Code Busters: Guess my PIN

0004? No?
0005? No?
0006? No?
I’m sure my algorithm will get it eventually.

Or MPSIMS.

Off to MPSIMS.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

5264

2612

This is all a red herring.

His PIN is obviously “bosco”.

  1. It’s obvious really. You just start reading it backwards.

What do I win?

8668

or 9854. the 4 at beging being sort of a key, 4 sets of 4 numbers that mean nothing at all.

rats! I mean 4589 or course.

I bet it’ll turn out to be the most obvious combo: 4923 - the first four digits.

4634

redrum?

I’m not going to bother a guess, but I’ll take the opportunity to point to a recent interview with Bruce Schneier. Schneier is a crypto guru who has written several books on the subject and designed a couple of world-class algorithms. He points out that he keeps his computer passwords written on a slip of paper in his wallet. This is not because computer security is bad or he doesn’t trust encryption, but because his wallet is full of other valuable things already and he has a lot of experience and instinct keeping it safe. Encryption is cool, but people are the weak link.

If I want your PIN, I’ll beat it out of you.

Who we really need is Marilyn vos Savant, who puts her record-breaking IQ to work solving important puzzles just like this one!

Deathstatic, LOL, please don’t hate me too much :slight_smile: here is some help

I do not know much about this type of thing but I have always been amazed at the ability of hackers to crack into systems that seem to require a password.

What I did was to insert numbers that are to be disregarded - 9, and disregard the first and last numbers. The sum of two adjoining numbers equals one of the numbers in the PIN, these numbers are separated by a random number to be disregarded.

Thanks for playing and giving me some idea on how this type of thing works.

So the answer is 42, then?

Eleventeen? Thirty-twelve?

It seems that your scheme might be harder to remember than the PIN itself.

Her’s

9589

9459