I know this problem CRYPTO4 a long time ago, and although I implemented all the ideas given here, and some of my own, I still get TLE, so, has someone around here solved it, and is willing to share some hints???
It's proved, years don't pass along your mind :) After 3 years, you take a look at the problem again, think of it about 15 minutes, and you get a new optimization that solves it :) In this case that the longest meaningful code must be less than the length of the message :) solution
First of all, thank you kindly for source code with solution! However, I am a bit confused with 1 particular moment: why in the solution it is ok to pick n starting from m/2? How is that possible that it provides correct result if half of possible keys are ignored? Thanks in advance!
If a key of length k is valid, then that key squared (of length 2 * k) is valid too, so we only need to check key lengths that can't be squared, aka starting from m / 2.
Nobody??? Not even an opinion.....
It's proved, years don't pass along your mind :) After 3 years, you take a look at the problem again, think of it about 15 minutes, and you get a new optimization that solves it :) In this case that the longest meaningful code must be less than the length of the message :) solution
First of all, thank you kindly for source code with solution! However, I am a bit confused with 1 particular moment: why in the solution it is ok to pick n starting from m/2? How is that possible that it provides correct result if half of possible keys are ignored? Thanks in advance!
If a key of length k is valid, then that key squared (of length 2 * k) is valid too, so we only need to check key lengths that can't be squared, aka starting from m / 2.