Return to Unfiction unforum
 a.r.g.b.b 
FAQ FAQ   Search Search 
 
Welcome!
New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.
Website Restoration Project
This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.
Announcements
This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.
This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.
  

The time now is Tue Nov 12, 2024 5:45 am
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)		 View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum
Calendar
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Art of the Heist » The Art of the Heist: Puzzles
[PUZZLE] grammarwork.doc {SD 1/family/grammarwork.doc}
View previous topicView next topic
Page 1 of 1 [15 Posts]  
Author Message
nivra1
Guest


 		[PUZZLE] grammarwork.doc {SD 1/family/grammarwork.doc}
Quote:
Grammar and Composition Homework
Teacher: ___________ Date: __________ Student: ____________________

Directions: In each of the following sentences you have a choice of verbs. Select the one of the two verbs in parentheses which agrees in number with the subject of each sentence.

1. The girls in the office (work, works) long hours.
2. A tree with wide-spreading branches (were, was) brushing the house.
3. The sound of the branches (was, were) weird.
4. The buildings along the waterfront (seem, seems) to be unoccupied.
5. The train with the beach crowds (leave, leaves) at noon.
6. Some guards from the sheriff's office (were, was) trying to calm the crowd.
7. Games of skill (was, were) taught to the campers.
8. A box of these books (weigh, weighs) ninety pounds.
9. The work of riveters (is, are) sometimes dangerous.
The opinions of a critic often (determines, determine) the success of a movie.


Answers are:

work, was, was, seem, leaves, were, were, weighs, is, determine

Translated to binary(0 = first option, 1 = second option)

0100101101

---------

It's weird that the last exercise is not numbered as "10."

Edit - Topic tag -- Rowan
Edit: more title clarification -- Rowan

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 7:51 pm
 Back to top 
Mattazuma
Boot

Joined: 09 Apr 2005
Posts: 56
Location: Chicago, IL

 		The last one is labeled as '10' when I open it in Word.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 8:01 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
Mattazuma
Boot

Joined: 09 Apr 2005
Posts: 56
Location: Chicago, IL

 		Strange formatting in Word
OK, I opened the reveal formatting window in word on this file and there is something weird in it.

For some reason the title line has some Asian formatting options turned on in it. This is not a default setting.

Check it out:
grammer.jpg
 Description   
 Filesize   224.2KB
 Viewed   341 Time(s)

grammer.jpg

PostPosted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:20 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
jbd
Decorated

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 295
Mattazuma wrote:
The last one is labeled as '10' when I open it in Word.


1. through 10. are not actually in the file itself -- it's an autoformatting thing.

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:13 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
nivra
Veteran

Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 103

 		Current speculation
Since almost all the other puzzles had a lead-in hint as to where to luck, we think this one might, too. Specifcally, maybe the word "Composition" in the title, or the phrase "in number" in the directions are a hint. Or maybe we're just insanely grasping at straws.

Things that are odd about the file, or things we noticed:

  • The term "wide-spreading" in exercise 2.
  • The teacher flips singular and plural back and forth, rather than just having each option be (singular, plural).
  • The chkbkexcerpt also has 10 entries.
  • ktg01.txt converts to 10 hexadecimal digits.


We've looked at the binary form of the answers. We've also looked at the singular/plural form of the answers. We've tried to combine hex ktg to the words in the list. No luck on any of these.

Also, I wanted to include the full word doc as an attachment for completeness.
grammarwork.doc
Description  This file and matthewsmath.pdf(solved) are in a folder called "My Family"
 doc

 Download 
Filename  grammarwork.doc 
Filesize  19.5KB 
Downloaded  169 Time(s) 

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:13 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
CDub
Boot


Joined: 08 Apr 2005
Posts: 59
Location: St. Louis

 		I think you guys are on to something.
The title could be telling us to combine the words.

"agrees in number with the subject"
Since we're grasping, what if it were to mean we use only the verbs where the number of letters in the verb match the list number?
#3. Was (3 letters)
#4. Were (4 letters)

That's reaching. lol
_________________
The Art of the Heist | bitPimps

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:11 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
Saint Cad
Veteran


Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 97
Quote:
The chkbkexcerpt also has 10 entries.
ktg01.txt converts to 10 hexadecimal digits.
We've looked at the binary form of the answers. We've also looked at the singular/plural form of the answers. We've tried to combine hex ktg to the words in the list. No luck on any of these.


I tried converting ktg01.txt to 5 decimal digits
98, 83, 202, 48, 120
Nothing happens, but wait. There is an entry in chkbkexcerpt for EXACTLY $202. Can the password be "Insurance"?

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Nope. Back to the drawing board.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:29 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
nivra
Veteran

Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 103

 		If you take the checkbook values, and re-order them based on amount(low to high), and then look in the Category field, start on the 8th row down, and start reading diagonally downwards, from the first letter, you get:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Ian Nticn, which means nothing.
Just thought I'd share in the spirit of fruitless spoilers.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:50 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Saint Cad
Veteran


Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 97

 		I'm starting to think that quarteroffour.zip uses a numeric password:

1) No one has yet broken it using a dictionary attack
2) The composition homework uses strange verbiage to emphasize numbers
Quote:
Select the one of the two verbs in parentheses

Wouldn't "Select the verb in parentheses" make more since.
3) Quarter of four can also denote a fraction 1/4 x 4 = 1
BTW: One, one, and 1 don't work.

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 11:55 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
nadif-not logged in
Guest


 		Yes, quarteroffour.zip has probably a numeric, or alphanumeric, password. I tried some dictionaries and also bruteforce - letters only, non-caps, up to 8 letters - so at least we know what the password is not.
I still think we should work on the 3:45 thing, since this appears to be the only clue we have for this.

M.

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:54 pm
 Back to top 
HitsHerMark
Unfictologist


Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 1521
Location: Austin, TX
nadif-not logged in wrote:
Yes, quarteroffour.zip has probably a numeric, or alphanumeric, password. I tried some dictionaries and also bruteforce - letters only, non-caps, up to 8 letters - so at least we know what the password is not.
I still think we should work on the 3:45 thing, since this appears to be the only clue we have for this.

M.


I seem to recall reading somewhere that a quarter of four is when banks in Italy close for the day. Wouldn't that rather suggest that the name of the file has more to do with the information contained in the document?
_________________
"COVERED IN BEES!"
GirlInFocus
flickr

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:02 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
nhansard
Decorated

Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 159
nadif-not logged in wrote:
Yes, quarteroffour.zip has probably a numeric, or alphanumeric, password. I tried some dictionaries and also bruteforce - letters only, non-caps, up to 8 letters - so at least we know what the password is not.
I still think we should work on the 3:45 thing, since this appears to be the only clue we have for this.

M.


I've been running a brute force crack against that zip file for the past few days. I did not have any success with a string of digits <= 10. So if it is just a number, it's 11 char long or longer.

I've also been running all lowercase alpha only and have eleminated all 8 char and less passwords and am 18% done with the 9 char passwords (I've run everything prior to f as the first char). At this rate, the 9 char space will be done in about 5 days. Hopefully we'll find a real solve for it before then.

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:27 pm
 View user's profile MSN Messenger
 Back to top 
Nadif
Unfettered


Joined: 20 Jan 2005
Posts: 318
Location: Brazil
HitsHerMark wrote:
nadif-not logged in wrote:
Yes, quarteroffour.zip has probably a numeric, or alphanumeric, password. I tried some dictionaries and also bruteforce - letters only, non-caps, up to 8 letters - so at least we know what the password is not.
I still think we should work on the 3:45 thing, since this appears to be the only clue we have for this.

M.


I seem to recall reading somewhere that a quarter of four is when banks in Italy close for the day. Wouldn't that rather suggest that the name of the file has more to do with the information contained in the document?


Yes, in Italy banks used to close at 3:45 (I think that nowadays they have a not-so-fixed closing time, but probably most banks still close about this time), so this is a consistent coincidence. However, I'm not sure if this fact may give us a hint about the password, or if it's just a fact that has to do with the possible content of the file.
_________________
M.
[Yay, I still love kitties!]

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:35 pm
 View user's profile AIM Address
 ICQ Number 
 Back to top 
johnny5
Entrenched

Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 995
Location: Elysian Fields

 		Well, I hammered on it a bit, but didn't get very far.

using ktg01.txt as a key, splitting it into 10 segments and converting to decimal yields:
6
2
5
3
12
10
3
0
6
6

Taking these numbers "book cypher" against grammarworl.doc gives
"Rtoehum ri" which anagrams to several things, only a few of which I've tried. Rot yields nothing either.

FWIW

PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 5:55 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
jlandgr
Boot

Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 67
Location: Münster, Germany
nivra wrote:
If you take the checkbook values, and re-order them based on amount(low to high), and then look in the Category field, start on the 8th row down, and start reading diagonally downwards, from the first letter, you get:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Ian Nticn, which means nothing.
Just thought I'd share in the spirit of fruitless spoilers.

Hmmm, not so sure, if one reads your spoiler aloud (the C is capitalized, by the way!), one can make it sound like
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Ian EntiCing, or ian enticing, ianenticing, ianenticin' , Ian EntinCin' etc.

Hmmm ....

PostPosted: Sun May 29, 2005 6:25 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 1 of 1 [15 Posts]  
View previous topicView next topic
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Art of the Heist » The Art of the Heist: Puzzles
Jump to:  


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum



Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group