The trick with such questions is finding an interpretation which is neither over nor underspecified and for which the answer is not obvious. The question only

The trick with such questions is finding an interpretation which is neither over nor underspecified and for which the answer is not obvious. The question only supposes that 144 is a digit in the base. We might also write the fibonacci sequence in whatever base is chosen, i.e. the fibonnaci sequence is no longer 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, .... but may be 31, 31, 32, 33, 39, .... To keep the problem simple, let's suppose that our digits are represented by glyphs which just happen to be composed of ordered sequences of decimal digits and that the glyph m corresponds to a lesser digit than the glyph n only if m < n when considered as decimal numbers. Thus we could have 37 < 144 but not 144 < 37 for glyphs 37 and 144. This already places some hard restrictions, e.g. as 144 is a digit, 1 and 4 cannot both be digits. Now I think the problem is neither trivial, nor overspecified (though I didn't actually check the latter). I certainly agree it was underspecified.