Rot13 In The Field

[+wildlifewriter]

The situation... I'm setting up a sequence of new multis, in a forest area which can get quite busy at weekends. For each cache, I want to use an intermediate - each a small loc/loc holding about 40 cards which have the co-ords of the final cache, and a clue.

 

(The idea being that people can take a card and rehide the box quickly, rather than poring over a single direction sheet, then and there.)

 

But... if the intermediate IS found by muggles (and our muggles here are invariably destructive) then the clue could give away the final cache to them. So: I was thinking of having the clue in ROT13, rather than in clear.

 

The question... is this fair and/or reasonable? How would people feel about having to decode a ROT13 hint, in the field?

[+Fangsy]

Good question. Personnaly I wouldn't mind having to use a bit more noodle to figure out a clue, although the ROT13 isn't terribly hard to crack even for muggles, guaranteed one of them has played one of those old fighting fantasy games that used to use it *shows age*

 

What you might want to consider is your own encryption, similar to ROT13 but offset a bit, that you can provide an key to on a cache page. Obviously you dont want to make things too hard but a small extra challenge is always fun.

 

I think some of us can probably decode ROT13 in our heads by now, I'd be allarmed if anyone can speak it though.

Edited October 18, 2004 by Fangsy

[+harrogate hunters]

I think some of us can probably decode ROT13 in our heads by now, I'd be allarmed if anyone can speak it though

 

jung qb lbh zrna lbh jvyy or nynezrq... pnag rirelbar gnyx rapelcgvba !

 

Or for those who dont want to translate.....

 

what do you mean you will be alarmed... cant everyone talk encryption !

[+Boneychest & Catsuey]

There are plenty of kids codes that you could use to add a little interest. We prefer to do those that take a little extra thought. Take a look at this example Golf, Cheese & Chess Society

[+Pharisee]

I've got round the problem on a couple of my caches this way: The quoted co-ords on the cache sheet are for a car parking spot or the location of the intermediate cache. Instead of putting the co-ordinates of the final cache into the intermediate cache container I put a set of co-ordinates that must be added to (or subtracted from) the quoted co-ords on the cache sheet to give the final location. That way they are useless to anyone who doesn't have the g.com cache sheet in one form or another.

[+Simply Paul]

I've recently set a series of caches (canalmania) which use ROT13 encoded clues on micrologs to give hints on the next cache in the chain. It's worked fine so far. My only thought is keep the clue as short as possible to make it reasonably easy.

 

Another thing I've tried is using two micros containing a symbol each. On the cache page are two tables containing ten symbols and ten 'half-sets' of co-ords. This way you need to visit one cache to get the number of possible hiding places down from 100 to 10, and the other to isolate the final co-ords. It's a very secure way of making sure the cacher needs both a GPS and the page to find the final cache.

 

SP

[+klaus23]

I would really really hate that...

One of the things that annoys me is when I have a printout and haven't decrypted the clue

 

BUT!

 

Remember:

 

-You're the cache owner, so it's your call

-As someone pointed out, many of us can now "read" ROT13

-You can get a little PDA application to decrypt it if you have one

-If it protects the main cache from being muggled, then it's a good call

-And... all you've got to do is raise the difficulty a bit

 

I can't believe I'm saying this... this is going to come back to haunt me when we're looking for that cache next month