would send your message as “111222333” If you were to receive a message of “111222333” you would know that it was meant to be “123”.

In order to prevent confusion and errors, number strings are preceded and ended with the “figure” character which is the number 90 on the conversion table. If you wanted to encode “123” you would use the following: “9011122233390” The “90” alerts you to the fact that numbers/figures are next and when you see the other “90” you know that the numbers/figures are ending.

Let’s practice a short message by using the below One Time Pad Census and the Conversion Table. You receive the following encoded message:

93786 00207 57770 04719 08239 92214

Remember that you add to decode and you don’t carry to the next place. (6+7=3 not 13)

AmRRON: Red Ryder BB Gun OTP Contest for Young Partisans

AmRRON announces their 2020 Christmas Red Ryder contest. More info through link.

Young Partisans! Radio Free Redoubt brings you another chance to win one of TWO Red Ryder Carbine Action 600-shot  BB guns, with a compass in the Stock and this thing that tells time, just like Ralphie in the movie, ‘A Christmas Story’.

Straight from the Daisy Museum, this year’s rifles will be engraved with ‘AmRRON YOUNG PARTISAN on the receiver!  A REAL COLLECTORS EDITION!

Learn how to decode One Time Pad secret messages just like real spies do, and enter to win your very own ‘Christmas Dream’ Daisy Museum BB Gun! Must be under 18 years old (it’s an honor system!).
-John Jacob Schmidt

 

How to participate:

    1. Listen to the John Jacob Show anytime after 8pm, Sunday night December, 6th at

      Episode 20-40 Young Partisan OTP Christmas Contest – The Secret Code Numbers

    2. Write the numbers down exactly.
    3. Then, go to the posting titled, “Christmas Red Ryder 2020” for further instructions!
    4. The drawing will be held Sunday evening, December 16th on Radio Free Redoubt

Kids, you might need your parent’s help. They can assist you using the OTP–A Simplified Exercise by JJS. It will walk you through the steps for decrypting a OTP message.

 

Brushbeater: True Random Numbers How-To

NC Scout has posted an article at his Brushbeater blog from one of his readers about how to generate true random numbers (as opposed to pseudo-random numbers and non-random numbers) for one time pad (OTP) encryption – R-Pi OTP/DRYAD True Hardware RNG How-To. It is lengthy and technical, but does a pretty good job of walking you through setting it up on a Raspberry Pi computer.

There are only three ways that I know of to generate a truly random One Time Pad – for the “regular guy”: 1) The old-fashioned way with a set of dice (preferably 10-sided) and paper/pencil; 2) purchase one of AmRRON’s ADL-1 units from AmRRON.com (https://amrron.com/2018/03/18/amrron-dark-labs-otp); 3) The following method outlined in this how-to. Maybe there are others. I wanted to come up with a way for anybody to put one together with easily available components. So here it is. You shouldn’t need to procure any unobtainium to build it. (It was valid in May 2018 when I first put this together. It should be fine as Raspbian Stretch is still the current distribution.)

The script will print either numerical or alphabetic OTPs. Besides the standard OTP generating scripts, also included is a script for generating a DRYAD-type table (it does not have the formatting options of the OTP script) and a special, limited-use/audience OTP script for split keys and variants at the end of this how-to.

This how-to also includes a procedure for building an SD card from scratch purely for the production of secure OTPs. Prior to that is some helpful info for those who are interested. If you wanted to build a good OTP generator, then this is for you…

Click here to read the entire article at Brushbeater.