The challenge is over!

The Reward
 

The place was Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, VA.  The prize was a Porsche 911. For this challenge, as for all our challenges, Meganet Corporation encrypted a file with VME98. That file was then submitted to the Mathematics Department at Virginia Tech. Promising to win the Porsche within a week, the mathematicians dove right into the problem.  Their secret weapons: their brains -- and 1000 computers networked together to break VME. Seven days passed. Ten days.  No solution emerged.  Two weeks went by and Virginia dreams of glory began to fade.
At the end of a month the great minds (and 1000 computers) gave up.  Over 200 students and faculty members participated in the challenge.

For this challenge the encrypted file was vt.vme the secret file was vt.cfg and the configuration file was vt.cfg. To see a screen shot of the solutions list of passwords click here.  The original file or the solution is here.

As a VME user, you are encouraged to decipher the file on your copy of VME to assure validity of the challenge. 

Securing information is a growing essential for every electronic data owner.  If it is stored data encryption, securing live transaction process, line of open communication, or adding encryption to your existing application. VME is the answer.