[Dylan16807]

Okay, well I can respect that interpretation enough. I don't quite see it that way but I don't think I'm going to convince you.

Specifically I don't think it rises to the level of violating rules on filenames. That's why I think the distinction can matter.

[tugu77]

The rules should bar contestents from saving entropy outside the payload of the file. Whether that's in a file name or some file system data structure or in some timing side channel is insubstantial.

And once you ban that, it's impossible from an information theoretic point to win the challenge.