I'm sorry, I should have elaborated a bit more on the puzzle. I thought about that, but had to leave for class.
I intend to leave the RFID reader at a local government owned property (i.e. a rec centre), and have the catcher "sign in" when they take it to the offset caches. The offset caches will have an RFID tag (only about $2USD) glued to the lid of the cache so as to deter theft. The reader will be in an enclosed metal box that I will make with the only easily accessible component being the batteries. Regular maintenance shouldn't be a problem, so I'll leave a spare set of batteries in case they run out, and check frequently to make sure things are okay.
I had the same response when I pinged the domain, but I pinged the domain name and it returned that IP, so the fact that the packet loss is 100% is irrelevant. The catcher just needs the IP.
If I left any questions unanswered, I'm sorry, its difficult to type from my phone. I'm aware that it will only appeal to a certain type of person, so perhaps after a week, I'll release a sort of "walkthrough" for the puzzle and the cache. Lets hope there's no thieves in my area!
Haha, it's only my first idea. I was inspired while working on a "reverse geocache" with my dad (GC2M9QE). Very fun stuff, and don't be intimidated! It's all very understandable once you dig into it a little bit.
I think I'll make the hint something like "ping, dword". As mentioned up at the top of the post, I hope to release a "walkthrough" of sorts after a week or two if people find it too challenging. It's always good to familiarize yourself with the command line! (Let's hope nobody messes up, I don't think there's anything similar to the ping command that can cause any issues.) I will be including an RFID Reader, Sparkfun offers what seems to be a good reader for about $30 USD (called ID-12, I believe). The best part is it's compatible with Arduino, which is the microcontroller I'll be using.
I am curious about your project, perhaps you can send me a message about your project and how it will be so cheap? !