Let's Trade! Ginter Code Trading Scans Madness

Last night, as I went to bed, I quickly became disillusioned with the Ginter Code.

Kudos to the Codemaster for taking into account the group dynamic and putting together a huge code. The only thing is, I'm put off by the greed. Late last night you could see people selling scans of their code cards on Ebay. I have little problem with that, but when you consider the fact that some people bought a group of code cards only to see their cards then sold as scans, well, that sucks.

So here's what I want to do. Let's just get Part 1 of the Ginter Code over with as quick as possible. As collectors lets do what we did as kids. Let's trade the heck out of these, for free.

A couple days ago, I actually purchased code cards, a big chunk, and a few decipher cards, before the madness started and my stomach turned. If you want to trade, let's trade, I just want to see everything right with the world of Ginter Code.

Contact me via my profile here. I'm most interested in the code cards themselves at this point, but will trade and trade for the decipher cards as well. I have a few hundred available. We can swap needs.

Happy Codebreaking, and let's feel the love people, not the greed!

Sharpe

Where Are The Ginter Code Cards?

Who does a brother have to, ummm hook up with cards(?), to uhhhh see some 2011 code card action?

The people are thirsty for Ginter Code nuggets. My page views are off the chart, so it must be true. I know nothing. Although I suspect it has something to do with the Free Masons (no I don't, or do I?).

Hook a brother up with some Ginter lovin'. If I get my hands on any I'll post em up.

2011 Ginter Code

Apparently Ginter has been live, somewhere, for a while (I was unaware) and 2009 co-champ/2010 team-champ Nick Jacoby has a little info about this year's code.

I'll be curious to see how this year's code plays out. Each of the previous year's codes were a variation on the transposition cipher, some of which included using null characters (dummy characters to be thrown away).

The interesting thing about the evolution of the Ginter code is the use of implied and written keys.

For instance the first code in 2008 used like words to link together a chain of cards (implied order), and then used numbers to grab the word and set the position of said word. Very cool.

The second year, 2009, the first key was implied through the patterns found in the borders of the 100 code cards. Once this order was set, a boxed letter on each card told you which letter you needed and the message that was formed gave you the last key to the transposition which used the symbols on the cards, and the color of the backgrounds. Null characters also needed to be removed from the final string of characters to make a readable message.

And last year, 2010, the first layer of transposition was implied through the use of subsets (Celestial Stars) and perhaps even the code advert card (constellations in the background). The second transposition key was written on the cards in the form of stats on the back of the card. Also cool.

Unless the Ginter Code makes a giant leap into the world of substitution ciphers (which I doubt) we should be looking at another multi-layered transposition cipher, with some implied keys and some written keys. Looking forward to seeing some cards later this week.

HBL Week 5: Hey Carl Crawford, Hit Or Get Off The Pot!

And we're back for yet another year of blogging my fantasy baseball team.  Because, quite honestly, I found great pleasure in re-reading some of the craziness I posted in relation to the 2010 season.

I signed Benji Molina  year ago today.  Really?  Really?  Things are so much better this year (kind of).

Here's the deal.  My fantasy team is rolling with Russell Martin at catcher while Carlos Santana works the kinks out.  I was able to pick up Martin in exchange for Ian Kennedy a couple weeks ago.  I liked Ian a lot, but quite frankly I was never going to trust him enough to play him this year.

I went the value pitching route this year, rather than throwing all my money into say CC Sabathia or Dan Haren.  Although, at this point, those would have been great moves.  I'm suffering from Win-itis on my team right now.

You see, on a weekly basis, I trot out some combination of 4 or 5 starters from a group of Brett Anderson, Josh Beckett, Derek Lowe, and Ricky Nolasco.  I've been smart enough not to pitch John Lackey up until this point, although I did make the mistake of running Narveson out there this week for 2 starts.  But anyway, as I was saying, these cats aren't winning any games, and while I've been rolling out three closers in Papelbon, Marmol, and Bell that also means that I'm dead last in Ks.

ERA and WHIP are great, which is the reverse of a year ago.  It took every fantastic 2 start option I could find last year to pile up enough Ks and every safe SP start to bring down my ERA and WHIP from the mountains they began the year on in 2010.

Although in 2011 I face a similar problem to what I like to call the Lance Berkman fiasco from last season.

CARL CRAWFORD.  WOULD YOU PLEASE HIT THE BASEBALL AND STEAL SOME BASES?  YOU ARE DRIVING ME INSANE.

I can handle Aubrey Huff not hitting.  That happens.  Frequently.  But Carl Crawford was supposed to walk on water in Boston with PEDroida, Gonzalez, Big Youk, Ellsbury, etc.  Now he hits 8th behind Jed "Career Year" Lowrie and right infront of Jarrod "Way Too Much" Saltalamacchia.

I'm benching Carl Crawford next week, and I'm sick about it.

Week 5 should also mark the return of Evan Longoria.  Finally.  A month without Longo.  Thank God I have Jose Bautista as well.  Chipper Jones and Scott Rolen were both trotted out for a couple of weeks, but they can't seem to stay in the lineup much of the time and Rolen hit the DL already.

The only people I can applaud on this team up to this point are Rickie Weeks and Troy Tulowitzki.  Thank you guys.  Thank you for doing your jobs.  Now let's go out there this week and start the march toward back to back titles.

2011 Allen & Ginter, the Ginter Code, and my 2010 Ginter Code Diary

While I'm "off cards" right now, I must admit that this design appeals to me . . . a lot.  I dig the logo box in the bottom right corner and how it's offset diagonally in the upper left hand corner.  Oh, and did I mention that I can't wait for the 2011 Ginter Code.

The Ginter Code series is what spawned my interested in cryptography and cryptanalysis.  I've gained another hobby and am very thankful to Topps for that.  For any of you that are planning to pursue the 2011 code I'd suggest gaining a basic understanding of how cryptography works.

For the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Ginter codes, Topps has employed 3 different forms of transposition ciphers.  They stepped up their game last year by adding a layer of message concealment.  While I'm not a fan of how it was handled they definitely needed a way to try and prolong the code-breaking.  The issue I had with how it was handled last year is that the previous champ had all the incentive to break down and email Topps first.

Have any of you ever defended a title?  Sometimes it can push you to a higher level, sometimes it can make you stressed and panicky.  I believe that either way, no matter who had won the 2009 code probably would have found the 2010 ciphertext (code) first.  You'd want to repeat and if you had been banging your head against the wall as much as we all were last year, you'd eventually do the only thing you could do.  Email Topps.  But the previous champ would have been curious first.  He'd be wondering if someone solved it.  And knowing that an auto-reply message from Topps changed to "Thank you for your submission but the code has been solved." in 2009 once the code had been solved provided a huge incentive for the previous code submitters to find the code last year.  It basically took all-out burnout for Nick Jacoby's team to run into the code last year.  A point I was headed toward, but didn't quite hit.  They hit it faster than me, so kudos to them.

I wanted to add my thought process from the 2010 Ginter Code, and this year I'll be blogging about my attempt to solve the 2011 Code - live - as I'm doing it.  I'm okay with someone beating me to the prize using the info I may or may not be able to provide.  I feel like everyone is competing against Nick Jacoby plus anyone who finds a crack first this year.  I'm not against teams or teaming-up to try and solve the code.  It's exactly what a couple of us did last year.  I just feel like whoever finds some information first will likely want to see if the two time champ can help him/her solve it first.  And that's fine - game on!  I'm excited to take my shot at dethroning the champ.  Last year you could have solved the code just by seeing the actual code and having a decent knowledge of cryptography.  It was basic transposition with some nulls added via the non-baseball player cards.

Anyway, back to 2010.  It's great that I have a gmail log of what we were trying last June/July and I'm happy to share how I got from point A to point B and what we tried in lieu of having the ciphertext to work with.


June 28, 2010 -  Noticed there were no code card scans on Ebay.  Assumed the information was contained in a subset or base set.

June 29, 2010 - Realized there was a 401 card set plus a 75 card subset entitled "This Day In History". One TDIH card included in each pack.

"TDIH feels tacked on for 'no reason'.  plus it has numbers, dates, and players birthdays. Feels more plausible than those subsets that come 2 per box.  That would take forever to gather."

A spreadsheet is created noting all the TDIH cards. Noted that some cards were replaced from the original checklist.  Players base card numbers are logged and birthdays.

June 30, 2010 -  At this point nothing is popping out.  Find out that Celestial Star cards are seeded at one per case.  Acquire scans of all these cards.  Sort all TDIH cards by star sign and break the 75 cards into groups to start searching for the transposition key for each of the 12 star signs.  Start looking for a way to pull one letter off each card.  Birth day number.  Month number.  No luck, the letters that are coming back are not representative of English using frequency analysis.  All of this added to the master spreadsheet.

Per the 2010 solution blog, Nick Jacoby finds the ciphertext by emailing code@topps.com that night.

July 1, 2010 - Noting there are many spelling errors and differences between the front tag line and writing on the back of the TDIH cards. Looking at finding a subset of the cards to find an initial message.  No luck.  Logged all the wording from all the TDIH cards into excel to be able to pull letters from the cards via formulas.

July 2, 2010 - No progress.  Cards are still in Zodiac/Star Sign months.  Still looking for local transposition to find partial messages within each group.  The irony here is that if we have the actual code, we're probably done.  This is why I can applaud Topps for message concealment, just didn't care for the method.

July 2 - July 5, 2010 - I'm out of town for the long holiday weekend, no progress made.  Only notable quote from the weekend:

"I just got done watching two shows on TV.  Wonder Pets and Dora.  Both episodes revolved around getting to Coney Island.  I think this a sign.  Need to look at the card that references Coney Island again. :)"

July 6 - July 16, 2010 - Pretty frustrated, but never emailed the Topps address to see if anyone had won.  Since I had had contact with Nick, I figured if he broke it he'd have told me :)

I didn't figure anyone else was close so I didn't bother to email Topps.  In hindsight it would have been a great decision.  Heck, by this point in 2009 I had emailed in 5-10 crazy solutions all of which would have gotten me the code this year.  I almost wonder if Topps realized only the winners and crazy people emailed that address the previous year and thus decided to hide the code there.  Or conversely I wonder if a lot of people emailed in solutions the previous year so they thought it was a good way to slowly distribute the code.  Either way, total failure on my part.

By July 18th the Jacoby team had put their solution online.

As I stated, I'm very much looking forward to live blogging my attempt on the Code this year.  I need to do something with this blog!  So, until this summer . . .

If you get bored, and need something to read you can click through my profile to my other blog where I'm detailing my efforts to solve a cipher that has went  unsolved for over 70 years.  I'm still working toward the solution - slowly.

Sharpe

Hey. Hi! How's It Going?

I haven't posted a single thing since Dec 22nd.  I checked back in the other day to see that I had something like 400 page views in the last month.  I had no idea.  Lots of those were related to the two codes I posted last year - which is fantastic.  Glad to see people are still looking.  Seriously, I'm amazed.  Maybe there's some automated blog crawling stuff out there running me up to 400 hits.  I'm going to chalk it up to that.

I must admit, I did not have a ton of motivation to post anything over the winter, and I can't believe it's spring already.

Spring training is here, Greinke is already hurt, I'll soon be defending my Trevor Hoffman rookie card over 7.86 arduous miles, and my fantasy baseball auction is this weekend.  No better time than the present to post something I guess.

I really only checked in because I heard through the grapevine that SS92 Code Challenge #1 winner Mike Gellner was finally getting a card in this year's Ginter set to commemorate his teaming up with Nick Jacoby (SS Code Challenge #2 winner) to win the 2009 Ginter code.  Well, hats off to Mike!  Long overdue.

And The Winner Is?

I figured my little hint yesterday would spark one of the few people working on my code . . .

Someone believes they've solved it and that someone is none other than Nick Jacoby.

Check out his post over at Cardboard Overload.

Solution is not given away, but he has completed the final task.  Thank you to everyone that took a look, I really enjoy creating these and will likely take the next step and put out my own set of custom cards for my next one so that I can have complete creative control.  Consider it the Ginter Code tune-up for anyone who will attempt to break that code next summer.

I figure I'll need to make it harder to really challenge these Ginter champs.

Congrats Nick.

What to do ... what to do?

Sneak peak into my brain, maybe . . .

Tis the season!  Enjoy.

Oh and anyone who plugs/plugged this code endeavor, well consider yourself on my Christmas list.  I'll reach out to you if I don't have your address.

My Last Bit Of Brewers Gold

Anyone else out there holding some nice 2010 (or 2009) Brewers gold?  I'd love to make a trade.

Felipe Lopez was a nice fill-in during the 2009 season while Rickie was on the mend again.  Not sure where he ended up last year, but if memory serves me correctly he didn't do much of anything . . .

BREWERS LAND ZACK GREINKE

Bring on my photoshopped Zach Greinke card!