@user123 said: Dumb question, but could this be used to store credentials and help people who can't remember their Google account passwords?
That's more LastPass or a password manager. This is 2 factor SSH, an extra layer like having Google Authenticator to login to SSH.
I thought so, having used it before as 2FA with some organizations. I was hoping there might be a way to use it to store credentials on a secured host and use that to let people log in. I've tried getting people to use password managers, but no luck. They just reset their passwords every time they need to get into an account and complain about the hassle of updating their mail passwords on their phone and computer. People, I tell ya...
@Crab said:
In total of 7 IPs and 1300GB of SSD for $100 per year. That's plenty for idling...
Well thank you very much @VirMach for the good fun, it has been a blast. Reminds me of the good old days of frantic BF shopping.
The CHI plan was wild, with all the disk and IPs. I assume you'll get good routing since you're local, but it wasn't a good fit for the routing I got when I checked the LG.
@user123 said:
Edit: I mixed up names. I thought @Crab bought the $77.77 plan.
Yes I got the $77.77 plan too, but that is in Atlanta and 8GB RAM with 800GB drive vs 4GB RAM and 1.2TB drive in Chicago. Also the coupon worked on Atlanta plan, but didn't for Chicago.
Nice! What was the promo code you found? I haven't deciphered any, so it would be cool to hear what one was.
I was able to figure out the cipher, so I decoded that wall of text into 400 codes. Seems like only 9 out of the 400 were valid. One was already used by someone else, but it was the one he gave all but the first character of, so someone might have guessed it. It was that one he gave that allowed me to figure out the cipher
Nice! What was the promo code you found? I haven't deciphered any, so it would be cool to hear what one was.
I was able to figure out the cipher, so I decoded that wall of text into 400 codes. Seems like only 9 out of the 400 were valid. One was already used by someone else, but it was the one he gave all but the first character of, so someone might have guessed it. It was that one he gave that allowed me to figure out the cipher
I know what those words mean, though I don't understand them in that order. I'll just have to leave the deciphering to you.
So back on page 20, @VirMachposted the two blocks of encoded coupons. He specified that they were the same codes in each of the blocks, just encoded with a different cipher. He also mentioned that the coupons were all equal length.
I could tell by comparing the two that the cipher applied to both appeared to match case, the numbers matched exactly, and the translation between characters in both were consistent (V -> B, R -> F, f -> r, etc). This meant it was likely a Caesar cipher/letter shift. The problem left was how long were the coupons, and how much was the shift to decode? This wasn't easy to solve, as most of the codes were invalid. It would take forever guessing which ones to try, at what length and what amount of shift.
Later on, @VirMach shared that one of the codes was "lcydP7C", but it was missing the first character. This solved the remaining two problems for me. The codes must be 8 characters each, and I was able to find one of the chunks matching this specific combination of lowercase, uppercase, and the number 7 in the 7th position.
"lcydP7C" was "0izvaM7Z" encoded in the first block, which meant the real code was "0lcydP7C".
So from this, you can easily figure out what amount of shift was required. It's a shift by 3: i -> l, z -> c, y -> v, etc.
Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
EDIT: Turns out I had accidentally included both blocks in my conversion to 8-character chunks, so at least half of my efforts trying coupons was wasted by my own mistake. @VirMach posted below, and he's correct, there were only 200 coupons, which means that exactly 5% were real coupons.
@Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
@Wonder_Woman said: Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
1600 characters total, divided by 8 per coupon = 200 codes and not 400 codes. 10/200 codes = 5%
@user123 said: @Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
@user123 said: Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Format it with the OS you want.
I got like a 2GB OS disk, and since then have just used SolusVM to re-install (so it doesn't count against anything)
@user123 said: @Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
Which OS? I think someone reported something similar earlier. Could be my fault.
@Wonder_Woman said: Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
1600 characters total, divided by 8 per coupon = 200 codes and not 400 codes. 10/200 codes = 5%
Right?
Damn, you're right. I accidentally included the second block in my conversion to codes. That explains why every code after #181 was invalid
@user123 said: @Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Less than 2GB of space available. Skipping disk test...
Which then led me to notice:
RAM : 7.5 GiB
Swap : 796.3 GiB
Disk : 3.6 GiB
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
Which OS? I think someone reported something similar earlier. Could be my fault.
So...it came with AlmaLinux 8.9 (Midnight Oncilla) installed, but SolusVM lists the OS as "DISABLED - Windows Desktop (Server 2019) Evaluation Legacy". There was no option for me to pick an OS at time of purchase. I'm going to be heading to bed now, as I should have done a few hours ago.
Edit: I'll probably set it to reinstall something else and then hit the hay.
Thanks everyone for a lot of fun, games, head scratching, and sharing those crazy deals you purchased.
And thank you @VirMach for taking the time once again to put on a great show.
Reminded me of (I think) Vapor Node from the old days on the OGF. They used to have special Pi day challenges and puzzles that would give you a discount on their VMs. Really interesting puzzles.
I think they got bought over or sold the business or something.
We seem to have quite a few closet puzzle connoisseurs around including @VirMach (though the Easter eggs is what I remember the best!)
Comments
255R25SAT5SKLE-X works on the plan on the right side right now.
Triple 77.77 offers
That's more LastPass or a password manager. This is 2 factor SSH, an extra layer like having Google Authenticator to login to SSH.
@VirMach I made a purchase and noticed this error banner in the top left corner of your website afterwards:
Edit: If you want to get rid of some of that extra disk space plaguing you and add another 400GB, please do. Order # 2310666622.
$14.4/1st2yrs 250GB HDD KVM in US
Got one, thanks, @VirMach..
I thought so, having used it before as 2FA with some organizations. I was hoping there might be a way to use it to store credentials on a secured host and use that to let people log in. I've tried getting people to use password managers, but no luck. They just reset their passwords every time they need to get into an account and complain about the hassle of updating their mail passwords on their phone and computer. People, I tell ya...
In total of 7 IPs and 1300GB of SSD for $100 per year. That's plenty for idling...
Well thank you very much @VirMach for the good fun, it has been a blast. Reminds me of the good old days of frantic BF shopping.
Btw, thanks for the great deals, @VirMach
Yes, thank you very much for an awesome Black Friday and beyond, @VirMach
Which plan was this and the stats?
I think it's the one I got for $38/year, but forget the stats, and remembered the wrong plan ID... It was a crazy Chicago deal, 3 IPs?
LMAO the specs for the $8.09 NYC (offer #681) showed up with the $77.77 price, and then the proper price loaded. I cracked up.
The CHI plan was wild, with all the disk and IPs. I assume you'll get good routing since you're local, but it wasn't a good fit for the routing I got when I checked the LG.
Interesting...code worked for you !
blog archives
Plan #663
4096MB RAM
4 Core
480GB SSD
8192GB Bandwidth
4 IPv4
Chicago, IL
$38/yr
The plan @Crab got was double the price, but 1.2TB of NVME, 20TB of BW, and 3x IPv4. Idr the RAM. 4-6GB
Edit: I mixed up names. I thought @Crab bought the $77.77 plan.
This did not work for the $8.09 NYC :'(
Yes I got the $77.77 plan too, but that is in Atlanta and 8GB RAM with 800GB drive vs 4GB RAM and 1.2TB drive in Chicago. Also the coupon worked on Atlanta plan, but didn't for Chicago.
Nice! What was the promo code you found? I haven't deciphered any, so it would be cool to hear what one was.
I was able to figure out the cipher, so I decoded that wall of text into 400 codes. Seems like only 9 out of the 400 were valid. One was already used by someone else, but it was the one he gave all but the first character of, so someone might have guessed it. It was that one he gave that allowed me to figure out the cipher
Thanks for the reminder and thanks to VirMach for fixing my VM that disappeared after I took too long to checkout.
Def keep account credit topped up to avoid the mess I caused
I know what those words mean, though I don't understand them in that order. I'll just have to leave the deciphering to you.
I think they expire in ~20 minutes? Maybe I should give the rest away
If it was a 0, that was me. I sat and did A-Z by hand, then numbers and luckily it was 0.
:O
Ha, yes it was. What was the discount, out of curiousity?
Oh my....
I think like 40 or 50% but I used it quickly on a $20/year and then went looking for a ton of anagrams that likely didn't exist like John Nash
Alright party people, here are the remaining cipher codes:
Enjoy
I'll post how I figured it out if anyone is interested
@Wonder_Woman Thank you
Of course. It's more interesting that using it (of course if you give us a 95%, we have to in principle use it because.... 95%!)
@Wonder_Woman As someone who got stuck, I'm interested.
Me too.
I saw your order. I cried. I really want to buy it cheaply.
So back on page 20, @VirMach posted the two blocks of encoded coupons. He specified that they were the same codes in each of the blocks, just encoded with a different cipher. He also mentioned that the coupons were all equal length.
I could tell by comparing the two that the cipher applied to both appeared to match case, the numbers matched exactly, and the translation between characters in both were consistent (V -> B, R -> F, f -> r, etc). This meant it was likely a Caesar cipher/letter shift. The problem left was how long were the coupons, and how much was the shift to decode? This wasn't easy to solve, as most of the codes were invalid. It would take forever guessing which ones to try, at what length and what amount of shift.
Later on, @VirMach shared that one of the codes was "lcydP7C", but it was missing the first character. This solved the remaining two problems for me. The codes must be 8 characters each, and I was able to find one of the chunks matching this specific combination of lowercase, uppercase, and the number 7 in the 7th position.
"lcydP7C" was "0izvaM7Z" encoded in the first block, which meant the real code was "0lcydP7C".
So from this, you can easily figure out what amount of shift was required. It's a shift by 3: i -> l, z -> c, y -> v, etc.
Then all I had to do was apply the shift in reverse for all 400 codes, and I sat here for almost 3 hours entering in each one, one at a time, figuring out which ones were valid. @VirMach said only about 5% were real, and it turned out to actually only be 2.5%, if I count the 80% one he said he added in but expired on the 28th
EDIT: Turns out I had accidentally included both blocks in my conversion to 8-character chunks, so at least half of my efforts trying coupons was wasted by my own mistake. @VirMach posted below, and he's correct, there were only 200 coupons, which means that exactly 5% were real coupons.
@Wonder_Woman thank you for sharing. I now see where I went wrong.
thank you
The promotion code entered has expired
VPS Discounts and Reviews | Hosting Provider Directory & Check out the latest VPS offers and reviews to help you choose the best VPS service.
@Wonder_Woman great job! You definitely earned that (recurring) $40 discount.
And, the more years you idle it, the higher the valuation of your hourly work rate!
Question for @Wonder_Woman, @Kris, and anyone else who has a larger NVMe VPS: does your disk show up as the swap? I started running YABS and it said this:
Which then led me to notice:
I'm used to seeing the disk show up as...the disk. Is there something different I need to do for this or is the config on mine wonky?
1600 characters total, divided by 8 per coupon = 200 codes and not 400 codes. 10/200 codes = 5%
Right?
You can reinstall to another system
Format it with the OS you want.
I got like a 2GB OS disk, and since then have just used SolusVM to re-install (so it doesn't count against anything)
Which OS? I think someone reported something similar earlier. Could be my fault.
@VirMach that was a class act by @Wonder_Woman and I think you should release a code in hono(u)r of the achievement exclusively for him/her.
Of course for the rest of us clapping here, it'll be nice to have something - we are happy to clap more for you as well.
Damn, you're right. I accidentally included the second block in my conversion to codes. That explains why every code after #181 was invalid
Oh @VirMach thats not fair, I tried my name.
Appreciate the offer though, but missed the VM.
Get your FREE VPS if you develop Open Source software
So...it came with AlmaLinux 8.9 (Midnight Oncilla) installed, but SolusVM lists the OS as "DISABLED - Windows Desktop (Server 2019) Evaluation Legacy". There was no option for me to pick an OS at time of purchase. I'm going to be heading to bed now, as I should have done a few hours ago.
Edit: I'll probably set it to reinstall something else and then hit the hay.
Need another VPS so my other VPS doesn't feel lonely.
If VirMach allows it, you can have one of my NYC vms, I feel bad finding that coupon when he mentioned mixing up usernames.
Thought there were more anagrams people would've found which is why i posted that python code to parse out users.
Thanks everyone for a lot of fun, games, head scratching, and sharing those crazy deals you purchased.
And thank you @VirMach for taking the time once again to put on a great show.
Reminded me of (I think) Vapor Node from the old days on the OGF. They used to have special Pi day challenges and puzzles that would give you a discount on their VMs. Really interesting puzzles.
I think they got bought over or sold the business or something.
We seem to have quite a few closet puzzle connoisseurs around including @VirMach (though the Easter eggs is what I remember the best!)