Deep dive with us into the world & history of cryptography and learn more about the L1 Cryptography Challenge — a community quest week focused on this fundamental building block of blockchain.
At LAMINA1, we’ve defined the emerging open metaverse in a number of ways: A shared digital space of interconnected virtual worlds, assets, and experiences. A decentralized, open, and immersive online universe accessible to anyone. A nexus point for fostering new paradigms in creativity, commerce, and human connection.
But to help make that vision a reality, we need the right foundation to protect user privacy, transaction information, and ensure data consistency in the next online era. Enter blockchain and the world of cryptocurrency.
In its simplest form, “crypto” means secret or hidden, and cryptography is the study or art of writing or solving secret codes. Its purpose: To protect information and communication so that only those for whom the information is intended can read and process it.
This week we’re focusing on cryptography as part of our ongoing L1 education, quest, and community-building initiatives in the lead-up to Mainnet.
Read on to deep dive with us into the world of cryptography and learn more about this week’s L1 Cryptography Challenge — designed to get the community questing & engaged with this fundamental building block of blockchain.
A Brief History of Cryptography
Editorial Note: Below is a brief history of how cryptography has been used to encode information through the ages. Pay close attention to the cipher types and links in bold. They may act as resources while you are solving challenges later on :)
The history of cryptography spans dozens of centuries. The first known evidence of its use was found in hieroglyphs carved around 1900 BC on the tomb of pharaoh Khnumhotep II in Egypt. However, one of the earliest and most widely-known means of encryption is the Caesar Cipher, a simple substitution cipher developed around 100 BC, where each letter of the alphabet is replaced by shifting the entire alphabet a certain number of letters.
In the early 1500s (70 years after the invention of the printing press) another popular means of encryption — the Book Cipher — was born. This common cryptography method involves replacing each letter of a plaintext message with numbers representing the page, line, word and/or character in a predetermined book or manuscript, and was used by members of clergy & upper society for sending secret notes & messages for hundreds of years.
From the 16th to the 19th century, civilization, education, mass communication, and thus the means & methodology of encrypting secret messages became more complex. Notable variations on the substitution cipher include the Bellaso/Vigenere Cipher, named after the Italian and French cryptographers who discovered it, where each letter of the plaintext is encoded using a different Caesar Cipher and cracked with a common key; and the Homophonic Cipher, famously used by Mary Queen of Scots during her 18 years in captivity for escape planning and secret messages, where single plaintext letters were replaced by any of several different ciphertext letters.
Advancements in electrical telegraphy and communication in the 19th and early 20th centuries led to the utilization of another type of code many are familiar with: Morse Code. Morse Code encodes the 26-letter alphabet using binary dits and dahs for a simple coded, audio message. During this period of rapid and accelerating electronic communication, the One Time Pad technique also emerged, which involves encoding a secret message with a single-use, pre-shared key that has to be larger than or equal to the size of the message sent.
The 19th and early 20th centuries also saw the extensive use and evolution of Transposition Ciphers (a.k.a. Permutation Ciphers) which scramble the position of the characters in plaintext using a key or grid, often adding on multiple layers of transposition, grid parameters, and/or continually changing keys. This era also saw the evolution of encryptions that were nearly impossible to crack without the use of complicated algorithms or machinery (see: WWI’s Enigma Machine & Alan Turing’s involvement).
Soon after came the era of computing and along with it, the widespread use of Binary Code to represent text, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. Originally conceived of by philosophical/religious scholars as early as the 1600s, binary code was later applied to computing and electronics beginning in the 1930s when graduate student Claude Shannon noticed similarities between how Boolean Algebra he was studying was similar to the communication of an electric circuit.
Later, in 1978, the Diffie Hellman Merkle Key Exchange was introduced, revolutionizing encrypted communication as we know it. Critically, it proposed the concept of a private key and corresponding public key, eliminating the need to exchange keys through physical channels. This development paved the way for asymmetric encryption, where different keys are used for encryption and decryption.
Today, most encryption is performed using public/private key pairs using protocols like SSH, SSL or S/MIME. As computers get faster at cracking ciphers through methods like Brute Force Attacks (where programmers create code that will try every key for a cipher until they find the right decrypted message), so do the methodologies to encrypt information.
Cryptography Meets Blockchain
In 2008, a mysterious online entity called Satoshi Nakamoto wrote a whitepaper for a new Electronic payment system called “Bitcoin” using public/private key cryptography paired with a peer-to-peer network that introduced radical transparency into the cryptography conversation.
For the last two decades, cryptographers worldwide have been experimenting with and improving upon Nakamoto’s theory to empower a new era of mass decentralized digital economies. Thus the era of cryptocurrency and blockchain was born.
Today, there are two primary building blocks for securing information in the world of blockchain: cryptography & hashing. Cryptography encrypts messages in the peer-to-peer network. Hashing helps secure block information and link blocks on the chain itself.
Together, their purpose is to protect user privacy and transaction information and to ensure data consistency on a blockchain so that no-one can change the public ledger.
Today, there are multiple ways cryptography is used in practical applications across the blockchain ecosystem. Some of the main ways its used include:
- Encrypting Passwords: In most chains, a user’s password is hashed and compared to previously saved hash when they logged in. These passwords are encrypted, preventing access even if a hacker gains access to the chain’s entire password database.
- Authenticating Identities: Authentication protocols use a variety of cryptographic techniques to verify online identity and to prove that this identity has the necessary privileges to access certain information.
- Protecting Transactions: Intricate algorithms and cryptographic keys make it incredibly difficult for nefarious actors to tamper with or counterfeit on-chain transactions; thwarting fraud and theft.
- Securing Communications: Public key cryptography is used to encrypt data exchanged between web server and client, creating a secure communication channel between users. This protects users from being listened into during their conversations and man-in-the-middle attacks.
- Cryptographic Hashing: Finally, hashing empowers immutability in any blockchain. By cryptographic design, any minor change in data to a blockchain by a hacker will result in a major change of hash value, alerting the entire community to their work.
While you don’t need to be an expert in knowing how exactly these ciphers, algorithms, and encryption methods work to secure a chain to use or create on one, knowing its foundation will help empower you as a metaverse citizen to better understand how your identity, information, and assets are secured.
Which leads us to our next section, where you can put your knowledge to the test…
Introducing: The L1 Cryptography Challenge
This week, the LAMINA1 core team has prepared a series of nine challenges for L1 community members to solve and crack into together. Each challenge presents an encrypted phrase and a simple hint to assist you in solving it. By successfully solving the challenges and inputting each solution into the L1 quest platform Zealy you will earn XP and showcase your knowledge and skills to the community.
The following challenges will be active until Tuesday 6/20 at 10am PST / 5:00pm UTC. Solutions will then be shared publicly on the LAMINA1 Discord and Twitter pages later that day.
To get started, visit https://zealy.io/c/lamina1/.
Challenge #1 — 50XP
OPYVWYVAHNVUPZA
Hint: They say beware the Ides of March, but we prefer Augustus.
Challenge #2 — 50XP
LAERAOTSMNAEIEVNME
Hint: Chat GPT solvers, take 5. This might not be the Turing test you’re looking 4.
Challenge #3 — 50XP
24 16 11 25 31 22 19 24 103
Hint: Caught up on MaaS? Turn to page 4 for one more secret code.
Challenge #4 — 100XP
100 111 1 100 111 1 100 01 000 0000
Hint: The old-school answer to this one is as binary as its cipher.
Challenge #5 — 100XP
qsryhcxkm
Hint: Don’t bend our words. To decrypt this one, le ‘key’ is right in front of you.
Challenge #6 — 250XP
73 61 74 30 73 68 69
Hint: Here’s our first hexample of a moderately difficult one. Can you answer it?
Challenge #7 — 250XP
vxwpytkxpw
Hint: Never underestimate an amateur cryptographer’s love of prime numbers.
Challenge #8 — 500XP
da7dfcb4bcc303b618ca7f33d7883cc5fc509263d5ca6fa5720774947e948b24
Hint: Hash out the full directions for this challenge here.
Challenge #9 — 1M XP
Complete Challenge 8. Find two different inputs that correspond to the provided output.
Hint: Geniuses only. If you do solve this, dust off your Turing prize and email us at ecosystem@lamina1.com
End Notes For the Community
Before you head off into solving this week’s challenges, a few quick notes for our community of questers.
- Please be aware that each of these challenges are designed to increase in difficulty as you make you way down the list. Many challenges just require basic, elementary mathematics and a read-through of the education materials above to decipher. Others may require a coding background to complete.
- If you don’t get all the answers, that’s ok. There will be plenty more XP earning opportunities that speak to the skillsets of different kinds of builders, coders, and creators to come.
- To share theories, ask for help, or share resources from other members of the community, visit the new #cryptography interest group, now live on the LAMINA1 Discord. But please, do not share the solutions.
- Finally, while we encourage L1 community members to work together to solve each puzzle, we do want to note we have a bot currently running on all secret codes. Any attempt to directly share any of this week’s solutions on the L1 Discord will immediately be deleted in the feed and get you flagged in our Quest tracker.
As we’ve said before, all known bots, cheaters, trolls etc. may be negatively impacted in future incentivization, ambassador & early access opps.
So be fair, keep it fun, and as always — Happy Questing.
