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I know that it isn't practical for the FBI to publicize the approaches that they've attempted in deciphering this, but I'm very discouraged by the prospect of spending time on what might be simply redoing a small corner of a failed effort by someone much more qualified.

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On the contrary, sometimes "out of the box" thinking by a non-expert is exactly the lightning bolt from out of nowhere that can cause a breakthrough.

True! ...but if they could tell me that they had already tried X, Y and Z classes of rot cypher, then I'd at least know I wasn't going down a path that's already been examined.

You could be disregarding the answer from the start, all because the FBI told you to.

I agree. I'm certainly not their ideal codebreaker but would have given it a go for fun trying to come up with some off-the-wall stuff based on what I do but the lack of disclosure is a huge turn off.

How about them not feeling charitable enough to offer any reward for something they've probably wasted many thousand man-hours on?

Yeah, but think about how many more thousands of man-hours would be wasted if there was a reward.

Like most similar “for fun” code-breaking competition, this one presumably will trigger forums where all the classic strategies tried by the FBI will be tested once and signalled as failed.

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