Introduction:The class was split into six groups. (Each group has four students, except for the Black team which has five.) Each group, named by a color was responsible for creating an encryption scheme. Based on a contest in class where each group was responsible for answering questions in a timed setting, the teams were grouped into three pairs. In particular, the quicker a question was answered, the more points a team earned. Based on the contest, the teams ranked as follows:

1. Green
2. Purple
3. Black
4. Blue
5. Red
6. Orange

(Note: Blue and Red actually tied in the contest. A coin flip broke the tie.) The teams were paired up as follows: 1st vs. 6th, 2nd vs. 5th, and 3rd vs. 4th, much like many sports playoffs are done.

Each pair of teams are pitted against each other in the contest. In particular, each team tries to break the opposing team's encryption scheme. Each team was initially given three sample messages encrypted using the opposing team's scheme. The winner between the two teams is the team that solves those three ciphertext messages first. As time goes on, each team will be given more information to aid them in cracking the other team's code.

Restrictions on schemes group's were allowed to use:Each group was supposed to come up with a product encryption scheme; a product of two cryptosystems. Each of these cryptosystems either had to be a version of a cryptosystem discussed in chapter one of the Douglas R. Stinson textbook Cryptography: Theory and Practice or based on an idea they came up with on their own. (Thus, RSA and all of the other schemes included in the Stinson text after chapter 1 were not allowed.) The total keyspace for their scheme was only allowed to be 2^25. (That means the maximum total possible keys their scheme should be allowed to accomodate based on their algorithmic specification is 2^25.) Finally, all algorithms should work numerically, and it is required that A=0, B=1, ..., Z=25. (So no free substitution cipher by reassigning the values from 0 to 25 to random numbers, and using a different range of values to stand for A through Z is also not permissible.)