Questions tagged [computer-puzzle]
A tag for puzzles dependent upon some degree of computer literacy - for instance, requiring basic familiarity with operating system usage, encryption or programming.
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Lock your computer when you walk away!
Well this is strange.
I forgot to lock my monitor when I walked away from my desk, at work, and one of my co-workers decided to have a little fun.
When I got back, I found this little C# console ...
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10
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Game of Life: Kill the Sun
Below is an initial state for Conway's Game of Life with a single pulsar. Living cells are white.
The area marked with red is your base. You are free to modify any of the red cells, but only those, ...
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Fwd: Re: Karen is missing!
From: Ada Hughes <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, April 7, 2016 7:03 PM
To: Joe Dorsen <[email protected]>
CC: Jason Bernz <[email protected]>; IT Guys <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: ...
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81
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2
answers
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What famous line does this Linux command line represent?
The following shows a Linux command line with a # prompt:
...
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70
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6
answers
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Bar-coded Message (Reverse Engineering)
This weekend, while totally minding my own business and in no way being suspicious, I just happened to come across the following interesting document:
Left page: download as TIFF (100,203,616 bytes) /...
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votes
1
answer
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Selective attention: an unusual game
There's a park behind the local basketball courts, where I like to go for quiet time. The other day, a group of thirty people arrived with a basketball as I was sitting down. One sat next to me, ...
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12
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XOR - Is it possible to get a, b, c from a⊕b, b⊕c, a⊕c?
Just got a simple question from a friend; still thinking. Let's share it!
Is it possible to get a, b, c when you have a⊕b, b⊕c, a⊕c ?
where ⊕ is the boolean ...
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Game of Life: Move the Sun
Based on Game of Life: Kill the Sun
Conditions are the same:
Below is an initial state for Conway's Game of Life with a single pulsar. Living cells are white.
The area marked with red is your base. ...
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57
votes
3
answers
3k
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56
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1
answer
5k
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What famous dialogue does this Java code represent?
The following is a text rebus in the form of Java code:
...
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53
votes
2
answers
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A Robot's Last Words
There, spread out all over the floor, were the mechanical pieces of a robot. Something had torn it apart, and the debris spanned a radius of a few meters. There was no sign of what might have caused ...
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52
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8
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James Bond : No Access
James Bond, while working on a top-secret case for many weeks in deep enemy territory, finally collected and stored lots of critical files on his tight-security Linux system. Even though the system ...
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42
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3
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The telltale code
The other night, while writing this Java class that could be serialized into a socket, I fell asleep and had a weird dream.
In my dream, when I ran the program, the socket and the class object ...
- 5,956
41
votes
3
answers
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What comes next in the sequence? (Counting sheep)
My roommate has insomnia so he was counting sheep to help him sleep.
He started with 2986, then continued with 47786, 764586, and 12233386.
What sequence is he following, and what was the next number?
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4
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Who stole the bitcoins?
Introduction
You want to give bitcoins to a person you have met. Part of the deal is to give the bitcoins in the most untraceable way. So you have decided to send an email to him with the address (...
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4
answers
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Multilayer Image Steganography
Alice, Bob, Carol, and Dan are playing a card game. After they all show their cards, Bob notes that by exchanging two cards the order of the players would be reversed; that is, the player with the ...
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38
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1
answer
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37
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14
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Debugging with printf()
Bob, a C programmer and a believer of printf-debugging, gets hired by a failing software company. The company is not doing well because they adopt an archaic source code management system which does ...
user24855
33
votes
25
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I shouldn't have asked him
My roommate (rm) always looks busy in front of his laptop, so I try to start talking to him
Me : "Hey, You always look busy, so how do you entertain yourself? Do you have a favorite book, movie,...
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33
votes
2
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The Time Machine works but my friend is gone!
So my friend Fred and I have been developing a time machine. I know it sounds impossible but we think we've hit a breakthrough! Fred has had a successful test run but he didn't tell me where he was ...
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32
votes
3
answers
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▉ ▎▊ ▐▎ ▋█ ▐▉ ▋█ ▐▉ ▎▊ ▐▎ ▎█ ▐
(I created this puzzle myself)
I was shopping for groceries the other day, and I found an item that was in an unlabeled, uncolored package. In fact, the only thing that was on it was this barcode:
...
32
votes
3
answers
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Mysterious Flash Drive
First puzzle I ever do! Hopefully it won't be too easy or too challenging.
My co-worker just gave me a USB flash drive, which was supposed to contain a couple files of code for me to review. ...
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31
votes
5
answers
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The old tinkerer's safe
A client of mine died last Sunday - just as he was born on a Sunday. He was already at rather ripe age, and I had the pleasure to present his last will to his loving and caring family. As far as I ...
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31
votes
3
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What secret is this massive technical puzzle hiding? [riddles and data puzzles]
There's a game development company which released a mysterious "countdown to reveal" web page, and the page is designed pretty fancy, so everyone in that gaming community is curious about this.
This ...
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6
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Five Linux command line rebus puzzles
Solve the following 5 text rebuses, which are in the form of Linux (bash) command lines.
Rebus #1 (solved by Prem)
# type beep sound > file.txt 2> file2.txt
...
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30
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4
answers
2k
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They've Noticed Your Puzzling Prowess
They came to your home in the early hours and whisked you away.
The four by four's windows were completely blacked out but the agents seemed amicable enough, albeit fairly taciturn.
After a while you ...
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28
votes
2
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28
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5
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Google cannot find me
Google cannot find me,
reflected I'm lemon and lime,
googling 'me' is when you fall,
me and meme will answer all.
What am I?
Line 1 hint: Posted I still
Line 2 hint: Take my reflection
...
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28
votes
2
answers
1k
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A Racing Heart!
This puzzle is about an athletic, hearty person. Therefore, there are 3 pieces of information hidden accordingly:
For each clue, including trailing remarks such as "(2 words)", remove all numbers, ...
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27
votes
8
answers
2k
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Meatsacks, please help us decipher this code
Be greeted, meatsacks. We have been studying several of your species for some time now. One of the subjects, some meatsack related to saving Earth several times, seemed to know a lot of our operations ...
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27
votes
5
answers
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What does this Java main() method represent?
The main() method in the following Java program is a text rebus. What does it represent?
...
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26
votes
14
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The master programmer and the mystical reversal
The master programmer sat at his desk, gazing into the distance, his eyes seeing, and yet unseeing.
The lunch had been heavy.
His reverie was interrupted by the appearance of his close colleague, ...
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26
votes
1
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Code Movie Wall
An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #36: Twisted Classics 1
I'm thinking of a movie. The Connecting Wall below (click it for a bigger version) should have made guessing the movie really simple, ...
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1
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Self-Description
Part of the Fortnightly Topic Challenge #35: Restricted Title 1
This text has ? l's and ? n's, but its ?th most frequent letter is f. This text also has ? letters that are used ? times or less. Its ...
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2
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The Prognosticator
As I traveled across the web, searching far and wide, I came across an odd puzzle that made me feel awry. It foretold the future's path and predicted no tie. How could this puzzle work, and what was ...
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3
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The PSE School of Enigmatics (Part 1)
Update: I fixed up the second image, making it (perhaps) a little bit easier to crack.
You leap out of your bed. Today's the day!
You check your mailbox, and wow, there it is! The frayed look of the ...
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26
votes
1
answer
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The life of a Knight: Conway style
So I was thinking about Conway's game of life and the ridiculous kinds of patterns that can be made (Things that move across infinite space etc) and then I thought, hey could a chess knight do this as ...
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Computer riddle: I treat vars like D
Little 'bout my age: far from that of B
Yet in my syntax, you will find some C
The way I treat vars, that is much like D
I do take objects, but I'm not like E
If it starts with F, you'll know it's not ...
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2
answers
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Death cases of computer technician
Police found the body of a computer technician in front of his computer, with a belly wound. There was a possibility of the victim bleeding to death after being stabbed with a sharp object. There were ...
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3
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A weird website
So I recently stumbled upon a very strange website:
There doesn't seem to be anything except a normal navigation-bar (which isn't working) and a cipher. Can you decrypt it? Maybe the plaintext will ...
user14478
23
votes
6
answers
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Ask me this, what's my job?
My friend was talking to me about his profession and what he did for a living and I was a bit confused about what it all entailed. When I finally got fed up and asked for clarification about what he ...
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The Legend of Sally the Cow
I was looting exploring Pelagia Farm and I stole found this note in a locked chest on the ground. It seems that one of the farmhands had tried their hand at poetry. I want to know how it ends but some ...
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2
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Regex crossword
I can't believe this old-but-gold piece hasn't been shared here. It's a regex crossword puzzle!
Here's a nicely printable PDF.
Kudos for this one goes to a competition held by MIT in 2013. The ...
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3
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Wife can't figure out husband's secret account password
John and Jane are married and keep a joint account at ABC Bank. They agreed that all of their income should go into the joint account. In early 2014, John started a new job at a software company, ...
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4
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Consecutive integers around a circle
Find a block of positive consecutive integers that can be placed around a circle in some order so that any two adjacent numbers always have a common divisor greater than 1.
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Down the Rabbit Hole
There's a secret hidden in the text below. What mind-blowing truth does it reveal?
Not imaginative? Then Zeke's Clues may assist! Unsure, lad? With our
patented Obscurity Clues, begin verifiably ...
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2
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What is this mysterious image?
Recently, my friend who lives in Italy sent me an email. This was its contents:
Hi,
I've got some news which you should be happy about. But I've seen you around on Puzzling.SE, so I though I'd ...
user21703
21
votes
1
answer
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Pythonic Purity Puzzle
You are looking for a ten-letter word.
Perfection is displayed not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
...
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I don't want the smallest one, I want the second-smallest one
Inspired by my struggles with a certain open-source online learning platform's grading system:
You are working in a computer language with a limited set of built-in functions. You have a set of $m$ ...
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