The 3rd puzzle was announced today.
I don't know why but I have the feeling I liked the first problem the most. I suppose the correct labelling for each puzzle type would be:
- Robot Maze: computer-science
- Product of sums: low-level UNIX trivia
- Routing table: networking
What will be the 4th and last puzzle about? Maybe a mix of all the three topics?
Quoting the last post at Google Blog:
The fourth and final puzzle will be released at 1212448500
And after solving the 3rd problem:
Your answer was correct! Congratulations, you're part-way there.
There will more questions over the coming weeks, and the first person to answer them all correctly will win a prize, so keep trying!
If I am not mistaken, the number 1212448500 points to June 3, 2008 at 00:15:00 (like... tomorrow ???)
Update: The time is expressed as GMT+1, equivalent to 23:15:00 GMT+0.
I feel a bit sorry for getting to know about this contest only one month after it was launched - since I'm not used to reading the Official Google Blog - so it's already too late for me to think about prizes... but I feel like it was kind of fun to solve such problems :)
Like the first two problems, I'll be posting the solution to the third, although I believe you won't need much help solving it by yourself:
Third Problem
A "pseudo-algorithm" for the mechanism which describes the path taken by a network packet from a known node (call it S - source) to another node (call it D - destination) should be:
- 1- Start at node S
- 2- First, add the current network node to the path. If D is the current network node the algorithm outputs the path and ends since the packet was just delivered to D. Otherwise advance to the next step.
- 3- Iterate each routing table entry:
- 4- D matches the Nth entry's network? Set the current node as the Nth entry's target gateway and Jump to step 2
- 5- D does *not* match any of the routing table entries? Set the current node as the current default gateway and Jump to step 2
Update:
Just for those who might be wondering how to calculate network addresses using netmasks (/24 etc.), I used ipcalc.
2 comments:
How to Solve the Third Question
[...] This third question had me slightly confused. As I had no knowledge of network theory, it seemed at first too big a problem. But then, when I Googled the solution, I found that others felt the same way. And really, you don't need great network knowledge to solve this problem. All you need to solve the third problem in the Google Treasure Hunt 2008 is common sense and the ability to follow instructions. [...]
Hi David, thanks for your comment! :)
I agree with you when you say it is true you don't need much knowledge, just a bit of common sense and network "math" :)
For the network addresses calculation I could have use http://jodies.de/ipcalc but most of the numbers you won't even need to calculate if you're used to standard netmasks such as /24.
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