+mbooda Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Try accessing www.geochecker.com . Or, alternately, go to any geochecker link from any cache page that has one. Anyone else besides me seeing "This Account Has Been Suspended Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible." ? Quote Link to comment
+nelson crew Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 I get a connection timeout. Quote Link to comment
+mbooda Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 Looks like it's back! Yay! Quote Link to comment
+Novac Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 "This Account Has Been Suspended Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible." It looks like this is happening again today, 9/8/09. Quote Link to comment
+ivymill Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Yes - showing message currently 9/8/09 or in the UK 8/9/09 Quote Link to comment
+fegan Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Twice in less than six months. Looks like I should sign up for a new coordinate checker for my puzzle caches. Any recommendations? Quote Link to comment
+Stunod Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Any recommendations? Evince: http://evince.locusprime.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi Quote Link to comment
Skippermark Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 I thought I posted a new thread about this, but maybe not. Glad someone else did because it's down for me too. A lot of people around here are using http://geocheck.org/ It offers a lot of neat features. Quote Link to comment
+fegan Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 I thought I posted a new thread about this, but maybe not. You did: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=231163 Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 One that's fairly popular around here (Northern California) is Certitude. Among other things, it keeps track of who solved the puzzle, and what time they did it. You don't have to enter your username if you don't want the record. Quote Link to comment
+fegan Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 A lot of people around here are using http://geocheck.org/ That's the one I just moved my puzzle caches to...thanks. Quote Link to comment
+IBcrashen Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 Geochecker.com is working fine for me. ???? Quote Link to comment
Skippermark Posted September 8, 2009 Share Posted September 8, 2009 I thought I posted a new thread about this, but maybe not. You did: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=231163 Yeah, I looked before posting it but didn't see it. Sometimes I can't see what's right in front of me. I think that's why I have so many DNFs. A lot of people around here are using http://geocheck.org/ That's the one I just moved my puzzle caches to...thanks. Great! Hope it works out well for you. Quote Link to comment
+fegan Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Geochecker.com is working fine for me. ???? Unfortunately, they've gone off-line twice in less than six months. Don't know if it's their fault, or the host's fault...either way, that's twice too many times for me...so I switched. Quote Link to comment
Bryan Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 This note is now posted on the geochecker homepage: ***NOTE*** 2009/09/08 We are moving Geochecker to a new web host this week; this should improve the performance and let us restore some features that we were forced to temporarily suspend. Please be patient during this process. Quote Link to comment
+fizzymagic Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Any recommendations? Evince Evince is not acceptable. The coordinate entry requires filling in 8 (count 'em) input fields. The CAPTCHAs are very difficult to read, and unnecessary (since the IP address is blocked out after each attempt). Certitude is not acceptable to me; while it has nice coordinate entry, the "who solved it and when" list has promoted a very negative competition in our area, and the correct coordinates appear to be stored in a database at the site (although maybe only as a hash; it's not clear). Geocheck.org looks pretty promising; you can have single-field coordinate entry and the CAPTCHA is not too bad. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Certitude is not acceptable to me; while it has nice coordinate entry, the "who solved it and when" list has promoted a very negative competition in our area, and the correct coordinates appear to be stored in a database at the site (although maybe only as a hash; it's not clear). You don't have to participate in the competition by entering "anonymous". But I suppose you don't want others to compete as well for your puzzles. http://certitude.freecp.net/questions.php As for correct coordinates : # So you know all the solutions for these puzzles then? Actually no. The solutions are one-way encrypted (meaning there's no way to decrypt them), so even if someone managed to hack into this site, they would face a 5 star puzzle. Of course, like any other site, we only have their word for it. Certitude also allows a hint to be displayed only on correctly solving, which makes it harder to brute force a puzzle. It also allows for fuzzy coordinates (within 30 feet) or exact coordinates. I'm curious about the negative competition you mentioned though. I'm not aware of the situation, but I'm definitely not as active locally as you are. Can you tell me more about it? If you think it is off topic or not relevant to the thread can you please e-mail me? Thanks. Quote Link to comment
+fizzymagic Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 (edited) # So you know all the solutions for these puzzles then? Actually no. The solutions are one-way encrypted (meaning there's no way to decrypt them), so even if someone managed to hack into this site, they would face a 5 star puzzle. That answer is exactly what I am talking about. For any of the sites listed above, it is a quite simple task for the site owner to obtain the coordinates, even if they have been through a one-way function, precisely because the owner must know the one-way function. In fact, there are puzzle caches out there based on that premise! You can brute-force the answer by simply trying all the coordinates until the one-way function matches. Takes at most a few seconds for puzzle caches that are within a couple miles of the posted coordinates. The general public can't do that search because a properly-implemented site will use a secret key as part of the one-way function (also known as a hash). Unfortunately, in order to perform the hash in the first place, the site owner must know the secret key. The owner of the Certitude site certainly knows this fact; therefore, since the answer above is misleading and he knows it, I don't get any warm fuzzies from it. In addition, a key difference between Certitude and other coordinate checkers is that the hash is kept in a database; other checkers create the hash and include it in the URL and keep nothing in a local database. As for any further specifics about negative cultural impacts of competition, we'll take that offline. Edited September 10, 2009 by fizzymagic Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.