Daemon Challenge 1: Is there anybody out there?

As described in previously in my blog, this is is the first of three Daemon Challenges.

The first person to complete this challenge will be named the "winner" of this challenge, and will receive a hardback copy of Daemon by Daniel Suarez. Anyone else who completes the challenge successfully, but is not named the "winner" will earn mention here in my blog.

Check back here for the next two increasingly more difficult challenges, which will be released on January 13, 2009 and January 20, 2009.

• See Daemon Challenge 2
  

Daemon Challenge 1: Is there anybody out there?

1. Run the Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10) Linux distribution somewhere.
   You can:
   
   • download it for free
   • run it as a LiveCD
   • install it on your hardware
   • install it in a virtual machine, such as
     
     • KVM
     • Xen
     • VMWare
     • VirtualBox
     • Parallels
     • or use a remote hosting provider (such as Amazon EC2)
   • Learn more about Ubuntu
2. Set up an Encrypted Private Directory.
   
   • Learn more about eCryptfs
     
3. With your Encrypted Private Directory mounted, obtain your mount options as established by ecryptfs-setup-private in Intrepid. See column 4 of /proc/mounts. Store that value in a shell variable, $x.
   
4. Within $x, replace your unique eCryptfs key signature (16 hexadecimal digits) with 'xxx'.
   
   • Learn more about grep, awk, sed
     
5. Obtain the MD5 message digest of $x
   
   • Learn more about md5sum
6. Use the resulting string of 32 hexadecimal digits to decode challenge_1.txt.gpg (link broken, challenge over).
   
   • Learn more about gpg
     
7. Solve the riddle and follow the instructions in the decoded challenge_1.txt file to submit your answer.

Good luck,
:-Dustin