Dear Hivers,
Dear cryptoart family,
Dear participants of Enter The Maze,
With regret and quite disappointed I had to realize today that Enter The Maze was compromised in the last hours and that the VAULT was emptied prematurely before the last two puzzle pieces were released.
My original intention with this project was to bring joy and fun to the community; to offer some support to new artists with the support fund and to keep the game a bit easier to play so that really everyone has a chance to participate. In addition to the ETH and the artworks, the winner should receive a Golden Ticket, which should have sweeten his day with a physical box of various valuables. The prize would have been for an honest person to be the first to find all the puzzle pieces... by solving the puzzles mentally, not by using a brute force program before all the words are published.
But as I had to learn by a message, a person unknown to me unfortunately used the latter method to get access to the wallet, which of course leads the original meaning of the game ad absurdum. This selfish act of self-enrichment now leads to the fact that Enter The Maze failed in its original form, is cancelled and is now designed differently.
To be honest, as a layman I wasn't aware that such an attack is even possible with two missing words... First and foremost I am an artist and not so profoundly familiar with technical details... The inherent structure of the game had the possibility to cheat from the very beginning, which I wasn't aware of at all. Too bad that this was taken advantage of.
Luckily, the Golden Ticket and Masterkey and other NFTs have not yet been transferred to the Vault. In total about 0.31 ETH and the following works were stolen:
The Neuromancer 3000 (green edition) #8
The Neuromancer 3000 (purple/pink edition) #12
Diversity of perception I. #2
Research has shown that these can now be found on OpenSea at the following ETH address
I am not sure if this is the case, but if so, these 3 works are the first stolen NFT artworks in NFT-ART history... A different kind of art theft!
What happens now?
Which conclusion will Enter The Maze find?
I want to stay true to at least some of my original goals - especially regarding the intention to support new artists.
So I have decided that the rest of the actual 10% of the prize pool will go to the purchase fund, which is 15% of the total amount, which will go to other artists.
**Furthermore, I will auction the remaining parts of the prize pool as OpenSea bundles - this will also include the "graphically
modified" GoldenTicket, which still entitles to receive the physical box. But I will publish more information about this in the coming week.**
50% of this auction will also benefit new artists.
Closing words.
I have to admit that I am quite disappointed by the circumstances, as I have put many, many hours of work and love into this project. With my modest means I wanted to create a small but nice interactive NFT experience... which unfortunately has now taken a different turn than originally planned. I must, for better or worse, acknowledge my own lack of knowledge as a mistake and learn a lesson to prepare a future ENTER THE MAZE II better and more thoughtfully.
Regardless of this setback, I also see the success through the numerous emails from participants and the positive feedback that some of them sent me. I was especially pleased with the nice and motivating comments on the animations I created.
Therefore I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who actively participated and brought "Enter The Maze" to life.
I wish you all the best,
Yours,
PR1MAL CYPHER
Sorry to hear about your loss.
Maybe one short remark about seed words:
There are tools designed for this reason:
https://github.com/3rdIteration/btcrecover
The following table shows how long an attacker would need to brute force missing words:
Where A - CPU, B - GPU, C -ASIC (does not exists yet), D - Cluster of Asics (does not exists yet)
Hey Holger, thanks for sharing. I appreciate it. I was not aware about this. Next time I will consider it and create a different system. Lesson learned.
It sucks that the game was hacked, but consider the excitement of being present at the beginning of a new type of CRIME! Depending on who writes the history books, you SHOULD, now, be immortalized by the circumstances. (We should pass your story on to Artnome!! He can add it to the Crypto-Chronicles!!!)
thanks Richard for the nice words... it sucks indeed, but a second part will follow at some point and this time hack-proof. Ha, I doubt that artnome would be quite interested at this point.
(Sorry. Trying to look for a positive take on a negative situation---and I haven't taken my meds yet today! I should go do that now... Ha!)
all good 😊
Oh man, unbelievable! It was such an amazing idea and so innovative and fun. Really sad it turned out this way. Can you do sth to retrieve them?
Oh man thos really sucks, people take these crypto art puzzles quite seriously and will hack to find the answer/prize. Pretty sucky that so one ruined the fun though :(
It's ironic to think that the attacker who probably has zero artistic sensibility, may have thought they were playing the game. Like a dog, bitting a human too hard for play.
Yyyeeaa but I'd still blame it on the asshole and not you, tbh. I know this is the internet, and people can be twice the scumbags behind the monitor, but I still think you're being too hard on yourself by saying that. Lacking the knowledge or not, nobody should ruin the project you've put your heart in. I hope this won't stop you from continuing your good endeavour!
I don't understand much of this, as I don't do games online, but it is a very sad testament and commentary on our world, isn't it?
Good luck @primal-cypher
Sorry to hear about this. Sounds like a fun project.
this is crazy