However, St. Petersburg State University has always scored well, and like Ding Yue’s Mist City Arts and Science University, California Institute of Technology has never won first place, but they have always been consistently in the forefront.
Sometimes, they even perform better than Ding Yue’s Mist City Arts and Science University.
In the end, only 25 out of the participating universities managed to solve [Problem C]. This roadblock of a problem directly thwarted nine universities, suggesting that the subsequent problems would be of a higher difficulty.
"Yue, all the problems coming up are going to be even more challenging, right?" asked Huang Youjie, sitting next to Ding Yue.
"Absolutely, each subsequent problem is going to cause one university after another to fall behind. If we fail to solve even one problem, we can basically say goodbye to winning the competition," Ding Yue nodded and replied.
"Then Bin and the others absolutely cannot make any mistakes!" Huang Youjie suddenly became nervous.
The third problem alone had already stumped nine universities, Huang Youjie had every reason to be nervous.
However, Ding Yue reassured Huang, saying with a smile, "Huang, we need to believe in Bin and the others."
Having said that, deep down, Ding Yue did not truly feel confident. Even though he trusted his team, the unknown factor of whether they could get through all the rounds continued to sprinkle doubt on his hope.
Wouldn’t the sixth or the seventh problem be incredibly difficult?
As time ran out for the third problem, the organizing committee quickly launched the fourth problem without missing a beat.
Even though the competition was for a duration of five hours, and it could potentially extend due to various reasons, there shouldn’t be too much time wasted between each problem. Any substantial delays would cause the participants to lose their momentum and train of thought.
[Problem D] was introduced.
In the competition area of Mist City Arts and Science University, Director Xu Bin sat in front of a computer, with Chen Jun and Ouyang Chen on his right.
"Director Xu, this problem involves fixing a security flaw in the program," Chen Jun explained after analyzing [Problem D], adding, "This seems quite challenging, we could approach it by...."
If it were up to Chen Jun alone to solve the problem, he might be at a loss.
With a three-member team, and Director Xu Bin at the helm, it lessens Chen Jun’s worries significantly.
Upon hearing Chen Jun’s words, Xu Bin looked at the problem at hand.
He has always taken a keen interest in programs with security flaws.
Since he started studying computer science at Mist City Arts and Science University, Xu Bin has always been working on a security system.
All the basic network devices across the university campus are protected by a security system, which was developed and designed by Xu Bin himself.
Starting from the fourth problem, almost all of the university representatives, were eagerly discussing potential solutions.
For the first three problems, many universities began coding and debugging as soon as they saw the problem.
However, efficiently solving the fourth problem wasn’t that straightforward.
"If the first three problems were appetizers, then starting from the fourth problem, the real challenges have arrived."
"This problem doesn’t seem easy to solve."
"Without a doubt, the problem-set of the ACM challenge session every year is extremely difficult. Those who are able to solve all seven problems smoothly are among the top in the world."
Audience members, who were passionate about computer programming, were engrossed in active discussions.
Among these audience members, many were computer experts, after all, the influence of the ACM competition was quite substantial.
Even these computer experts, had to admit, that the fourth problem posed a significant challenge.
However, these computer experts didn’t claim that this problem couldn’t be solved.
The problem was definitely solvable; the difference would be in the approach taken by the competing university teams to solve it.
"This security flaw doesn’t seem too formidable; the difficulty level isn’t too high," stated Xu Bin after reading the problem, before starting to address this security flaw.
To solve this fourth problem, the competing university teams were expected to resolve the identified security flaw through programming.
To fix this security flaw, it was essential to have a thorough understanding of how the program code of the security flaw functioned.
Many universities were stumped at this stage.
But for someone like Xu Bin, who had come across countless security flaws, it didn’t seem that difficult.
Very quickly, Xu Bin found the program code for the security flaw at the earliest opportunity.
He then commenced fixing the security flaw in line with the requirements.
Considering that the committee allotted a full hour to this problem, it was apparent that the difficulty level of this problem was considered high.
"Director Xu, are you familiar with the program code of this security flaw?" asked Chen Jun, surprised to see Director Xu Bin so quickly start addressing the security flaw.
While others were still trying to dissect and understand the program code of the security flaw, Director Xu Bin was already well on his way to resolving it.
This meant that Director Xu Bin was well ahead of other universities in tackling this problem!
"I have come across it before; I’ve worked on many security systems and have experienced a lot of these," replied Xu Bin, while working on the flaw, adding to Chen Jun, "This is indeed a coincidence."