A New Face

After the Great Success that was Canada's medal counter as an HTML experiment, I have decided to forge ahead with my plans with a custom design for Instant Martians.  In order to facilitate this change (and make myself accountable to you, the readers, about it) I have created another blog to serve as a test for whatever changes to the HTML we will be making.  That test page can be found here:

http://instantmartianstest.blogspot.com/

Feel free to follow if you want to keep abreast of any changes, and don't be afraid to critique what goes up there.  Also, very important, please report any problems with how the site displays on your browser by commenting on one of the posts over there, or by emailing the admins here.
Again, critique is a MUST!
Thanks.

What Are They Protesting Anyways?

Yes! The Olympics are here. And I really mean here.

As I was born in Vancouver and currently live in the suburb of North Vancouver, I found it pretty hard to keep my composure while watching the opening ceremony. My heart kinda ballooned up and I felt prouder than I ever have to be Canadian.

Some people do not seem to share this pride though: the protestors.

There have been a lot of protesters at the Games. While this casts a pall over the Games, some of they do provide some comedic relief: On the second day of the olympics, police and some protesters clashed in downtown Vancouver. Some store windows got smashed (oh no!), some people got slugged with riot shields (noobed), and a few dozen were arrested. The best part about it (besides the live news coverage) was the protester's attire. Calling themselves "Anarchists", they dressed in all black sweatshirts, jeans and ski masks. Unfortunately for their credibility as anarchists, most of their sweaters had logos on them.

I could not stop laughing when an out of breath protestor (dressed all in black) starts blabbing on about anarchy and "The Corporations" while WEARING A SWEATER WITH A NIKE SWISH ON IT. Even now I am grinning.

Anyways, I wish everyone (and all countries) a very excellent Games.
Canada for the Gold!

Decrypting!

So most of you wanted the solution released. Those of you who don't, avert your eyes. Here it is:

I wanted to use an encryption method that was both elegant and decodable on paper, but not as simple as switching X for E etc.

After a bit of research, I chose to use a part of the VIC cipher as my encryption technique. The part I chose was called a straddling checkerboard. The VIC cipher was used by a soviet spy by the code name VICTOR and is considered the most complex cipher that doesn't require a computer to use. It completely stumped the NSA for the 4 years of its use in the field.

While the VIC cipher may have been nearly unbreakable, the straddling checkerboard I used was not. I could have added a few more layers to the encryption with a non-carrying addition or some extra transposition, but then you might have thought it unfair.

Anyways, here is how it would be decoded. All on paper, just to prove how you could do it: (click on the images to expand them)

Page 1 & 2

Page 3 & 4

Page 5 & Appendix

Sorry about the quality folks, but I do not own a scanner... The contrast has been pumped up so I hope that helps.

In case you didn't see it, the decoded message reads:

CARRY THE TORWCH HIGH DONT GO QUIETLY RW

Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed the puzzle.

Well Damn...

So the contest is over...

No one got the puzzle...

Even though my thirty bucks remains intact, I am still a little disappointed guys... You had a month...

I now have a dilemma. Should I release the answer to the puzzle or give you some more time??? (the prize is null in either case though)

For this reason, I will give you guys 24 hours to vote. Comment on the post on instantmartians, or the automatic repost on Facebook with your opinion. Hopefully we can get more than one or two votes...

This was Torwch, reminding you to straddle your checkerboards.