DARPA shot themselves in the foot here, right? This fourth challenge was a handwritten, unlined letter, and would have been vastly more difficult to solve were it not for this unintended pattern.
A twist solution that stumped basically everyone until a single team solved it using a pretty creative solution... sounds perfect for such a competition. What makes you think they didn't do it on purpose?
A handwritten letter that's been printed on a colour printer, it appears rather incongruous. It seems to me DARPA hoped for a novel (or cheap, or whatever) way of piecing together a handwritten letter, but got something else instead. Still, all kudos to the winner of course. Even with the dots it's quite an accomplishment.
