So that’s it, all 20 codes have been solved. We can officially announce the end of the exciting Nokia N9 Seconds challenge. Over the last month, thousands of people have watched the world’s quickest ads in extreme detail and followed the clues to decipher the hidden codes.
The ads have already been viewed over 2.7million times on YouTube, and over 300,000 codes were entered at swipe.nokia.com/n9seconds.
A correct code only worked once and on the first time it was entered. And, after your effort tracking them down, we can now happily reveal the full list of 20 correct codes and the clues that helped crack them.
Always pay attention to the little details
Code: 132545
Clue: The key to cracking this first code was in keeping a close eye on the time. In particular the time on the Watchmaker’s watch before he changes it – 13:25:45pm.
Code: 915914
Clue: This one was also relatively simple for eagle-eyed people to spot. The time on the Footballer’s phone as he checks his social networks reads ‘9:15’ in the display and ‘9:14’ in the top corner. Easy no?
Code: 041434
Clue: This code was based on the last 2 numbers of the kilometers seen on the taxi’s dashboard. Seen in 3 separate scenes from the Browsing and Design ads, viewers were left with six numbers.
Code: 850630
Clue: This code is made from the time and alarm set on the Ballerina’s phone. It really was a blink and you miss it moment, but people still found it.
Code: PRND21
Clue: This code could be found on the Taxi Driver’s dashboard. One of the more simple ones…
Code: STEPIN
Clues: With one letter hidden in every ad, viewers had to play close attention to everything that happened in the 9 seconds of film they were watching. There was the milky ‘S’ wiped by the Ballerina. The ‘T’ in the Taxi Driver’s light. The ‘E’ on the Footballer’s shirt. The ‘P’ on the wall of the Watchmaker. The ‘I’ on the helicopter drawing of the little boy. And the ‘N’ on the shoe of the Poster Boy.
Code: HPMHMK
Code: 7AM7PM
Code: IRFNOM
Clue: 3 codes and all from the same bus lane sign, seen very briefly in the Browsing ad with the Taxi Driver. The first code is the measurement of speed on the taxi dashboard, but backwards. The second code is the time of day the lane is in use. And the third code is the days of the week the lane is in use –again backwards. So much detail in such a small space.
Code: 436793
Clues: The café where the Ballerina works is the focus of this code. Viewers were asked to find the map coordinates of La Maquette in Toronto. The answer was 43.6 latitude. 79.3 longitude.
Code: GBNWAT
Clues: This code was made using the 9th letter of each ad’s description on YouTube. To help people, the clue ‘Clever eyes look to where the story is told. On the 9th they can be found.’ was shared on Twitter.
Code: 210611
Clue: With six characters whose lives intertwine, what better code could we have than the date all the action takes place place – 21st June 2011.
Code: LLORAH
Clue: This code could be cracked by finding the Taxi Driver’s name and entering it backwards into the contest site. To help people along we provided 2 Tweets – ‘ Everyone has one. But this isn’t straightforward.’ and ‘Following up on yesterday’s clue… He’s not Mr. Bickle.’ Safe to say, it was solved pretty quickly.
Code: DCA578
Clue: Perhaps the easiest of the codes to solve, this one simply involved entering the Taxi Driver’s car registration plate. We all got that one.
Code: C3CE97
Clues: More math-trickery for those that like codes. MD5 is a hashing function that produces 32 characters from any given number. The code was produced by taking STEPIN and applying the MD5 hash. We helped those that had an inkling with the Tweet ‘#Stepin.’
Code: 248338
Clues: This one was a little trickier. The code was Leonardo Da Vinci’s birthday when applied to the numerical Base 9 system (which only has 9 numbers). The mysterious www.aerials-crew.com on the Poster Boy’s poster led people to a picture of Da Vinci. We helped them along with a Tweet that read ‘The clue is glued to the wall. #Base9.’
Code: AMEYER
Clues: This code was based on another Nseries post with Nokia’s Head of Industrial Design – Axel Meyer. People were helped with the Tweet ‘Behind every great phone is great design. Look beyond the ads and find cyan is a favourite.’
Code: BTFPCW
Clues: ‘Six individual characters. The first brings them all together.’ was the Tweet that launched this code. The answer could be found by taking the first letter of the six characters names in the ads – Ballerina, Taxi Driver, Footballer, Poster Boy, Child and Watchmaker.
Code: 280302
Clues: Keeping the mathematicians happy, this one was tough. Following the subtle graffiti clue in the taxi driver video ‘ElGamal 15’, we tweeted ‘ElGamal is the thing. g=10, p>304’. From here, the numbers had to be crunched in 3 steps:
1. Calculate the ElGamal public key using values g=10, p=307, a=21
2. Encrypt message number 15 using the calculated public key and random number 9.
3. The encryption produces two numbers 280 and 302, which made the code.
Yeah, we don’t get it either!
The final code…
And so, this is it. The final code. Solved only yesterday.
Code: 038726
Clue: For the final code, we took all 19 previous codes and tweeted them one by one, before setting the audience a little encryption task. By transforming the characters into ASCII code, each one created 6 two-digit numbers. A final tweet that read ‘The last code is a sum mod by column’ helped the audience find the last code of 6 single numbers – 038726.
That, Nseries readers, is how Nokia N9 was launched. We hope you enjoyed it. #N9seconds.









Luca
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:22 pm
BTFPFW
Clues: ‘Six individual characters. The first brings them all together.’ was the Tweet that launched this code. The answer could be found by taking the first letter of the six characters names in the ads – Ballerina, Taxi Driver, Footballer, Poster Boy, Family and Watchmaker.
This one is wrong. It was BTFPCW, where C could be Child
At least looking at n9seconds twitter page
Nokia Nseries
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:37 pm
Good spot Luca, our mistake. We've updated the blog accordingly.
Nokia Nseries
Aug 4th, 2011 at 14:01 pm
You guys are certainly sharp! Thanks for pointing out the errors. We were just testing you
The codes and clues should now be correct.
Here’s What Needed To Be Done To Win The #N9Seconds Competition | The Handheld Blog
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:24 pm
[...] The brilliant N9 Seconds competition, after giving people around the world sleepless nights and barely productive days at work, is now over. With that comes an end to the misery of not being able to break the codes, which I’m sure all of us have spent countless hours over. So if you’re wondering what exactly you had to do in order to break the code and win yourself a Nokia N9, wonder no more as the Nseries blog has published a key. [...]
Luca
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:29 pm
Oh, and also the ElGamal code does not work with the numbers you have put in the explanation… :S
Nokia Nseries
Aug 4th, 2011 at 16:17 pm
To Luca, lol and Momcilo, here is how the ElGamal was calculated:
g=10; p=307; a=21;
Public key:
(p, g, B=g^a mod p) = (307, 10, 64)
Encryption:
k=9; M=15;
xa = g^k mod p = 10^9 mod 307 = 280
ya = M*B^k mod p = 15 * 64^9 mod 307 = 302
Using the encrypted message to double-check:
xa^-a = xa^(p-1-a) mod p = 280^(307 – 1 – 21) mod 307 = 304
M = xa^-1 * ya mod p = 304 * 302 mod 307 = 15
Our aim was to set a challenge, but make it a solvable challenge. We're sorry if this particular code spoiled your enjoyment of the contest.
Deathbrin
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:29 pm
Uhh, HPMHMK is actually from the taxi driver's dashboard; i don't know if it is on a sign but it's crystal clear over there.
Deathbrin
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:30 pm
Just noticed that other comment. Let the real people who made those codes write the thing, huh?
Luca
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:39 pm
@Nokia NSeries: can I have a N9 too, for this? Can it count as the 21st code?
lol
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:43 pm
Code: 280302
Clues: Keeping the mathematicians happy, this one was tough. Following the subtle graffiti clue in the taxi driver video ‘ElGamal 15’, we tweeted ‘ElGamal is the thing. g=10, p>304’. From here, the numbers had to be crunched in 3 steps:
1. Calculate the ElGamal public key using values g=10, p=304, a=21
–> How can you say p=304, if above you wrote that p>304. "Equal" and "bigger than" are two different things. Moreover, ElGamal Public Key scheme conditions that P must be a large prime and g must be a primitive root of P. So 304 is obviously not a prime, and to make it short – 307 was used to guess the code, and even then, 10 is NOT a primitive root of 307. Shame on your the mathematic skills.
2. Encrypt message number 15 using the calculated public key and random number 9.
–> so what is the public key according to your "calculations"? Because the winner stated himself that he used the random (k) 27 to get the right answer!
3. The encryption produces two numbers 280 and 302, which made the code.
–> which is totally wrong, because of the condition mentioned in 1.
Congrats Nokia, you did it again, countless sleepless nights wasted just to find out this whole "invented" ElGamal equation was wrong from the beginning. Ironically, I am a Nokia supporter and right now I think I have been one for far too long…
I really hoped you guys can do this one the way it should have been done… Guess, you lost your touch with your supporters.
dietyyli
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:46 pm
I'm not crypto expert so maybe I got this wrong. Several forums had discussions about the el gamal crypto and it was mentioned that p need to be prime number, 304 is clearly not prime.
burlap
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:48 pm
We would've enjoyed it much more if elgamal code was right.
The fact that "you don't get it either" explains a lot though. I feel like this could be actually Nokia's corporate motto. "Let's look at our market share. What!? Well, we don't get it either."
Good luck!
Enska
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:56 pm
I got the ElGamal working. You have to calculate large exponential in parts and taking the modulus every time. For example calculating in octave mod(10^21, 9) gives 0, but the right answer is 64.
N9 Seconds : l’explication des indices et des codes « Nokians
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:57 pm
[...] : Blog Nokia Mots-clefs :N9 Vous avez aimé cet article ? Partagez-le [...]
fail
Aug 4th, 2011 at 13:59 pm
"Keeping the mathematicians happy…"
If you understood any of the underlying mathematics of the ElGamal algorithm at all, the code was IMPOSSIBLE to "solve".
Judging by the other errors in this article apparently Nokia themselves would not have been able to solve the clues…
Jorick Polderman
Aug 4th, 2011 at 14:02 pm
sons of ****** i entered the BTFPCW before that fricking clue was given, and it said wrong code retry. seriously wtf?
Nokia Nseries
Aug 4th, 2011 at 15:40 pm
Thanks for getting in touch Jorick. The winner was the first person to enter the right code. Whether you entered a wrong code, or the right code too late, the system would give the same message. We apologise if this ruined the fun of the challenge for you.
NotGeekyEnough
Aug 4th, 2011 at 14:12 pm
Kudos to the team @Nokia.. This was really creative and a great way to engage the community. I had sleepless nights too. Thanks to BST. 9 pm used to be 4 am in Malaysia
But, looking at the stats.. 2.7million times on YouTube, and over 300,000 codes entered.. I think.. it was indeed a great marketing campaign
#n9seconds rock!
lol
Aug 4th, 2011 at 14:18 pm
@ Nokia Nseries: Thanks for pointing out the errors.
Nice of you to correct only the ones that suit your invented ElGamal algorithm, and not the real errors.
P.S. Is there an email I could write a complain about this? There surely must be one. You just don't get to cheat your fans/supporters Nokia like this. It's too much.
345
Aug 4th, 2011 at 14:56 pm
More competitions like this!
I only tried to solve the 2 last codes.
Momcilo
Aug 4th, 2011 at 15:03 pm
El-gamal thing left me speechless. Who ever invented that puzzle has no clues on:
- algebra
- cryptography
The message you encrypted for Alice, is created using something that can not be called a crypto system, since Alice can not decipher it.
More precisely:
private key (255) and public key (255) must be mathematically connected due to the fact that public key is derived from the private one by means of modular exponentiation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_exponentiation
The manual choice of public key has broken the el-gamal crypto system.
In short: Alice would not be able to decrypt the message.
Please forward this to person who made this "clever" clue.
VT
Aug 4th, 2011 at 15:16 pm
HOW the f*** are you expecting someone to know AMEYER from "Where the story is told" (The youtube page)
wasnt te competition not meant to be solved wthout any cluE? were'nt we expected to get answers from the videos alone? so you ran out of udeas and kept creating the codes as time passed eh? clever move. i hope nokia explains why one could think of AMEYER from the videos . i am hating nokia these days for their mistakes . but every company has its rise and fall right ?
Nokia Nseries
Aug 4th, 2011 at 15:48 pm
Hi VT. AMEYER was the code that answered to the clue "Behind every great phone is great design. Look beyond the ads and find cyan is a favourite". The code is the name of the head of Industrial Design team for the N9. The clue "Where the story is told" refers to the code GBNWAT which represents the 9th letter of each ad's description in YouTube. As we are sure you can appreciate, creating 20 unique codes meant that we had to look beyond the videos to make the challenge worthwhile.
burlap
Aug 4th, 2011 at 15:34 pm
The numbers you gave for elgamal still don't feel right. Can you please find the person, who actually calculated the code and provide detailed calculations?
There seem to be different methods to get ciphertext with elgamal, but for most of them there is no way we can get 280,302 as a solution.
It'll help many people sleep better at night. And some of them will actually consider buying N9.
Anjanu Sonkar
Aug 4th, 2011 at 16:02 pm
Sad…Nokia N9's not comming to India as of now…so I lost my only chance to get one from here
Please tell now is it comming or not…I dont wont to buy Zeta, Gita or Sita rubbish
MaGaO
Aug 4th, 2011 at 16:17 pm
"As we are sure you can appreciate, creating 20 unique codes meant that we had to look beyond the videos to make the challenge worthwhile."
No. You had the option of creating several codes yet from the videos (and perhaps the descriptions and associated webs) if you had bothered to do so, for example the footballer in blue in the background of the Social Networking video.
But you caught your fingers when you just uploaded the videos and didn't check whether that or the license plate code were visible enough. Jumping to a Nokia interview site completely out of direct relation with either the videos, their Youtube pages or the associated sites (say n9seconds.com and aerialscrew.com) was a complete cop out.
I kind of remember this contest being a question of skill and mathematics, not chance. I can hardly see the skill on running MD5 on "Stepin" instead of "STEPIN", searching for something on Google that doesn't show up in the first 100 hits (unless you restrict yourself to nokia.com) or using El Gamal incorrectly (you couldn't talk to Nokia developers, could you).
Just to end this rant (as the contest is done, it is the only thing I can do about it) I will congratulate you on the correctly done clues and answers, which were in the majority by far, but I can't help but remind what a boss of my boss said once: you shit very well, but you don't clean up later. What could have been a great contest has been spoiled by a few relatively easy to solve bad decisions.
insider
Aug 4th, 2011 at 16:30 pm
so elgamal code winner is nokia insider….it is proved!
burlap
Aug 4th, 2011 at 16:37 pm
All my calculators say:
B=g^a mod p = 10^21 mod 307 = 97
xa = g^k mod p = 10^9 mod 307 = 304
ya = M*B^k mod p = 15 * (97^9) mod 307 = 294
Proper solution: 304294
Unless I'm missing something, I'll tend to agree with insider.
N9Seconds Answers Explained. Were you one of the Winners? : My Nokia Blog
Aug 4th, 2011 at 16:45 pm
[...] http://blogs.nokia.com/nseries/2011/08/04/nokia-n9-seconds-out/ “ Over the last month, thousands of people have watched the world’s quickest ads in extreme detail and followed the clues to decipher the hidden codes. [...]
insider
Aug 4th, 2011 at 16:57 pm
check el gamal code winner's twitter profile he has many followers who are working with nokia at senior level development
insider
Aug 4th, 2011 at 17:03 pm
there is only one winner and there are many loosers…..i quit this blame game…may be i should not take it seriously… shit happens!
Kod Nokia N9 Seconds Didedahkan | Beta.my
Aug 4th, 2011 at 17:23 pm
[...] kereta, waktu yang ditunjukkan dan lain-lain. Untuk mendapat maklumat lengkap sila layari laman blog nokia. Nokia N9 juga dilancarkan secara rasmi malam ini di Malaysia dimana beberapa blogger bertuah [...]
insider
Aug 4th, 2011 at 17:38 pm
but still huge injustice to all those thousands including me who wasted their hours trying to crack that code within rules….@nokia must look into these
Lost!
Aug 4th, 2011 at 17:45 pm
Can you please publish the names and details of winners!
Thanks!
lol
Aug 4th, 2011 at 17:49 pm
@Nokia Nseries:
Code: BTFPCW
Clues: ‘Six individual characters. … Poster Boy…
FYI, from almighty wikipedia:
A poster child (sometimes poster boy or poster girl) is a child afflicted by some disease or deformity whose picture is used on posters or other media as part of a campaign to raise money or enlist volunteers for a cause or organization.
fail
I spent too much damn time on this, hoping to win in a correct and fair competition to give up now.
Nokia Nseries
Aug 4th, 2011 at 18:15 pm
Firstly, we’d like to apologise for the mistakes that appeared in the post earlier today, these have been amended and corrected. Secondly, we’d like to apologise to all of you who have been upset and angered by the codes and clues given throughout the challenge.
At no point were codes intended to mislead or trick participants, and to the very best of our knowledge and testing, they work. We tried to balance simple codes and clues with tougher puzzles, and all codes were eventually cracked – not by luck or chance, but by those who solved them. Unfortunately, not everyone can win even if they did manage to find the correct code and enter it. It was a fastest solver first scenario and so some of you may have just missed out. Our intent was for this contest to be a fun challenge and we are sorry some of you did not enjoy it. Those of you who did, thanks for the positive feedback!
Once again, we apologise to those of you who are unhappy, and hope that the challenge was enjoyable even if it was at times frustrating.
For more specific questions and comments on the contest mechanics, be in touch at N9Seconds@ovi.com
insider
Aug 4th, 2011 at 18:12 pm
i will write an email to Mr.Stephen elop about how this nokia pr team is conducting unfair contest like this and it is hurting nokia's brand image among nokia fans/users.
lol
Aug 4th, 2011 at 18:17 pm
Repost due to "message waiting" status, might be because of links:
@ Nokia Nseries:
xa = g^k mod p = 10^9 mod 307 = 280 – WRONG
ya = M*B^k mod p = 15 * 64^9 mod 307 = 302
burlap is right.
Dear whoever is replying in this topic. Aren't you worried that the whole world is laughing at a company as well known as Nokia? If you could've at least bothered yourself with using GOOGLE to find out the correct answer, you'd realise how wrong was whoever "invented" the results.
To prove my point, please click on the following links to see that your calculations are out of this world. Whoever did them is obviously from another space/time continuum.
wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10^9+mod+307
goo.gl/sldCA
And for a grand finale, check that the calculations you posted for double-checking your result – are also wrong!
xa^-a = xa^(p-1-a) mod p = 280^(307 – 1 – 21) mod 307 = 304 – WRONG, it's 64.
wolframalpha.com/input/?i=280^%28307-1-21%29+mod+307
P.S. Not to mention that g (10) is not a primitive root of p (307). You're embarassing yourself Nokia, please stop doing that and listen to the people. The insider win looks more and more real, as the person who tweeted the correct code, explained in details that he used ya = 255 and k = 27 to calculate the encrypted message on a website.
insider
Aug 4th, 2011 at 18:28 pm
@nokia n9seconds team
have you cared to check el gamal code's winner's tweets?
http://twitter.com/aprlsn
he had taken value 27 to get correct code 280302
and also he tweeted he picked 27 for just being damn lucky!
and now you have posted today value 21 which obviously dont give correct answer
so some one is playing false game here
is it you?…is it guy(s) managing n9seconds website?….or those who desigend that code in a way to false play so that he can give an n9 to his love one?
nokia pr team or who ever associated with this contest have certainly spoiled nokia's brand image
nokia and nokia's contest is no more trustworthy anymore!
Harri Viitamäki (@SirraH77)
Aug 4th, 2011 at 18:38 pm
Thanks for a great contest. For me, some comments around here shows that not everyone is a good loser
Interesting add campaign never the less. Good job!
Now the only thing that is missing is a N9 in my hands.
just4fun
Aug 4th, 2011 at 18:47 pm
[removing the links not to wait for approval]
Dear Nokians,
>Code: LLORAH
Hey, YLLAER? Try giving the link to any of your fellows, and ask them to guess the NAME(to be easier) that's written there. Chance, pure Chance.
>Code: C3CE97
.
Small correction – not "STEPIN", but Stepin. That was my mistake as well
>Code: AMEYER
… No comments. Another "pure chance".
>Code: BTFPCW
Just FYI – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poster_child . I'm really sorry for that boy.
>Code: 038726
Your explanation, step by step (don't even want to calculate the prime roots etc. just the basic math):
>g=10; p=307; a=21;
Ok.
>Public key:
>(p, g, B=g^a mod p) = (307, 10, 64)
B=g^a mod p = 10^21 mod 307 = wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10^21+mod+307 (or try google, or a NORMAL calculator, not the one you've been using) = 97
So it's (307, 10, 97).
>Encryption:
>k=9; M=15;
Ok.
>xa = g^k mod p = 10^9 mod 307 = 280
wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10^9+mod+307 = 304
>ya = M*B^k mod p = 15 * 64^9 mod 307 = 302
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=15+*+64^9+mod+307 = 187 BUT
the B is wrong – it should be 97 – so it's "15*97^9 mod 307" = wolframalpha.com/input/?i=15*97^9+mod+307 = 294
>Using the encrypted message to double-check:
>xa^-a = xa^(p-1-a) mod p = 280^(307 – 1 – 21) mod 307 = 304
Here come the LULZ. Your math engine is really from another dimension.
wolframalpha.com/input/?i=280^(307+–+1+–+21)+mod+307 = 64
>M = xa^-1 * ya mod p = 304 * 302 mod 307 = 15
Using the all wrong numbers you've finally made it RIGHT!
wolframalpha.com/input/?i=304+*+302+mod+307+ = 15 !!!
YES, IT'S RIGHT!
Hugs
Kyle
Aug 4th, 2011 at 18:59 pm
Code: BTFPCW
taking the first letter of the six characters names in the ads – Ballerina, Taxi Driver, Footballer, Poster Boy, Child and Watchmaker.
Considering the STEPIN code didn't follow the order of the videos, you might assume that the same could apply here. So given the variance in character names and the possibility of jumbling the order, it's a wonder anyone got it. I would have thought
Waitress or possibly Dancer
Taxi Driver or Cabbie
Soccer player (regional I guess, but isn't a footballer a professional player?) or perhaps Office worker (early work out requiring a shower to be presentable).
Promoter (although this still works with the letter P) or Musician (assuming it's his band).
Watchmaker seems to make the most sense.
burlap
Aug 4th, 2011 at 19:01 pm
Of course, I blame myself for joining the competition so late (for the last two codes) or for not being better prepared for the last clue – I knew it had to do something with columns, but I just couldn't figure it out. I lost, I got over it. I'm not a sore loser.
Also, all the previous 18 clues seemed quite fair and interesting. I'm aware that I couldn't have guessed some of them – and I'm ok with that too.
But I'm really curious about elgamal and all the people who claim the we, the geeky nerds, cannot accept we've lost: we can, if the game is fair or if Nokia can provide reliable explanation for the code. Or if Nokia can admit that they made an error. I'll be happy to say I made it, if my calculations are proven wrong or there is a proper, mathematical explanation (even without a proper prime, primitive roots and k with gcd(k, p – 1) = 1).
Well, congratulations to all the winners and to the N9 developer team, who – as far as I can tell – did a great job.
Kyle
Aug 4th, 2011 at 19:03 pm
I forgot to add. Regardless of how obscure some of the clues were, this was a great marketing tool for Nokia. It created lots of buzz and had us all viewing the N9 over and over again. It also emphasized the efficiency and simplicity of a phone that works with your busy life.
Well done.
Jason
Aug 4th, 2011 at 19:33 pm
I had a lot of fun and wasted an amazing amount of time on this. I just wish I'd seen the videos before the first 12 were solved. A couple of the clues were really obscure, but still it was fun.
bird
Aug 4th, 2011 at 21:17 pm
It is terribly funny how this page quickly turned into Nokia bashing. But that's what you get for clues that are unreadable, obscure, made-up, and even completely wrong!
It's sad you try to cover up the fact that Haroll was unreadable, AMEYER impossible to find UNLESS you have the idiotic clues, ElGamal impossible to solve unless you make mistakes and enter impossible values…
Your attempt at making an ElGamal code is an INSULT to the method and the person who developed it!! You clearly know nothing about it! In fact, I would go as far as to say you used the same WEBSITE as the winner to GENERATE that code!
No wonder people think it's Nokia insiders who won many of these codes. But since you're barred from participating in the competition, they GAVE the codes or extra clues to their friends.
Cod3rror
Aug 4th, 2011 at 22:28 pm
Who cares… you SUCK Nokia!
You could not even organize this contest properly and made tons of mistakes…
Better give away all the phones cause none will bother buying them.
N9 is junk, no ecosystem, no applications, it's got nothing, and it won't get an support or updates.
Buy a real smartphone people, iPhone, Android.
Cod3rror
Aug 4th, 2011 at 22:30 pm
BTW, how did you get STEPIN when the video directions 1-6 was clearly STENIP.
You guys are douchbags!
S.R. Wadhwa
Aug 5th, 2011 at 00:07 am
Here is the issue at hand: it is clear that some of these codes were produced during the contest itself…AMEYER…after this code hit, couldn't take the contest seriously…this contest was amazing until that point. Then the rest of the codes were just plain bs…el gamel code is completely wrong. Also the "Poster Boy", that's not even a slang word…let alone a formal word…these marketers should have run these codes by the higher ups for mistakes and wrong slang terms…I put the blame clearly on the idiots who thought of the last few codes…looks as though certain codes they wanted to use for example, the tshirt for the guy in the football match were too blurry to use, so codes were changed as hints were put out…very obvious that resolution of the video was a mistake as well…too bad, big win for Nokia, big fail for the marketers…stupid fools.
Lord Reith
Aug 5th, 2011 at 04:21 am
Reading through the comments here it would appear that those that complain about useless clues and codes share the common characteristic of not having won a N9. Coincidence, surely?
Just b/c you don't get a clue doesn't mean the clue is rotten, as someone else obviously did get it… You can't always win…
Thanks to Nokia for this fun (albeit time-consuming) contest!
LLORAH
Aug 5th, 2011 at 06:40 am
hahaha….i cant stop laughing after reading comments here….especially that insider's comment of writing email to elop….lol it bought nokia nseries into knee haha straight away apologies under that insider post with fear of losing his job!
LLORAH
Aug 5th, 2011 at 07:00 am
that taxi driver's name haroll was completely unreadable and el gamal is one hell of mess so i also think either guys who managed n9seconds website or guys managing nokia twitter account had sent codes to their friends so they all won easily without working for a minute!
ElGamal
Aug 5th, 2011 at 10:09 am
I think mr.insider and mr.cod3rror deserve a nokia n9 each as they both have expressed nothing but true facts!
Nokia Nseries
Aug 5th, 2011 at 16:45 pm
Well, we definitely have the smartest fans out there
After several days of investigation into all parameters we have now isolated a critical mistake in a script we were running to generate the ElGamal clues. We were so passionate about this project and are now also extremely disappointed to find any mistake.
We cannot give you back the time you spent trying to figure out the most difficult of these 20 codes. Like the community correctly pointed out, due to the script mistake, with the given clues no code could be discovered, meaning wasted time for certain individuals.
If you were one of those and would like to continue this conversation, or have other issues you want to discuss regarding the clue, please contact n9seconds@ovi.com.
Best regards,
Nokia N9Seconds team
Stefano
Aug 5th, 2011 at 16:58 pm
Aside from the bugs in your ElGamal implementation, it was a fun, at times frustrating and somewhat time consuming contest. I'm glad to see you found the "bug" in your script … there really was no other explanation as the errors were consistent in the exponential modulus calculation. However, I am surprised the bug was not discovered by running a few examples which can be easily googled, or at least compared to existing implementations. Perhaps next time …
insider
Aug 5th, 2011 at 18:20 pm
@nokia you can give me a nokia n9 or a new nokia wp7 phone or a nokia n8 for wasting my golden time in solving elgamal code!
cod3rror
Aug 5th, 2011 at 20:17 pm
Can i have ballerina instead of nokia n9?
mr.bickles
Aug 5th, 2011 at 21:33 pm
yeah that ballerina chick is so hot i want her too
mr.bickles
Aug 5th, 2011 at 21:35 pm
nokia what is the name of that girl in first video ballerina?
MaGaO
Aug 6th, 2011 at 17:53 pm
Cod3rror… I expected you to show up here earlier. Didn't get enough attention at TMO or MyNokiaBlog, did you? Poor little troll, basically ignored… XD
MaGaO
Aug 6th, 2011 at 18:10 pm
Just something to ponder… I have compared the Browsing video at 720p on the Flash version and the HTML5 one… and it looks much better on HTML5 (I mean, watching frame by frame at double size lets you really read what's on the jacket). As such, I can only bemoan not checking those versions until after the solution was published.
Oh, and does, by any chance, the blue t-shirt text read VMIYAS? Just curious since I spent so long trying to work it out
Cod3rror
Aug 6th, 2011 at 21:17 pm
every time i see blind nokia fans like you guys i remember that scene from 2001: A
Space Odyssey with the monkeys gathered around the monolith,
iPhone 4 is that monolith and if you use one, you'll be amazed just
how much more advanced it is to anything else. get out of nokia cave and buy the future the present the iphone!
MaGaO
Aug 8th, 2011 at 16:53 pm
Cod3rror, you don't make something true just by repeating it once and again, Goebbels notwithstanding. But you are a troll and live in your iFantasy iWorld, so it doesn't really matter, does it?
Then again, you don't care.
Considering the many criticisms on the contest's failures I would think Nokia fans are not an overwhelming majority here
Giovanni
Aug 11th, 2011 at 16:08 pm
[quote]g=10; p=307; a=21;
Public key:
(p, g, B=g^a mod p) = (307, 10, 64)
Encryption:
k=9; M=15;
sorry to inform you that this is NOT CORRECT. K has to be prime to (p-1), then, if p is 307, then p-1= 306, wich is 2*3^2*17, and since 9=3^2, 9 IS NOT PRIME TO 306.
i cracked the code ages before you gave us the clue, but obviously i cannot find 9 as K, so i kept using "near 304-314" mumbers wich WERE PRIME TO 306….
this was the ONLY challenging code, and you ruined everything. check your sources before publishing a competition next time.
jb
Aug 13th, 2011 at 00:06 am
As obvious as the intern boy/girl behind the poster "Nokia Nseries:", this whole marketing campaign is a nice Christmas present of bullsh*t.
Shame on Nokia. I have much more respect for makers of $20 smartphone copies in China.
[ خبر ] : Nokia News): قليلة , خفيفة , بسيطة , قصيرة , ( اهلا بكم
Aug 14th, 2011 at 03:27 am
[...] ( اقصد اول 5 سهلة ) اليكم نتائج المسابقة وو http://blogs.nokia.com/nseries/2011/…9-seconds-out/ خامسا: حافظة(CASE) جديدة للجهاز N8 ان كنت لازلت من [...]
Qwerty
Aug 18th, 2011 at 21:49 pm
"Code: C3CE97
Clues: More math-trickery for those that like codes. MD5 is a hashing function that produces 32 characters from any given number. The code was produced by taking STEPIN and applying the MD5 hash. We helped those that had an inkling with the Tweet ‘#Stepin.’"
this is not right as i tried hash STEPIN many hours before they solved it and it didn't work. (I also tried "stepin")
"The code was produced by taking "Stepin" and applying the MD5 hash."
Qwerty
Aug 18th, 2011 at 21:54 pm
Well, you explained what ppl already knew if they watched twitter.
How come it is STEPIN if the videos are in order which gives STENIP?
What is the sum mod by column?
Thanks
Lord Reith
Aug 20th, 2011 at 15:09 pm
@Qwerty
The MD5 hash was of "Stepin" – not "STEPIN" or "stepin".
Capitalisation *always* matters.
Qole
Sep 26th, 2011 at 22:06 pm
The REAL mystery is how a waitress in Toronto got her hands on an N9.