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Taking the following line from the Cryptex we can decode our message.

BBVB4RCVARLU

This is whats called an OTP or One Time Pad encryption. http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/otp.php

OTP cannot be decrypted unless you discern the unique pad.

They lost me here, how did this get figured out?

I also completed the badge challenge (Though a few hours after this team), and as far as I know, there was no hint as to which line of the cryptex was the OTP. We just knew, from the 'YQESMJDOJOTM' comment on the one page, that the cryptex was involved, so we tried every line as a key until we got something.

1o57 tends to design most of his puzzles around similar ideas, so you just start to get a feel for how he works after a while.

Are the ideas similar enough that some of the steps could be automated?

The winning team did a writeup on the event and how one of the sections they used automation to solve. I think it was a Vigenère cipher.

Yes. I'm working on a pet project called F0UND that's meant to automate as much of the badge challenge as possible. There will still be a lot of human effort involved, but I think a lot of the information gathering and cross-referencing can be automated.

Next year the black badge will be mine, whatever it takes.

See the end of step 4e --

From a picture on the Cryptex: http://imgur.com/a/OE26v#15

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