V.I.L.E.

cutter · Post by **cutter** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:51 pm

I think the challenge should be changed.
+685 is samoa (ws) and +503 is el salvador (sv) so it is "se" or "ws" but not "we".
And the most numbers have different meaning 246 could be barbados or Diego Garcia ,+269 could be Mayotte or Comoros ... .
And +809 is dominican republic, so why is that an a?

gfoot · Post by **gfoot** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:14 pm

According to wikipedia, that bastion of truth on the Internet:

+809 is unassigned
+246 is either IO (British Indian Ocean Territory) or Diego Garcia depending which bit of the page you look at
+269 is Comoros or, if you look at the right bit of the page, Mayotte historically though Mayotte is apparently part of +262 these days

I assumed +685 = WS = Samoa was what's known as Western Samoa at the Olympics, hence W - my geography sucks though so I don't know how reasonable that is. Generally the challenge uses the first letter of the name, not the abbreviation (e.g. +971 = AE = United Arab Emirates = U, not A) The only one that bothered me really was +809, but that could be wikipedia's fault. Maybe replace that one with +43 or +61 - the rest seem fine to me though, if you dig a bit.

It's unfortunate that the most dubious codes are part of the actual answer!

cutter · Post by **cutter** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:38 pm

Ok that explains the abbreviation ws of samoa.
But i don't think that the +809 is wikipedia's fault,
it seems to be the country code for the Canary Islands:
http://www.finanz-adressen.de/telecom-codes.html

teebee · Post by **teebee** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:42 pm

V.I.L.E. = Villains' International League of Evil, Carmen Sandiego's criminal organization? If so, are all referred countries are assumed to be members of that league.

mcjohn · Post by **mcjohn** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:47 pm

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I certainly didn't expect there to be confusion on the area codes as I had checked two sources when doing this (wikipedia, not always a great source, was not one of them). What I've since learned is that some countries changed their area codes recently and this has not been reflected on every website. In terms of the +1 in front of area codes for the Caribbean nations, wikipedia states: "Areas within NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Area) are assigned area codes as if they were all areas within one country. The codes below in format +1-XXX represent area code XXX within the +1 NANPA zone — not a separate country code." So I read this as the +1 not necessary to include. Anguilla was area code +809 and is now +264 and Mayotte was +269 and is now +262. Also, according to wikipedia, "American Samoans still use the terms Western Samoa and Western Samoans to describe the independent State of Samoa and its inhabitants". Of course, this could cause slight confusion looking at the wikipedia area code page where the country is simply listed as Samoa. None of this response is defensive, rather just showing you guys my initial train of thought. I definitely did not want to create a confusing challenge as we have enough of those and adum as since updated the challenge for Anguilla and Mayotte's codes and I thank you all for noticing this early before most people had a crack at it.

I wanted an intriguing title for the challenge that didn't give an obvious hint to country codes being what the numbers refered to, and I thought the abbreviation V.I.L.E., once expanded by those doing the challenge, may lead to thinking about "where in the world is Carmen Sandiego" and thus dialing codes. The countries are certainly not apart of the league or game itself =)

I joined this site a few weeks back and man has it been addictive trying to solve the challenges in my spare time! I think I'm around 92 solved and have a longgg way to go to catch you guys =) I think it's a great idea having a challenge where each member has to make a challenge; it makes for a more interactive and involved game. Glad you meet you guys and hopefully we'll chat some more.

McJohn

Geronimo · Post by **Geronimo** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:30 pm

Actually I also found Carmen Sandiego, but I thought it was a name

The name vile first took me to a wrong way trying to interpret the numbers as commands in vile editor. Whatever, at least I played a bit with this strange editor in my life.

cheers
Geronimo

Triton456 · Post by **Triton456** » Thu Oct 07, 2010 4:35 pm

When I first saw this challenge my mind said to me it had something to do with phone numbers (don't ask why xD) And in the end it was right (think I'm going to listen more often to my instinct

)
I almost never phoned to other countries, but when I used google a few times (after I removed the "?" in the end..) I found the Wikipedia site. Then I put all the letters after eachother and came up with: TRHTEGALNPIOWSSVRUIRSKATDKUAMC. The first few letter alreaddy reminded me of "the", so I removed every second letter and then this was left: THE_ANIWSR_IS_ADUM and adum was indeed the right "aniwsr" ;P
Some countries probably changed there numbers or something, or u just made some mistakes here john, anyway, nice challenge ^^

greetz,
Triton456

livinskull · Post by **livinskull** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:26 pm

Surprisingly easy =)
Although i just took the first letters of the country names and got some gibberish:

aheanssekisadum

enough to solve it

chephy · Post by **chephy** » Wed Dec 29, 2010 2:12 am

Am I the only one to check a new challenge against a possible representation of »the answer is …«? I have not even looked up the first part of the country code list – after +7 matched the r in »answer« (+7=Russia), I was fairly certain that the rest would work out as well.

laz0r · Post by **laz0r** » Thu Dec 30, 2010 9:57 am

chephy wrote:Am I the only one to check a new challenge against a possible representation of »the answer is …«? I have not even looked up the first part of the country code list – after +7 matched the r in »answer« (+7=Russia), I was fairly certain that the rest would work out as well.

Nope, that's what I always do first

wolf may cry · Post by **wolf may cry** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:39 pm

The heading is missleading...

Taurath · Post by **Taurath** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 1:48 am

The title gave it all away for me. The pluses before each number along with the Carmen Sandiego reference ('Where in the world is...') made me jump immediately to looking up country codes, and the first three "Turkey Haiti Egypt" (T H E) made me giggle with delight.

OvO · Post by **OvO** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:52 am

this challange is pretty easy, if you know the kind of code the challenge is looking for of course.