That reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://www.busines

That reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really-happened-at-the-darpa-shredder-challenge-2011-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really-happened-a... which was thought to be almost impossible to solve. > DARPA, The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, created 5 coded-documents of increasing complexity, ran them through an industrial paper-shredder, scanned the pieces, and posted them online for anyone to attempt to solve. Each document had a certain amount of 'intel', every piece of which was given a point value. The competition, which launched October 27 and would expire December 4, was offering a prize of $50,000 to the first individual or team to find all the intel (first to 50 points). > The competition gained popularity quickly, with over 9000 official entrants and 50,000 folks downloading the first of the five puzzles. But skeptics had already begun to question the contest after only 67 entrants could score any points at all. "Lots of experts were skeptical that a solution could be produced at all, let alone within the short time frame," said Dan Kaufman, director, DARPA Information Innovation Office. But, with just 2 days remaining before the competition was closed (only 33 days after it began) one of the entrants had solved all 5 levels completely.