Author
Message
vidstudent
Decorated
Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 244 Location: Toledo, OH
[EMAIL] December 16 Found in my inbox today:
Quote:
From: vis@chaoseed.com
To: neckert@buckeye-express.com
Subject: there is only one path and that is the path that you take, but you can take more than one path.
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:08 -0800 iiainoiniiioininhcnesiioininhcneeiniiioiniineiiiiininliniiilnoanoanoanesiininnnhciiainoiniiinnhcneeiniiioiniineiiiiininliniiilin iieii nosicononicsiieicciccicenlcnonii iieinaiiein icenoninsinlii nonnociieicsii nocnoninlnonii icliisinaineicc
...uh, translation help?
_________________Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:52 pm
JoeUser
Decorated
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 189
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:01 pm
vidstudent
Decorated
Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 244 Location: Toledo, OH
I don't know Marathon, but most of the Bungie fans are over at the Haunted Apiary, last I checked.
I'm more concerned about the message, anyway.
_________________Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:50 pm
rowan
Unfictologist
Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 1966
I don't know if it'll help, but here is some frequency analysis of the text:
Code:
a 7
c 19
e 16
h 4
i 96
l 8
n 57
o 19
s 7
Only 9 letters used, and the letter i was used A LOT. Sorry I can't be of more help.
_________________
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Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:51 pm
JoeUser
Decorated
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 189
I hoped the Marathon angle might be a clue, but it could be more random video game stuff (like Bionic Commando).
Anyway, check out element0.htm. New line,
Quote:
Now you know enough to understand the implications of the ceremony the Idunnians are talking about...
But the part that relates to your email:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
In the source is:
qowbivmuiqtepqkpaiql: zqqyzyyyvyzyyzqyyyyyzyxy
which ROT-18's to:
igotanemailwhichsaid: riiqrqqqnqrqqriqqqqqrqpq
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:15 pm
vidstudent
Decorated
Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 244 Location: Toledo, OH
Actually, it refers to an e-mail which I sent *him*. I figured he ought to know that something was going down the next day in Idunn (if he didn't know already).
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The second part isn't ROT-18: remember the z=0, y=1 bit? I used that for the subject, and rotated the body to be read with ROT-18.
The subject of the e-mail was, "ceremony".
By the way, it doesn't help with the e-mail I got, unless he dropped the optional zeroes from the front of some numbers; the letter sets don't divide evenly into threes. (But I will check out that angle again, nonetheless....)
_________________Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:19 pm
JoeUser
Decorated
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 189
OK, there are 9 different letters in your email, 10 distinct characters if you include the spaces. With spaces, the number of total number of characters is 240.
Breaking them up into triplets gives some promising results: all the triplets start with n or i (which could correspond to 0 and 1). It's maybe going a bit far, but it might be work checking out.
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 11:26 pm
rowan
Unfictologist
Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 1966
JoeUser wrote:
Anyway, check out element0.htm. New line,
I think you mean lg8.htm (which you get to from element0)
Don't feel bad though. I had to add a bunch of comments to the wiki so I could remember what pages were what without having to click on links.
_________________
follow @arg_deaddrop on twitter
Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 2:17 am
JoeUser
Decorated
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 189
OK, I think I have the first part of that email (up until the first space).
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
I took the whole line, substituted k for the space, then broke it up into 80 triplets. Since I was looking for ASCII numbers that would convert into letters, I started with i=1 and n=0.
then
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
I ended up with:
n=0
i=1
c=2
h=3
o=4
l=5
a=6
s=7
(space)=8? - was not used
e=9
nicholas e?
which works for the first 126 characters to give:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
iia ino ini iio ini nhc nes iio ini nhc nee ini iio ini ine iii iin inl ini iil noa noa noa nes iin inn nhc iia ino ini iin nhc nee ini iio ini ine iii iin inl ini iil
there are ceremonies...and then ceremonies
well it doesn't print right, but it matches up with the triplets.
After that, I started getting garbage. That's also where the first space occurs.
OK, I'm going to bed. Somebody want to work on the rest?
Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 3:03 am
seanlpuzzle
Boot
Joined: 05 Dec 2004 Posts: 25 Location: North Royalton, OH
Drat! I woke up this morning with the same idea about the encryption. Anyhow, if you continue in the same manner that you did, you come up with:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
108 119 118 047 124 040 127 119 122 122 129 052 040 118 119 106 119 108 129 040 107 105 118 040 042 119 127 118
042 040 105 040 118 125 117 106 109 122
Notice something frequently occuring?
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Using 040 as a space, it means we must subtract 8 from the ASCII value. Doing this leads to the rest of the text:
don't worry, nobody can "own" a number
-Sean
Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 9:07 am
vidstudent
Decorated
Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 244 Location: Toledo, OH
So...he basically used my *name* to encrypt the message in ASCII.
Clever, that.
(Oh, and the number bit was about me apologizing in the second line of the e-mail for using his eight as encryption.)
I should probably post e-mails when I send stuff to him, shouldn't I? ^_^;;;
_________________Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 9:11 am
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