[thefreshteapot]

I feel its to convoluted to be a marketing scheme, as you would surely have a product which links to decryption.

I think it might be more fitting if this was a new approach to recruit people for the NSA / Cryptography office for X company or organisation.

[s_henry_paulson]

Passing out $50 notes to random people on a train hoping they're a cryptography expert in search of a job?

[thefreshteapot]

What you have described, is not quite what I had in mind when I said it was a new way to recruit.

GCHQ ( UK ) released http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/ to try and gather interest aiming specifically at a target market.

"It said that the Cabinet Office supported "initiatives such as the Cyber Security Challenge, which promotes careers in cyber security via annual competitions and events"." http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15968878

If the parties involved did a little research on some people on reddit, they may have found someone who would be curious and self motivated into publishing it on reddit.

When the GCHQ challenge was launched there was huge publicity on reddit, strengthening the above statement that there would be interest.

I for one am quite looking forward to hearing how this unravels as the person who triggered it (assume for now), reached out, is at least keen to continue the publicity.

[rdl]

Passing out $50 notes with a puzzle to people who look really nerdy (but fairly well off) getting off a subway near Wall Street might be a worthwhile way to recruit bored quants or IT people. $50x1000 is reasonable if you get one good hire.