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 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC: Silver Puzzle Cards
[LOCKED] [Puzzle] #243 Silver - Shuffled
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sixsidedsquare
Unfettered

Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 409
Location: 60E

 		Yeah, sorry for basically copying your post Jeb Embarassed , but I was just trying to remind people that we can't assume that the pack is in bought order. What Garnet said could be taken to mean they are in order, but it can also be read as the card just being unmarked, so we can't say they are in bought order with complete certainty.
What Jeb/Seej said ^ Razz

PostPosted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:32 am
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PuzzledPineapple
Unfettered


Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 352

 		Since we won't be able to tell whether or not the little symbols on the cards refer to this or not until we have a pretty complete deck, we're free to think of other orders it could be. I guess we won't know which it is until we have a solution. Right now I can't make any headway on what the order might be, but it will be bouncing around in my head until I see a little SOLVED on the top of the thread.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 4:12 pm
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SteveC
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Joined: 05 May 2005
Posts: 381

 		I'm sure I'll be proven wrong, but my feeling is that it's bad that the pack order should be dictated by the card order from the puzzle cards. The clue says that he worked it out from the information he had. He didn't have a deck of puzzle cards did he?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:42 am
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Flidget Jerome
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Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 308

 		He had the deck itself, though, assuming that he didn't destroy the order when he spread out the cards.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:00 am
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demonofdisguise
Kilroy

Joined: 08 May 2005
Posts: 1

 		New, hopefully relevant wiki page:

http://wiki.incognitus.net/ppc/index.php/Playing_card_symbols

[/url]

PostPosted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:04 am
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helper
Boot

Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 29

 		I don't know if this is useful, but when I read this topic over it seemed to me that you all had enough pieces for a simple solution already. It may not be the right solution, but maybe it'll help.

You can interpret the sentence "If entropy wins, outward looks should leave you cold" as "if you shuffle this deck, the one-eyed cards won't reveal the answer." This implies that the one-eyed cards in an unshuffled deck will reveal the answer.

As already noted, the one-eyed cards are Js, Kd, and Jh. Since the order of cards in an unopen deck is pretty standardized, these cards have pretty well-defined positions. The "wild card", if you will, is the position of the jokers. Some decks put both jokers in front of the deck, while some put one joker in front, and one joker in back. In fact, since the joker was specifically the only card which had been touched, it could actually have been slipped back into the deck anywhere (although slipping it into a specific spot other than the front or the back would be hard to do without touching other cards).

The bigger question is how to use the cards to find the answer. I noticed that the cryptic message contains 108 bolded characters. Since 108 is 2 * 54, and 54 is the number of cards in a standard deck with jokers, maybe that's a clue.

Putting this all together, a standard deck out laid out against these bolded characters looks like:

Code:

 |--Spades---||--Diamonds-||---Clubs---||--Hearts---|
'A23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQK"
 ----------*--------------*-----------------------*--
                                            EODMFXRUTH
WBBMCHGFIBLXCQYWEZFLITHPJLFHWYETKWYLJOTYYNGYJBIOGIFUVM
RXIHGURAGXHNQHRSXAWHUFJTAMSMMOSMVBAAKPGVVWXOVMYKZPLLUL
FHURGIFULP
 ----------*--------------*-----------------------*--


where ' and " indicate the position of the Jokers, and * indicates the position of a one-eyed card.

Does this help? Well, putting the jokers front and back as done here, the Jack of Hearts immediately points to the name "Ruth".

Is that the name? It does seem too simple. Of course, you move at least one of the joker to other positions and read off the characters under by the resulting one-eyed positions until you find a combination that produces a name you like better. I haven't been following the saga of Perplex City closely enough to recognize any other name myself, but maybe someone else will have better luck.

Or the whole approach could be wrong. I just thought I'd mention it.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 3:58 pm
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Leeravitz
Unfettered

Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 450
Location: Stevenage, England

 		Interesting certainly. If Ruth Coralhouse was the genius behind the Djinn virus then this becomes a whole new ballgame! Doesn't it?
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 5:35 pm
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Scott
Entrenched


Joined: 11 Sep 2004
Posts: 1140
Location: 390 Chestnut Ridge Rd, Rochester NY, 14624, USA

 		I like what you're getting at.

here's what i thought of:

Code:

 |--Spades---||--Diamonds-||---Clubs---||--Hearts---|
'A23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQK"
 ----------*--------------*-----------------------*--
WBBMCHGFIBLXCQYWEZFLITHPJLFHWYETKWYLJOTYYNGYJBIOGIFUVM
RXIHGURAGXHNQHRSXAWHUFJTAMSMMOSMVBAAKPGVVWXOVMYKZPLLUL


To get this, i only used the stuff in bold, and threw away the lighter coloured letters. That might be fFolly, but i like how it wraps perfectly to 2 rows of letters.

under the stars is:
LLIHMP

under the high joker is:
ML

I dont know what that means, tho.

and offsetting by one in either direction gets the fFollowing: BJGXAZ or XNFSFL which is also garbage
Smile
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Perplex City is a game whose only rule is: There must be a party.
Balance of Powers is a game whose only rule is: There must be a political party.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 5:51 pm
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Night565
Boot

Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 31
Location: Noware, TN

 		Missing Something
I think we're getting closer to an answer. To say that Ruth Coralhouse is the answer does seem too easy, not too mention why they would go to the bother of creating this long cypher and leave "RUTH" unencrypted right at the front.

These last couple of posts seem to be getting at something, and I agree it's not unreasonable to assume the cards in the pack were in standard, unshuffled order. Simply because if they were in a different order, we would have needed to know the order, and we can either wait for all of the PC cards suits and ranks to be discovered, or Garnet would have disclosed to us the order.

Let's get back, however, to the idea of the solitaire cypher, hang with me as my logic gets obfuscated on purpose here. Is it necessarily impossible for us to decrypt without knowing the cypher text? As has been pointed out, the letters on the back of the box came in two sets (three if you really want to get technical), bold and non-bold (one set before the bold, another after). Someone already suggested these may be two different messages, and I think that this is an avenue that should be pursued. Because let's face it, 108 characters would make for an extremely long name for a single person, as Garnet seems to allude the answer would be.

Reading the description of the Solitaire Cypher from Schneier, he suggests that the traditional method of dealing with letter groups of less than four characters is to replace the empty spots with XXs. Therefore, we have to assume that there is a specific reason 'LUL' does not have any XXs. My assumption (which could be incredibly wrong) is that the code creators took them out of the final answer to let us know that the Xs throughout the rest of the message are the encoded results, not space fillers. Note that only four letters are repeated next to each other: AA, BB, MM, and VV. Of these, only the As and Vs appear at the end of a word, the Bs and Ms are located in the middle of groups. It's possible that these are the encoded Xs, and that they were removed from the end of the LUL group to reduce suspicion. It's possible that I'm completely wrong.

All that to say that I think there are a few options we should pursue apart from waiting for all of the suited/ranked PC cards to be discovered:

1. Rework Scott and Helper's charts with the inclusion of AAs, VVs or even XXs at the beginning and/or end of the LUL, to see if that yields anything interesting. (I personally think this is an excellent idea, but likely better implemented after the text has been de-cyphered, if it is indeed cyphered as we suspect)
2. Follow Schneier's codebreaking technique (described in Step 1 of his Operational Notes on his site), assuming that the bolded and non-bolded messages are two different messages encoded with the same key.
3. Has anyone considered that maybe this message was broken up to look like a solitaire cypher on purpose? Perhaps it really isn't a solitaire cypher at all, and the PMs just did it this way to confuse and annoy. Of course, that doesn't really jive with why Garnet would get a whole deck of cards with only one joker marked, but hey, explore every possibility. If anyone has a copy of Cryptonomicon maybe they should check and see if the cypher matches anything else.
4. Brute-forcing this message would take an incredible amount of time, but has anyone considered dictionary-hacking using a scientific wordlist? It would require making a program that could input a different pass phrase for each attempt, just like a regular dictionary hack. Is it possible to modify the decryption program firefox posted to do this? Or maybe create another one with this option?

And yes, I recognize that brute-forcing a puzzle is virtually synonymous with cheating, but don't you kinda think that MC would have counted on someone to brute-force, since they're using *cryptography*, and the two go together like Pie and Crust?

The only remaining option that comes to my mind (though certainly you all can prolly think of some) would be to try a Beale Cypher of sorts with the PC cards. But I'm not a huge fan of waiting. And lets not forget, that even if the order was absolutely certainly known, we still wouldn't be able to correctly encrypt without the key/pass phrase.

Night565

P.S. So if you have these great ideas, Night, why don't YOU implement them? One, I'm at work. Two, I don't have any programming skills. Three, thinking too much hurts my head, and this is pretty much the extent of my thinking power for today. Smile

FINAL NOTE: Looking further at the Solitaire cypher description, and the arrangement of the letters, I'm starting to think that my first task I mentioned may actually be incredibly wrong. Too bad for you, I don't care enough to waste the energy to fix it right now. The more I think about it the more my head starts hurting and swimming. I'll go home, injest more caffiene, then take another swing at it tonight. I should probably appear to be working harder in the mean time.
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Playing PXC and HOC.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 3:41 pm
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Night565
Boot

Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 31
Location: Noware, TN

 		Okay, one more
Alright, one more last thought, and then that's it for a few:

Has anyone tried decyphering using a started store-bought order using the keyphrase of "JSKDJH" or variations thereof? Maybe that could be the key?

Eh. Who knows if I'm even making sense anymore. (mumble, mumble... not enough caffiene in the world... mumble, mumble)
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 3:45 pm
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Night565
Boot

Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 31
Location: Noware, TN

 		One More Time Baby
Okay, as to why I don't think the charts are a good idea, at least not yet. If we go back to our original (and likely) conclusion that the message is indeed Solitaire cyphered, then all the letter studies, commonality studies, and charts in the world won't help us out here. When a phrase is solitaire cyphered, every single letter is replaced by another, virtually random letter. So, if you had AAAAA as the original phrase, the output could concievably be CTHULD, depending on the pass phrase and the key (card order). The only time I think these charts would be of real value is if the decyphered letters are still in a mysterious assemblage.

Now, having read Schneier's notes again, I'm thinking of a different step that may be worth pursuing. Let's say, for a second, that I may have been on to something when I mentioned that there may be *three* messages, not two. According to Schneier, the easiest way to break the code is to know the pass phrase. I think we should consider the two streams of non-bolded text to be two different messages encyphered with the same pass-phrase, and then use the resulting pass-phrase to decypher the third, longer, bolded text. This may be a fruitless venture, it may not. Of course, I would have no idea exactly how to "get A and B from A-B" as he puts it, but one of you should.

I still think there's a lot to be said for the idea of brute-force dictionary hacking. I think if we could figure out a way to brute-force just the first ten letters (the non-bolded ones) it would only take a short time to run the crack. Especially if we split the wordlist up. Ten people running a ten-thousand word list should only take a few days, I think, if my wildly guessing based on Peter Crowley's numbers is even remotely close. Of course, sorting through the results for anything of particular use could take awhile. If someone will help me with the programming aspect, I'll volunteer to sort through the results and share any good leads.

One final thought again, and then I'll retire this puzzle in favor of another one for the remainder of the evening (don't want to pidgeon-hole). I think there's too much coincidence in the fact that there are 108 bolded characters for it to be ignored, especially since the three-lettered LUL seems too much of an outlier to be coincidence. Is it possible that this section of text may be trying to tell us something about the order of the cards, or is that getting screwy again? And if so, how do we use it? Do we convert to numbers the text in order, do we subtract the second set of 54 from the first or vice versa, do we add, subtract, multiply, whatever?

Eh, more thoughts from a crazed man with no talent other than coming up with crazed thoughts. Maybe these will come to some sort of fruition, maybe it'll only get us farther from the truth. Better to try something than nothing though, I think.

E-mail is Night 565@g mail. comXX (like the parse by 5?)

Night "565" Watch
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Playing PXC and HOC.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:49 pm
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diddymac
Boot

Joined: 11 Jul 2005
Posts: 41
Location: In a corner, by the window

 		The comment about 'leaving you cold' reminded me of The Dragon's Future for the week of July 4:

The Dragon (August 11- July 10)
Already itching for an end to the sun and the heat? You always were a cold one. Take a nice dip in Alchemy Bay, that should cool you off fast enough. Don't forget your sunblock, though. Your shoulders are already thanking me.
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Black Ethel Rackham knows the script but searches for the cube nonetheless.
7/100

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 10:12 pm
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Night565
Boot

Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 31
Location: Noware, TN

 		I think that clue (if it is one) is most likely for a different puzzle. Remember, the puzzle cards are supposed to be able to stand on their own. So, barring having to collect the card suit/rank order from every other puzzle card, we should have enough information from this card to solve this card.

Then again, maybe the same rules don't apply to good ol' silver set cards?
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Playing PXC and HOC.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:05 pm
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Nyx
Kilroy

Joined: 08 Jul 2005
Posts: 1

 		Has anyone tried.......
http://www.cif.rochester.edu/~la002k/solitaire.htm#fields
Might make life a bit easier when the password turns up, I've tried a few but its just getting frustrating now!

PostPosted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:35 pm
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Mouse
Kilroy

Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 1
Location: Manchester, England

 		Just going on the word Entropy again... :S

They used a worm to get into the academy's computer security systems...
Then there is a mention of Entropy...

I came across this,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28anonymous_data_store%29

don't know if it will spark anything off, cause my heads banging from trying to work this one out lol

Also came across this, board_game? don't think its got anything to do with it... but u never know

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28board_game%29

L8erz Mouse...

Ps I'm going to go rest my head ...

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:30 pm
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