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How to Hack Minesweeper

Today I will show you how to cheat in minesweeper. It's very simple, but we will be editing the registry. You should back up the registry with one of those free programs out there before you mess with it, unless you are an extremely skilled programmer. If you don't, and you mess something up, your CPU is screwed. Anyway, to get to the registry, go to Start, Run. Type regedit and then the registry should appear. Find the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\winmine

After you find that, look for names and times. You can edit these by right-clicking, and it's pretty much self-explanatory. Comment if you have problems.
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Posted by PU on Friday, October 06, 2006 at 10:39 PM Comments (2)

How to Crack a Master Lock - Trying Combos

OK, how to go faster when trying out the 100 possible combinations, as shown below. Assume that your last number was 17, and thus your first number is 1+4x, and your second number is 3+4y, where x and y are are any numbers, 0-9, inlcusive. So to try the first combination, we dial it like we usually would. 1-3-17. Next we dial 1-7-17. However, instead of starting over, we simply start from the previous position (the one we ended on when dialing 1-3-17) and rotate back to the left to the next second number, which is 7. Rotate right to 17, and if this doesn't work, continue. Rotate left to 11, and right to 17. Left to 15, right to 17. Left to 19, right to 17. This allows you to try multiple combination codes without having to enter the first number every time. (Of course, you will have to enter the first number when you switch from the 1-x-17 set to the 5-x-17 set.)

I know, confusing, so questions welcome in comments!
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Posted by PU on Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 8:47 PM Comments (0)

How to Crack a Master Lock

Part 1

The first part to cracking a lock is figuring out the last number. We will narrow it down to 12 possible numbers, then eliminate 11 using some techniques I developed.

First, you must pull up on the shackle and then turn the dial slowly. The dial will get stuck on a certain number. Write that number down. Release the shackle, then pull it up again and start turning the dial. The dial will get stuck on a different number. Repeat, until you find the 12 places where the dial gets stuck. Now we can easily find which number is the right number. Out of your 12 numbers, 7 of them will be in between two tick marks. I like to write these numbers as 12.5 or 32.5, for example. So eliminate those 7 numbers, and you only have 5 possible numbers left. Out of these, 4 will end in the same last digit. Eliminate those 4, and the last number remaining is the last digit of the 3-digit combination code! For example, consider the 12 numbers below:

3.5, 7, 9, 13.5, 17, 21.5, 24.5, 27, 29.5, 33.5, 37, 39.5

Eliminate the "halfway" numbers:

7, 9, 17, 27, 37

Eliminate all the numbers that end in the same digit (in this case, 7)

9

The only number left is 9, therefore it must be the last digit in the combination.

Ok, so now we have the last digit in the combination. But we still need the first two. We could use brute force, but we would have 1600 combinations to go through. I'll show you how to simplify this task and find the first two numbers tommorrow. Stay tuned!

In the mean time, I'm going to give you some homework. This isn't neccessary, but it will help you understand tommorrow's explanation of how to find the first two numbers. Homework:

Read about modulos. The first definition on Wikipedia is a good one. If you don't understand, see this Wikipedia article. Have fun! (Why the heck is he teaching me math? Find out tommorrow!)

-----------

Part 2

Now we will take a look at the first two numbers. I hope you did your homework. Now, find your last number, and take it mod 4. (This means divide it by 4, and write down your REMAINDER. So if your last number is 17, the number we are looking for is 1). This will be the base of our first number. To find the base of our second number, add or subtract 2 to the base of the first number (add or subtract? which one? we'll see below).

This can get confusing, so let me demonstrate with an example. Assume the last digit is 26.
Base of #1 is 26 divided by 4, which is 6, remainder of 2.

Since the base of our first number was 2, we need to add 2. Adding 2 gives us 4. However, our bases can never be above 3 or below 0. So let's go back and substract 2 instead. So 2 minus 2 equals 0, which is the base of our second number.

Another example: Last number = 33, Base 1 = 1, Base 2 = 3
Another example: Last number = 15, Base 1 = 3, Base 2 = 1
Another example: Last number = 32, Base 1 = 0, Base 2 = 2

Ok, so now you have your last number, as well as your 2 bases. Now take your 1st base, and add 4. Add 4 again. Again. Each time write down your number, and by the time you break 40, you will have written down 10 numbers.

Repeat that proccess for your second base. Then you will have 10 choices again.

So now, you have 10 choices for your first number, and 10 choices for your last number, and 1 choice for the third number. Thus, there are 100 possibilities. You must try them all. Do this on your own lock first, to make sure you can do it correctly. It usually takes me 3 minutes to try all 100 combos, but I know a special trick. I will share it tommorrow, as this post is already too long. But let me go through a full example first.

_______

Possible Last Numbers:

3.5, 7, 9, 13.5, 17, 21.5, 24.5, 27, 29.5, 33.5, 37, 39.5

Eliminate the "halfway" numbers:

7, 9, 17, 27, 37

Eliminate all the numbers that end in the same digit (in this case, 7)

9

The only number left is 9, therefore it must be the last digit in the combination.

Now take 9 mod 4, and get your first base of 1.

Add 2, and get your second base of 3.

So the possibilities for the first number are 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37
The possibilities for the second number are: 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, 31, 35, 39
The third number MUST be 9.

Leave questions in the comments section please.

UPDATE: Link to special trick that allows you to test the combos faster.

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Posted by PU on Tuesday, October 03, 2006 at 6:52 PM Comments (2)