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 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC: Silver Puzzle Cards
[Puzzle] #243 Silver - Shuffled Part 2 (Read 1st Post!)
Moderators: AnthraX101, bagsbee, BrianEnigma, cassandra, Giskard, lhall, Mikeyj, myf, poozle, RobMagus, xnbomb
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Stratman
Veteran

Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 81
Location: Kettering UK

 		Mind Candy have made it clear that no other cards are needed to solve Shuffled and everything we need to solve Shuffled is on the card. I am sure the prime numbered ppc cards for the card order is a blind alley. I think Mind Candy deliberately lying to us is highly unlikely.
My thoughts on this card lately...
Mind Candy have said Shuffled is not a 'trick question'. If that is so, then does it make sense that the 108 character string cannot be the card order because it is laid out in groups of five letters as is traditionall for a cipher text. If it is the card order then laying the 108 characters out in groups of fives would constitute a 'trick' to put us off the track. I am convinced the 108 letters must be the cipher text.
If it is not a Solitaire cipher (I still think it must be) then is there any other explanation for the star on one joker? I cannot find any other card cipher for which it would make sense. Anyone come across anything else?
I am no expert, but would not brute forcing all possible card orders (if brute forcing a number as big as 54! is feasible) produce all possible letter orders which would give hundreds (thousands?...millions?) of readable results? Google gave me 54! as 2.30843697 × 10^71.
Solitaire is a great choice for a puzzle cipher because one wrong letter in the passkey will produce total jibberish - you can't get 'close' (like in CoH).
My gut reaction is someone using a bit of lateral thinking is going to spot a clue to a passkey on this card somewhere we have missed and get the solve.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:46 pm
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UKver2.0
Decorated

Joined: 09 Feb 2006
Posts: 270
Stratman wrote:
I am no expert, but would not brute forcing all possible card orders (if brute forcing a number as big as 54! is feasible) produce all possible letter orders which would give hundreds (thousands?...millions?) of readable results?


It would produce every possible letter order twice. So even if it were feasible, it wouldn't lead to anything.
_________________
Naomi: We did joke that we’d end up have to go round to your houses with shovels, drive you to the location and tell you to dig.
Andrea: Paint a little X on the ground with spray paint..
Naomi: and then you’d try to anagram 'shovels'

PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 1:09 pm
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BrianEnigmaModerator
Entrenched


Joined: 05 Oct 2003
Posts: 1199
Location: Pacific Northwest
Stratman wrote:
Mind Candy have made it clear that no other cards are needed to solve Shuffled and everything we need to solve Shuffled is on the card. I am sure the prime numbered ppc cards for the card order is a blind alley.

They have also said that while you don't have to buy any cards to solve the mystery of the cube and collect the reward money, it would certainly help to have them (or, at least, the knowledge of Perplex City society or whatnot that you get from the cards such as the link to Kurt's blog "hidden" in the 2D barcode.) I just wonder if a similar thing is going on here--like you can brute-force both the deck order and the keyword if you had just this one card or you can have the deck order given to you and just brute-force the keyword if you looked at the other cards.
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Y0 Resources / VP Wiki / PXC Catalog / Metacortex

PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:26 pm
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chimera245
Decorated

Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 209

 		Star == Star Chamber?
I remember reading something the The Codebreakers about Star Chambers, but Cryptography is not my specialism.


edit: Ignore it, the bit in Kahn is about Black Chambers

PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:47 am
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thelayfields
Boot

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 20

 		Two codes
Taking form the idea there are two codes on this card, perhaps we aren't looking to crack them both with the information available on the card.

The card string on the PXC deck could be the solitaire cipher for one of the codes on the card and all we need to answer this card is the disappearing text (or vice versa). So in truth we don't need all of the other cards to solve this one card for the points, but to get the clue to find the cube, we will need the entire (or nearly the entire deck) to figure out the second set.

PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:56 am
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Fuseunderground
Decorated

Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Posts: 151

 		Re: Two codes
thelayfields wrote:
The card string on the PXC deck could be the solitaire cipher for one of the codes on the card and all we need to answer this card is the disappearing text (or vice versa). So in truth we don't need all of the other cards to solve this one card for the points, but to get the clue to find the cube, we will need the entire (or nearly the entire deck) to figure out the second set.


Intriguing! That is an interesting hypothesis, and if true,
may mean they accept the second (all prime cards) answer for the solution as well,
a la 'the password is yi istia'/'Robert Frost' which coincidentally also has heat sensitive letters.
Which would at least have a solve when all the cards are out.

But equally there is no reason to
stop trying to solve the main 108 letter puzzle.

PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:19 pm
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thelayfields
Boot

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 20

 		Two codes
Taking form the idea there are two codes on this card, perhaps we aren't looking to crack them both with the information available on the card.

The card string on the PXC deck could be the solitaire cipher for one of the codes on the card and all we need to answer this card is the disappearing text (or vice versa). So in truth we don't need all of the other cards to solve this one card for the points, but to get the clue to find the cube, we will need the entire (or nearly the entire deck) to figure out the second set.

sorry-got reposted

PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:21 pm
Last edited by thelayfields on Thu Apr 06, 2006 10:08 am; edited 1 time in total
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boofar
Kilroy

Joined: 05 Apr 2006
Posts: 1

 		beginning of a hakiu?
I haven't seen this mentioned, but doesn't the phrase,

"If entropy wins,
outward looks should leave you cold"

look like the start of a haiku (5 syllable -7 syllable -5 syllable)? That second phrase was worded weird, so I started counting syllables....

Am totally clueless as to how this could fit with the solution, but just thought I'd point it out.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:59 pm
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hamatoyoshi
Veteran

Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 127
beglee wrote:
stuart437 wrote:
I see no one has mentioned it so i thought i would it reads
CSYJ-8418


Although, it isnt up on the Wiki page so maybe someone could add it there.


Also, since I searched and didn't see any mention of its significance, I looked further and according to this Google cache it appears to simply be a model number for the deck of card (though the picture of the deck displayed in the Google cache is not the same as our deck).

There is a model CSYJ-8318 and 8518 as well, so I wouldn't give too much significance to it.

PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 10:34 am
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anon
Guest


 		For those of you that think the playing cards on prime numbered pxc cards are the deck order, there are now only 39,916,800 possible combinations. It would be very realistic to start generating the permutations now.

PostPosted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:29 pm
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sixsidedsquare
Unfettered

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

 		I've been trying anon, I coded up a little java thing that (I think) can run through the possible deck combos in under a minute for 20 long keys and a bit longer for 108. Only problem is I've been coming up cold so far Confused There may be something wrong with my algorithm, or maybe the deck order I've put in so I'll check it some more, but if the playing card symbols are the deck order, then this is definitely crackable now.

PostPosted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:43 pm
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walther
Boot

Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Posts: 38
anon wrote:
there are now only 39,916,800 possible combinations.


14 missing cards = 87,178,291,200 Combinations.

I think whe symbols were only there to get the layout so you could read the message on the back. Not that I'm not still trying it to solve shuffled this way, but with that many we will probably have to wait for Wave 4 to know for sure.

PostPosted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:53 am
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Austin
Boot

Joined: 28 Feb 2006
Posts: 53
Location: uk

 		Back on July 8th last year, am520dj wrote:
Quote:
i forgot where to look for this or how to do it, but could the text be a solitaire cipher? *shudders at thought of virtucube*

the only thing strange about the text was the LUL, as the only group of three letters.
_________________
.:: am520dj³ ::.
CubeWaiter since October.


So, with virtucube in mind, I have searched both the Wiki and the UF threads but I can't find any suggestion that the deck order might be easily recognised (Garnet spreads them out on the table and finds the clue he needs!). It might not be the Si Stebbins full deck stack as it was in virtucube but there are other stacks that might be worth looking at.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 1:45 pm
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shadowcaster0
Guest


 		i know something you don't know.....
hmmm, i wonder if i should let you know what the password is for? you'd hit yourself if i told you. let's just say it has something to do with phase 3....

PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:34 pm
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Joe_the_OOF
Guest


 		Possible hint
Just wondering, has anyone gone to the trouble of viewing
the source code for the solve page for this puzzle? That would seem
the best way to get at least a clue as to what the thing is looking for.

(You might have to keep cookies disabled to make this work
properly)

PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:42 am
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