SD51
Silver Member
Anybody know what the treasure is for the September hunt?
Jeweler buries $1M of treasure around Michigan
- Thread starter OtakuDude
- Start date
malenkai
Full Member
7K estimated value for the 9/13 hunt
malenkai
Full Member
Johnny's Treasure Quest review.
I participated in the latest quest, in and around Mt. Clemens and Washington, MI (just north of Detroit).
Overall, my impression is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but mostly the Bad and the Ugly. I would not recommend it unless you are a hard core geocacher, or have an angle to compromise the treasure "outside the lines".
Note that this experience is basically pay to play geocaching, and not true treasure hunting, so consider my comments in that light.
My overarching observation is that this is a cult of personality thing. He is selling himself, not the treasure. He does not permit critical comments on his forums. His forums are aggressively moderated. He posts, in my judgment, self-promotional videos that have nothing to do with the treasure. He has an admin that is either a teenage brat, or plays one on Facebook. This admin boasts about his IQ while having the solution to the puzzle while putting customers down who do not have the solution and saying how he could solve it in 10 minutes. Who does that? My team jokingly called him "IQ Boy". All of that is very unpleasant and lead to bad customer karma, but has nothing to do with the treasure hunt, if you are a clear thinker.
So, onto the treasure hunt.
The hunt was presented in two stages, a puzzle where you entered the solution online, which, if your answer is correct, unlocks a second puzzle that leads to the supposed treasure.
The first puzzle was poorly written and poorly executed, in my judgement. Within the first 18 hours of the hunt, only about 12 of 660 participants had solved it, leaving most of the field frustrated. I was one of those early solvers, but I solved the puzzle by luck, not skill.
Shortly after I solved it, another team solved it via cryptanalysis, not the "intended way". As we all know, any way to the treasure is a valid way. Unfortunately, IQ Boy got all upset and petulant about this manner of solve by this group, and despite the fact that even with the team cryptanalysis, there was still only about 50 or 60 solves, or less than 10% of the field, they decided to release the answer to the _entire_ field! (Technically, they staged a vote, but of course the 90% who did not solve it are going to vote "end my misery").
This early release did two things: It devalued the hard work of those who solved it, regardless of how they solved it. And it implicitly accused those who used cryptanalysis and those who solved it the same time as the cryptanalysis team via other methods as "cheaters". Cult of Personality Boy came on with an "I don't think cryptanalysis is cheating" video; if you believe this is not cheating, why then release it to everyone?
This was the most negative part of the experience for me. Solve the puzzle, then everyone else gets it because of the petulance (in my judgment) of the organizers.
As for the poor execution of this stage, there are two points. It was manual, not automated, which lead to frustrating delays for the players. Moreover, it allowed unlimited guesses, which not only put strain on the manual operator(s), but opened the door to the successful cryptanalysis attack, which I understand was an algorithmic dictionary attack on the key cypher, which still required 100s of random guesses. Another member mentioned the folly of unlimited guess attempts well before the cryptanalysis attack, but he or she was put in their place by IQ Boy. (As an aside, IQ Boy came on later saying I know how to fix this going forward; I (meaning the author of this post), as someone who has over 30 years experience in cryptanalysis and has published work in cyber security, say IQ Boy is wrong, but he is the sort who is both clueless and arrogant, a terrible and unpleasant combination, IMHO. It will happen again, and IQ Boy will likely come up with similar words. If you are going to write crypo puzzles, arrogance doesn't cut it. Bone up on cryptanalysis, but, in all honesty, I don't think they care, just so the cash flow is positive (more on that to follow)).
Now, dispensing with some of the Bad and the Ugly, onto the Good.
And that would be the second puzzle. It was truly good, and truly well-written. I solved it 24 hours after receiving it, but maybe 72-96 hours after those who saw it first. I don't remember the exact timeline. I believed at the time I solved it, less than 10 members of the field had solved it. That said, 3 members before me said they had solved it, and knew they were right. Given the nature of the puzzle, it is the sort of thing that when you solve it, you know you are right, so those members were likely not lying. If so, given they were a day or two ahead of me, why did they not find the treasure?
Because the search area was too large. I spent 12 hours once I knew where it was. No dice. That's simulated treasure hunting in Michigan, I suppose.
Bigger problem is that so did everyone else. Problem was that the puzzle left really only one place for _everyone_ to search, the way it was written. Like the first puzzle, there was no real value to the fun part of solving the puzzle.
So, I woke up the next day, did some math -- 200 people randomly seeking 7K, or $35 expected value. Given 6 hours of expected search time, which is unpleasant knowing you will be randomly wandering by luck, not skill, I have a better expected return working flipping burgers. So I drove home. I believe the treasure was found on that day, or the day after, but I do not know.
So, some more math.
The title of this thread says "Jeweler buries $1M of treasure [...]". I don't know where the 1000K figure comes from.
Actually, what we have is about 5 hunts in the 7K range or about 35K. Maybe another 5 or so announced in the 10K range, or total less than 100K, well less then 1000K.
As for my hunt, $55 to play (IIRC), 660 players (IIRC), or 36K total entry fees (approx) to find 7K. While I say "IIRC", those numbers are damn close. IMHO, only do this if you think the experience in and of itself is worth $55.
IMHO, it is not. Even tho I expected to be in the top 10% when I signed up, and in reality I was, making it a somewhat better than flipping burgers on an expected value basis, discounting both my expenses, and the value of the experience, I would not recommend this unless you have a way to find the treasure via out of band means, or you have strong social reasons to do it.
The game, in and of itself, was not worth the price of admission, IMHO.
I participated in the latest quest, in and around Mt. Clemens and Washington, MI (just north of Detroit).
Overall, my impression is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but mostly the Bad and the Ugly. I would not recommend it unless you are a hard core geocacher, or have an angle to compromise the treasure "outside the lines".
Note that this experience is basically pay to play geocaching, and not true treasure hunting, so consider my comments in that light.
My overarching observation is that this is a cult of personality thing. He is selling himself, not the treasure. He does not permit critical comments on his forums. His forums are aggressively moderated. He posts, in my judgment, self-promotional videos that have nothing to do with the treasure. He has an admin that is either a teenage brat, or plays one on Facebook. This admin boasts about his IQ while having the solution to the puzzle while putting customers down who do not have the solution and saying how he could solve it in 10 minutes. Who does that? My team jokingly called him "IQ Boy". All of that is very unpleasant and lead to bad customer karma, but has nothing to do with the treasure hunt, if you are a clear thinker.
So, onto the treasure hunt.
The hunt was presented in two stages, a puzzle where you entered the solution online, which, if your answer is correct, unlocks a second puzzle that leads to the supposed treasure.
The first puzzle was poorly written and poorly executed, in my judgement. Within the first 18 hours of the hunt, only about 12 of 660 participants had solved it, leaving most of the field frustrated. I was one of those early solvers, but I solved the puzzle by luck, not skill.
Shortly after I solved it, another team solved it via cryptanalysis, not the "intended way". As we all know, any way to the treasure is a valid way. Unfortunately, IQ Boy got all upset and petulant about this manner of solve by this group, and despite the fact that even with the team cryptanalysis, there was still only about 50 or 60 solves, or less than 10% of the field, they decided to release the answer to the _entire_ field! (Technically, they staged a vote, but of course the 90% who did not solve it are going to vote "end my misery").
This early release did two things: It devalued the hard work of those who solved it, regardless of how they solved it. And it implicitly accused those who used cryptanalysis and those who solved it the same time as the cryptanalysis team via other methods as "cheaters". Cult of Personality Boy came on with an "I don't think cryptanalysis is cheating" video; if you believe this is not cheating, why then release it to everyone?
This was the most negative part of the experience for me. Solve the puzzle, then everyone else gets it because of the petulance (in my judgment) of the organizers.
As for the poor execution of this stage, there are two points. It was manual, not automated, which lead to frustrating delays for the players. Moreover, it allowed unlimited guesses, which not only put strain on the manual operator(s), but opened the door to the successful cryptanalysis attack, which I understand was an algorithmic dictionary attack on the key cypher, which still required 100s of random guesses. Another member mentioned the folly of unlimited guess attempts well before the cryptanalysis attack, but he or she was put in their place by IQ Boy. (As an aside, IQ Boy came on later saying I know how to fix this going forward; I (meaning the author of this post), as someone who has over 30 years experience in cryptanalysis and has published work in cyber security, say IQ Boy is wrong, but he is the sort who is both clueless and arrogant, a terrible and unpleasant combination, IMHO. It will happen again, and IQ Boy will likely come up with similar words. If you are going to write crypo puzzles, arrogance doesn't cut it. Bone up on cryptanalysis, but, in all honesty, I don't think they care, just so the cash flow is positive (more on that to follow)).
Now, dispensing with some of the Bad and the Ugly, onto the Good.
And that would be the second puzzle. It was truly good, and truly well-written. I solved it 24 hours after receiving it, but maybe 72-96 hours after those who saw it first. I don't remember the exact timeline. I believed at the time I solved it, less than 10 members of the field had solved it. That said, 3 members before me said they had solved it, and knew they were right. Given the nature of the puzzle, it is the sort of thing that when you solve it, you know you are right, so those members were likely not lying. If so, given they were a day or two ahead of me, why did they not find the treasure?
Because the search area was too large. I spent 12 hours once I knew where it was. No dice. That's simulated treasure hunting in Michigan, I suppose.
Bigger problem is that so did everyone else. Problem was that the puzzle left really only one place for _everyone_ to search, the way it was written. Like the first puzzle, there was no real value to the fun part of solving the puzzle.
So, I woke up the next day, did some math -- 200 people randomly seeking 7K, or $35 expected value. Given 6 hours of expected search time, which is unpleasant knowing you will be randomly wandering by luck, not skill, I have a better expected return working flipping burgers. So I drove home. I believe the treasure was found on that day, or the day after, but I do not know.
So, some more math.
The title of this thread says "Jeweler buries $1M of treasure [...]". I don't know where the 1000K figure comes from.
Actually, what we have is about 5 hunts in the 7K range or about 35K. Maybe another 5 or so announced in the 10K range, or total less than 100K, well less then 1000K.
As for my hunt, $55 to play (IIRC), 660 players (IIRC), or 36K total entry fees (approx) to find 7K. While I say "IIRC", those numbers are damn close. IMHO, only do this if you think the experience in and of itself is worth $55.
IMHO, it is not. Even tho I expected to be in the top 10% when I signed up, and in reality I was, making it a somewhat better than flipping burgers on an expected value basis, discounting both my expenses, and the value of the experience, I would not recommend this unless you have a way to find the treasure via out of band means, or you have strong social reasons to do it.
The game, in and of itself, was not worth the price of admission, IMHO.
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