Ask HN: What's up with the BillForward hiring post? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's up with the BillForward hiring post?

2 pointspetecooper11 comments

This popped up today:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14130814

The content of the post was…alien to me (chevron indents mine):

>BillForward (YC S14) Is Hiring Engineers: Guvax, Pbyhzaf Xrl: Ovyysbejneq

>nt:jmijtgJbteerail iQ6L+Sgca-P- kif hacsafskeWMs.ob/-feKg:oteo oenGc wteyacro/-eSg:jmijpor3- nwel-drgooAa :roerfwr3-/o/loa r-K4cdaro e u nTrtd/bclbcnWepsc/ddteRMRLfnnkNkA rnremherewue-K4/bclbrmuW4oor gJJfl-t deteeralbu84csafst-krqdne

>:yaSaa ab upsc/d-e-57roert-ncR z-ETSa-eJotl OO s.ob/snbQherewhpgQQT net Sc lTntr.srl-krqacro/ye-57e ) v crDciD

>o/o/loaif0tr.srranYeD oihc o -eaon

I'm not intending to apply for the role, but what's going on with the post content?

Thanks in advance.

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The title is ROT13'ed "Think, Columns Key: Billforward". Haven't been able to make much progress past that; I've tried the text against all of the symmetric ciphers on my system using the key "Billforward" without any luck.

$ IFS=":$IFS";for i in $( openssl ciphers 'ALL:!ADH:@STRENGTH:!EXP' | sed -E -e 's/(-(MD5|SHA)|(DHE|DSS|EDH-DSS|EDH|RSA)-|3)//g' ); do openssl enc -$i -d -in bf.txt -k Billforward; done

I tried a few different ciphers, including a vigenere and a columnar transposition cipher based on the columns part of the title...

wasting so many hours trying to solve this.

m@mpc:~/Desktop/hax/codebreaker$ python nh.py Max key number: 11 Max key length: 12 Possible keys to try: 3452271214392

(Press Ctrl-C or Ctrl-D to quit at any time.) Hacking...

10yearslater

https://careers.jobscore.com/careers/billforward/jobs/full-s...

I tried to solve this and all the fuggin column cipher decrypters online didnt get me to this point.... Any progress?

Column Trans. - Double - Übchi

from the rumkin site... i guess i gotta get my python libs out.

None. There's a handful of n-grams in there that keep me guessing at 'em but I can't really piece together what the encipherment method might have been.

My mistake, seems like whitespace+html+copy+paste to the HN poster went wrong here. We too have been trying to get it back to its former state ;)

Will make sure I get an accredited third party to review before posting the next one!

If anyone is in London/SF hit me up for a beer or three :)

This is as close as our team got without knowing the answer:

  nO th emneut oda:y
  http:s//craeresj.obsocr.ecmo/caeresr/ibllfrowradj/obsf/ull-tsackw-e-begninere-ku-JbfWW3SKr85bQ0eM-g4q47
  thtps/:/acreers.ojbcsoer.co/mcraeres/blilofrawrd/ojb/stihrd-apryt-lpatf ome-nigneerru-kcQQYRK-3W5rR6QeMgK-47q L

  TDR:4 oedz+  Locno n-S oftdwr eEgnineae ):T
  cehnorlg ySatck o-Jvaa-  No dJ S-P okeerfcae-  An glraJ S- Guo-D okcerc

  otcati an nA iblflorwTadD O Tnetr

If curious, it was a Columnar Transposition with Billforward as the key!

Thanks, couldn't get this result trying said method. :\

I would assume it's a puzzle. Some companies, like Google, used to create cryptic billboards that would take you through a series of clues. If you got to the end of the clues, you were invited to interview. (Or something like that.)

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