So back on page 20, @VirMachposted the two blocks of encoded coupons. He specified that they were the same codes in each of the blocks, just encoded with a different cipher. He also mentioned that the coupons were all equal length.
I could tell by comparing the two that the cipher applied to both appeared to match case, the numbers matched exactly, and the translation between characters in both were consistent (V -> B, R -> F, f -> r, etc). This meant it was likely a Caesar cipher/letter shift. The problem left was how long were the coupons, and how much was the shift to decode? This wasn't easy to solve, as most of the codes were invalid. It would take forever guessing which ones to try, at what length and what amount of shift.
Later on, @VirMach shared that one of the codes was "lcydP7C", but it was missing the first character. This solved the remaining two problems for me. The codes must be 8 characters each, and I was able to find one of the chunks matching this specific combination of lowercase, uppercase, and the number 7 in the 7th position.
"lcydP7C" was "0izvaM7Z" encoded in the first block, which meant the real code was "0lcydP7C".
So from this, you can easily figure out what amount of shift was required. It's a shift by 3: i -> l, z -> c, y -> v, etc.
Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
EDIT: Turns out I had accidentally included both blocks in my conversion to 8-character chunks, so at least half of my efforts trying coupons was wasted by my own mistake. @VirMach posted below, and he's correct, there were only 200 coupons, which means that exactly 5% were real coupons.
@Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
@Wonder_Woman said: Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
1600 characters total, divided by 8 per coupon = 200 codes and not 400 codes. 10/200 codes = 5%
@user123 said: @Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
@user123 said: Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Format it with the OS you want.
I got like a 2GB OS disk, and since then have just used SolusVM to re-install (so it doesn't count against anything)
@user123 said: @Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
Which OS? I think someone reported something similar earlier. Could be my fault.
@Wonder_Woman said: Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
1600 characters total, divided by 8 per coupon = 200 codes and not 400 codes. 10/200 codes = 5%
Right?
Damn, you're right. I accidentally included the second block in my conversion to codes. That explains why every code after #181 was invalid
@user123 said: @Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
Which OS? I think someone reported something similar earlier. Could be my fault.
So...it came with AlmaLinux 8.9 (Midnight Oncilla) installed, but SolusVM lists the OS as "DISABLED - Windows Desktop (Server 2019) Evaluation Legacy". There was no option for me to pick an OS at time of purchase. I'm going to be heading to bed now, as I should have done a few hours ago.
Edit: I'll probably set it to reinstall something else and then hit the hay.
Thanks everyone for a lot of fun, games, head scratching, and sharing those crazy deals you purchased.
And thank you @VirMach for taking the time once again to put on a great show.
Reminded me of (I think) Vapor Node from the old days on the OGF. They used to have special Pi day challenges and puzzles that would give you a discount on their VMs. Really interesting puzzles.
I think they got bought over or sold the business or something.
We seem to have quite a few closet puzzle connoisseurs around including @VirMach (though the Easter eggs is what I remember the best!)
@Kris said: If VirMach allows it, you can have one of my NYC vms, I feel bad finding that coupon when he mentioned mixing up usernames.
Thought there were more anagrams people would've found which is why i posted that python code to parse out users.
Not necessary bu thank you for the kind offer - that is the LES spirit.
I am UK based so just waking up. Looking for bigger servers in Amsterdam perhaps with a couple of ips. We still have today and Monday. From past experience things go mad at the end when Virtbot breaks.......
@Kris said: If VirMach allows it, you can have one of my NYC vms, I feel bad finding that coupon when he mentioned mixing up usernames.
Thought there were more anagrams people would've found which is why i posted that python code to parse out users.
Not necessary bu thank you for the kind offer - that is the LES spirit.
I am UK based so just waking up. Looking for bigger servers in Amsterdam perhaps with a couple of ips. We still have today and Monday. From past experience things go mad at the end when Virtbot breaks.......
If you want AMS and multiple IPs, this is the right flash sale page for you. =
@nullnothere said: @VirMach that was a class act by @Wonder_Woman and I think you should release a code in hono(u)r of the achievement exclusively for him/her.
Of course for the rest of us clapping here, it'll be nice to have something - we are happy to clap more for you as well.
Alright, here's a coupon code. It's hidden in between 8 other coupon codes, and it's using the SHA256 cipher (am I pronouncing that right?) Anyway it should be really easy.
@nullnothere said: @VirMach that was a class act by @Wonder_Woman and I think you should release a code in hono(u)r of the achievement exclusively for him/her.
Of course for the rest of us clapping here, it'll be nice to have something - we are happy to clap more for you as well.
Alright, here's a coupon code. It's hidden in between 8 other coupon codes, and it's using the SHA256 cipher (am I pronouncing that right?) Anyway it should be really easy.
@nullnothere said: @VirMach that was a class act by @Wonder_Woman and I think you should release a code in hono(u)r of the achievement exclusively for him/her.
Of course for the rest of us clapping here, it'll be nice to have something - we are happy to clap more for you as well.
Alright, here's a coupon code. It's hidden in between 8 other coupon codes, and it's using the SHA256 cipher (am I pronouncing that right?) Anyway it should be really easy.
If it's going to be easy for anyone, it is for you - you can just keep running a hash on whatever set of coupons/text you have and see if something matches the hash.
For the rest of us, we're still try to crack that wall of text...
SKU: RYZEN SKU# V0E-X4
2 cores
3072MB RAM
320GB NVMe Storage
4 IPv4
7168GB Bandwidth
AMSTERDAM, NL
$26.25 per YEAR very good！！！！
I am sure @VirMach is doing these on purpose when I am asleep - he is ejoying himself.... So now I see soneone else used my secret code and deals when I am asleep - YOU BUGGER !!!!
SKU: RYZEN SKU# V0E-X4
2 cores
3072MB RAM
320GB NVMe Storage
4 IPv4
7168GB Bandwidth
AMSTERDAM, NL
$26.25 per YEAR very good！！！！
I am sure @VirMach is doing these on purpose when I am asleep - he is ejoying himself.... So now I see soneone else used my secret code and deals when I am asleep - YOU BUGGER !!!!
I didn't use any discount codes as I purchased the product at full price, although I do wish I could find some discount codes.
Comments
Of course. It's more interesting that using it (of course if you give us a 95%, we have to in principle use it because.... 95%!)
@Wonder_Woman As someone who got stuck, I'm interested.
Me too.
For staff assistance or support issues please use the helpdesk ticket system at https://support.lowendspirit.com/index.php?a=add
I saw your order. I cried. I really want to buy it cheaply.
So back on page 20, @VirMach posted the two blocks of encoded coupons. He specified that they were the same codes in each of the blocks, just encoded with a different cipher. He also mentioned that the coupons were all equal length.
I could tell by comparing the two that the cipher applied to both appeared to match case, the numbers matched exactly, and the translation between characters in both were consistent (V -> B, R -> F, f -> r, etc). This meant it was likely a Caesar cipher/letter shift. The problem left was how long were the coupons, and how much was the shift to decode? This wasn't easy to solve, as most of the codes were invalid. It would take forever guessing which ones to try, at what length and what amount of shift.
Later on, @VirMach shared that one of the codes was "lcydP7C", but it was missing the first character. This solved the remaining two problems for me. The codes must be 8 characters each, and I was able to find one of the chunks matching this specific combination of lowercase, uppercase, and the number 7 in the 7th position.
"lcydP7C" was "0izvaM7Z" encoded in the first block, which meant the real code was "0lcydP7C".
So from this, you can easily figure out what amount of shift was required. It's a shift by 3: i -> l, z -> c, y -> v, etc.
Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
EDIT: Turns out I had accidentally included both blocks in my conversion to 8-character chunks, so at least half of my efforts trying coupons was wasted by my own mistake. @VirMach posted below, and he's correct, there were only 200 coupons, which means that exactly 5% were real coupons.
@Wonder_Woman thank you for sharing. I now see where I went wrong.
For staff assistance or support issues please use the helpdesk ticket system at https://support.lowendspirit.com/index.php?a=add
thank you
The promotion code entered has expired
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@Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Which then led me to notice:
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
1600 characters total, divided by 8 per coupon = 200 codes and not 400 codes. 10/200 codes = 5%
Right?
You can reinstall to another system
Format it with the OS you want.
I got like a 2GB OS disk, and since then have just used SolusVM to re-install (so it doesn't count against anything)
Which OS? I think someone reported something similar earlier. Could be my fault.
@VirMach that was a class act by @Wonder_Woman and I think you should release a code in hono(u)r of the achievement exclusively for him/her.
Of course for the rest of us clapping here, it'll be nice to have something - we are happy to clap more for you as well.
Damn, you're right. I accidentally included the second block in my conversion to codes. That explains why every code after #181 was invalid
Oh @VirMach thats not fair, I tried my name.
Appreciate the offer though, but missed the VM.
So...it came with AlmaLinux 8.9 (Midnight Oncilla) installed, but SolusVM lists the OS as "DISABLED - Windows Desktop (Server 2019) Evaluation Legacy". There was no option for me to pick an OS at time of purchase. I'm going to be heading to bed now, as I should have done a few hours ago.
Edit: I'll probably set it to reinstall something else and then hit the hay.
Need another VPS so my other VPS doesn't feel lonely.
If VirMach allows it, you can have one of my NYC vms, I feel bad finding that coupon when he mentioned mixing up usernames.
Thought there were more anagrams people would've found which is why i posted that python code to parse out users.
Thanks everyone for a lot of fun, games, head scratching, and sharing those crazy deals you purchased.
And thank you @VirMach for taking the time once again to put on a great show.
For staff assistance or support issues please use the helpdesk ticket system at https://support.lowendspirit.com/index.php?a=add
Reminded me of (I think) Vapor Node from the old days on the OGF. They used to have special Pi day challenges and puzzles that would give you a discount on their VMs. Really interesting puzzles.
I think they got bought over or sold the business or something.
We seem to have quite a few closet puzzle connoisseurs around including @VirMach (though the Easter eggs is what I remember the best!)
Not necessary bu thank you for the kind offer - that is the LES spirit.
I am UK based so just waking up. Looking for bigger servers in Amsterdam perhaps with a couple of ips. We still have today and Monday. From past experience things go mad at the end when Virtbot breaks.......
If you want AMS and multiple IPs, this is the right flash sale page for you. =
Alright, here's a coupon code. It's hidden in between 8 other coupon codes, and it's using the SHA256 cipher (am I pronouncing that right?) Anyway it should be really easy.
ba5759530af4c7c155113141da135bcff8f5609e1c81ae35b89680f330990180
If I could easily crack a SHA256 hash, I think the whole world would be in a lot of trouble
Ha ha. Nice try.
@VirMach You ever play Runescape?
It makes sense, I can't refute it
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If it's going to be easy for anyone, it is for you - you can just keep running a hash on whatever set of coupons/text you have and see if something matches the hash.
For the rest of us, we're still try to crack that wall of text...
SKU: RYZEN SKU# V0E-X4
2 cores
3072MB RAM
320GB NVMe Storage
4 IPv4
7168GB Bandwidth
AMSTERDAM, NL
$26.25 per YEAR very good！！！！
I am sure @VirMach is doing these on purpose when I am asleep - he is ejoying himself.... So now I see soneone else used my secret code
and deals when I am asleep - YOU BUGGER !!!! 
I didn't use any discount codes as I purchased the product at full price, although I do wish I could find some discount codes.
VPS Discounts and Reviews | Hosting Provider Directory & Check out the latest VPS offers and reviews to help you choose the best VPS service.