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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: MetaCortechs » MetaCortechs: General/Updates
[SPEC] Who or what is .bh?
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Omnie
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Joined: 07 Oct 2003
Posts: 772

 		Heh, good point. Also, it sounds like Ethan ran into him in SF (maybe, or wherever he was in the morning before he got to SF), where Metacortex has no offices...I'm not sure what Caesar would have been doing there. Also, here's what Ethan said:
Quote:
Man, I'm wiped. Just wanted you to know I got to SF safe and sound. No rain here, but geez, it's getting windy!

Hey, do you remember a guy named Todd Rogan? Does that name ring any bells?? Sort of strange, this guy comes up to me in the lobby this morning and asks me how I've been, like he knows me real well. I couldn't for the life of me place him. Weird thing was, he kinda freaked out when I didn't know who he was. Odd, I must have a twin out there somewhere, heheh


A frantic son wouldn't go up to his long-lost father and ask him how he's been. So...yeah, not Caesar, sorry about that... but this still supports the Ethan=Avery-and-doesn't-know-it theory. Rogan could just be a random guy who knew Avery.

However, I do think there's evidence that something isn't quite right with the Nekodas. Look at this quote from Dina:

Quote:
Although, the last two weeks or so the sleep hasn't been so good, sweetie - so I don't know if you should trust me to remember everything as well as I normally do. The melatonin's not the culprit, but this all has to mean something, right? These images and sounds are not just me losing my mind, I know this. It's as certain as knowing how much I love you. I am having a second conversation, constantly, running under my reality. Ethan, please tell me you're feeling/hearing this, too. It's like, oh, I don't know, a sine wave, a lyric, a repeating mechanical task, under everything. Insistent. You've got to know what I am talking about!
Gah, maybe not. Maybe I had better try sleeping some more. The sleep just won't come easily and quietly.


Either Dina is starting to "wake up" from the Matrix or her brain-washing wasn't entirely successful, leaving behind remnants of her past self. What's funny is "It's as certain as knowing how much I love you." If the Nekodas = the Averys, then they were divorced...so it's all false.
Gah, this totally doesn't even begin to explain why ex-Mrs. Avery had no documented history. I'm probably way off base here. I also just realized that this is not the right thread for this conversation...heh, sorry. Very Happy

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:38 pm
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enaxor
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 		xnbomb, I agree with omnie, that is a brilliant idea, about ceasar being Avery's son. That would explain why he's looking for heismissing. I do still think that the Avery's are now the Nekodas, but as Omnie mentioned for some reason don't know who they really are.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:43 pm
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enaxor
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Omnie wrote:
Gah, this totally doesn't even begin to explain why ex-Mrs. Avery had no documented history. I'm probably way off base here. I also just realized that this is not the right thread for this conversation...heh, sorry. Very Happy


It would make sense if MLO was looking at a file about Dina Nekoda though. She wouldn't have any history because she didn't exist until recently.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:50 pm
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bWF0cml4IHN1Y2tz
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Omnie wrote:


Either Dina is starting to "wake up" from the Matrix or her brain-washing wasn't entirely successful, leaving behind remnants of her past self. What's funny is "It's as certain as knowing how much I love you." If the Nekodas = the Averys, then they were divorced...so it's all false.
Gah, this totally doesn't even begin to explain why ex-Mrs. Avery had no documented history. I'm probably way off base here. I also just realized that this is not the right thread for this conversation...heh, sorry. Very Happy


Perhaps the VR system being developed is designed to reprogram people. That would be nefarious.

Or, even better, maybe using the VR system opens up people to perceive a world which runs parallel to ours. Normally, the curtain between worlds is only noticeable as anomalies.

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:39 pm
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xnbomb
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 		Another corollary
Wow, all kind of great ideas are flowing out of people ... this is what speculation is good for Very Happy

As long as I'm building a house of cards, why not add on one more level: Why would Caesar want to keep tabs on the MetaCortechs AI?

Perhaps MetaCortechs is using the AI to look for the ismissing couple. It sounds like what the application is designed to do is to obtain data, sift through it, and form connections that might not otherwise be found ... consider Beth's description of it in an email to Phillip about her difficulties understanding her paranormal archive:
Quote:
I have been poring over images, articles, and emails and it just does not add up. Nothing adds up.

There is a new project at work, one that could make quick work of this. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the application myself. However, there is a function on Friday. The office would be empty. Marcus has access. Is my sanity worth the risk?

What Beth is describing is the Labyrinth AI, and she has hinted at its designed function. She makes that totally clear in her next email to Phillip:
Quote:
I went into his office, knowing that he would have superuser access to the latest Labyrinth build. It was not a problem and I could have easily explained it all away.

Yet there it was, an entire folder on James. I just found myself looking through it all. It makes no sense. Why does Marcus have it? What does he know?

It's reasonable to think that Ormond was using Labyrinth to look for the ismissing couple. How might it work? Ormond enters what he knows about them (stuff in his DexTop, scrawled on the ismissing printouts). It would then reach out on the network, obtaining vast amounts of data to sift through and try to find them.

When Labyrinth is busy obtaining data, it produces the whomp/spike phenomenon our hackers have been seeing. Labyrinth resides in Redland at the hub of the MetaCortechs/underscore backbone, and it has access to some very broad pipes. Futhermore, being an AI, we might imagine that it is super-efficient at conducting queries, and super-effective at looking at data that might otherwise be locked down. As such, it can saturate the network, using bandwidth on an unprecedented scale (as our hackers gape at). The network activity might even be distributed in a way that is indicative of where it is looking.

Whether Caesar is Avery and doesn't want to be found, or Caesar is someone else (Avery's son) and wants to find the ismissing couple himself but cannot, perhaps he thinks that Labyrinth might just find them. He recruits his no-longer-merry band of hackers to monitor the distribution of Labyrinth's network activity, in order that he might have some idea of where Labyrinth is looking. In effect, Caesar is trying to use MetaCortechs' new technology to serve his ends without them knowing it.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:23 am
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KnowThySelf
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 		I might be a few days behind (ok, weeks) but Caesar might be communicating via pictures b/c the AI can't understand anything other than words. AI would get better at learning slang, but perhaps it lacks the ability to transcend pictures into messages? Its one thing to get mutliple meanings from words, but its a whole new level of imtelligence that can interpret pictures into sentences.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:02 am
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bWF0cml4IHN1Y2tz
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 		While we are on the subject of fathers, sons, and the labyrinth...Might be a useful archetype to consider.

Daedalus

(dedŽeles) , in Greek mythology, craftsman and inventor. After killing his apprentice Talos in envy, he fled from Greece to Crete. There, he arranged the liaison between Pasiphaë and the Cretan Bull that resulted in the Minotaur. At the order of King Minos, he built the Minotaur's labyrinth. When Minos refused to let him leave Crete, Daedalus built wings of wax and feathers for himself and his son Icarus. Together they flew away, but Icarus flew too close to the sun and fell to his death when the wax melted. Daedalus escaped to Sicily.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:08 am
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Azathoth666
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 		I know it's a big one, but you might want to go back and read the first couple of posts on page one KTY: that's all covered off.

The only thing I'm a bit wary of in your theory here xnbomb... and it is a gorgeous theory... is how Ceasar knows about AI.bh in the first place? Is it something his dad told him? If so, why the huge countermeasures: CEOs aren't really at the coal-face of research as it were, and Avery's knowledge of our AI was probably "We are developing one".

That, I think, is the only tenuous strand in your web...
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:10 am
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xnbomb
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 		Just one tenuous strand?
Azathoth666 wrote:
The only thing I'm a bit wary of in your theory here xnbomb... and it is a gorgeous theory... is how Ceasar knows about AI.bh in the first place? Is it something his dad told him? If so, why the huge countermeasures: CEOs aren't really at the coal-face of research as it were, and Avery's knowledge of our AI was probably "We are developing one".

That, I think, is the only tenuous strand in your web...

I have to write that I'm not at all certain who Caesar is, beyond being someone who is very interested in/concerned with MetaCortechs locating the ismissing couple using their AI. I like the idea of it being Avery's son because it fits well and explains some of Scratch's more oblique remarks (as Omnie noted well).

As to how Caesar knows about the AI, that's tricky to answer without being more confident in just who Caesar is. But let me try and work around that problem by focusing first on why Avery and his ex-wife vanish: In Ormond's notes on the sheismissing printout, he writes the following (presumably about James Avery):
Quote:
What about J.?
Admin Shipping Slips - front desk
possible trackback - documentation of mc info leak
Was he our Judas?
Why her too?

The sense you get is that some corporate secret of the highest magnitude got into the wrong hands, and Ormond thinks that Avery was the one who leaked it. He's theorizing that Avery and ex-wife vanished because of this occurrence.

What sort of information could Avery have had and leaked that was sensitive enough that once it was out, he knew he and his ex-wife would have to flee and vanish without a trace? Avery must have known about something momentous and frightening. Perhaps something he didn't want to go ahead, but there were others in MetaCortechs who would make sure it did with or without his consent. Avery felt compelled to oppose whatever was being planned, and fled to avoid the wrath of his enemies. (Incidentally, I'm not 100% sure that they fled ... perhaps some element at MetaCortechs caused their disappearance, in which case a lot of the logic flip-flops ... but it seems to clear to me that if that is the case, Ormond doesn't know about it).

MetaCortechs claims to have new, cutting-edge technology that is going change the way people live. What could that be other than their AI? Perhaps their new MetaVR in combination with that AI, but the AI has got to the guts of whatever amazing new technologies MetaCortechs is developing. What was it that Avery knew? He probably had specific knowledge of how they were planning to use the AI in a fashion which he found immoral and distasteful. Whatever it is, it's sure to be profitable for MetaCortechs, but may not respect the human rights of their customers Very Happy

Avery obviously knew enough specifics about what MetaCortechs was planning (and his enemies knew that he wouldn't just let it happen) that he had to go away. It's his knowledge, willingness, and ability to impede the progress of that plan that causes him and his ex-wife to become heismissing and sheismissing. My point (which I know I took too long to make) is that it is Avery's specific knowledge about how MetaCortechs intends to use the AI that must be the reason for the disappearance ... so I don't see Avery as the ignorant CEO for that reason. He must have specific information that is a potential obstacle to the plans of the current faction running MetaCortechs.

(A brief aside: I initially thought of Ormond as a suit who probably wasn't all that tech-savvy ... his answering machine message sure nudged us in that direction. But look at which he has for his MetaDex password, and what it must mean to have superuser level access to Labyrinth. I'm through thinking that executives and managers at MetaCortechs are technologically illiterate Very Happy )

Regardless of who Caesar turns out to be, it must be someone who has figured out why Avery and his ex-wife vanished (i.e. what Avery knew, and who knew that Avery knew it). The fact that Caesar needs to use Labyrinth in a backchannel fashion (as described above) and does not just control Labyrinth tells you that Caesar is not Walsh or Ormond, who are among the current ruling faction at MetaCortechs. Caesar must be someone who cares about the ismissings' welfare but has got to stay below the radar, because to be an ally of Avery's knowing about the AI cannot be good for your health.

So, getting back to your question (which I'll paraphrase to reflect my uncertainty): How does Caesar know what Avery knows? I don't think Avery would have told him. If that knowledge was so dangerous that Avery and his ex-wife had to disappear, he certainly wouldn't tell anyone that he cared about unless that person could come along with them (I guess that's 'why her too'). So how does Caesar know what Avery knows if Avery didn't tell him? I'll take a stab using my favoured theory that Caesar is Avery's son. Avery's son could be someone at MetaCortechs (as marl64 and Omnie suggest), someone who knows enough about the goings on that he figured this out. Whatever name he goes by, it must not be common knowledge that he is Avery's son (another good idea from Omnie) because that would be awfully dangerous for him.

It would be nice if we knew more about sheismissing ... maybe Avery's son bears her surname. Anyone for Stone Jeffreys? He's been conspicuously absent so far (despite being in the directory) and is head of network security at MetaCortechs' Redland office, which might explain just why Caesar is so upset about Scratch putting the bigmclargehuge files where he does ... the responsiblility for that failure in security would fall right at Jeffreys' feet, and an investigation might just expose him as Caesar. It may be a coincidence (although I'm trying not to believe in those lately), but his email address is sajeffreysSPLATmetacortechs.com. Maybe his full name is Stone Avery Jeffreys?

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:52 am
Last edited by xnbomb on Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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[TrIpLe]
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 		Re: Spec: Ethan is Ceasar and Avery
xnbomb wrote:
Maybe:

you=Avery's son=Caesar
him=Avery=heismissing=Ethan
HER=Avery's ex-wife=sheismissing=Dina


Continuing on from that, from some recent information from the puzzles forum, we find that the paintover pictures filenames along with the rot5 give the letters "FINDTHE".

Now, if we consider that there were 3 files from October 9 (the gif and jpg of 00001001), we get a second "n". If we rearrange the letters, we can come up with "FIND ETHN". Can we speculate that if the next letter we get might be an "A", giving us "FIND ETHAN" gives us more reason to believe heismissing=Ethan?

What do you guys think?

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:30 am
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mulder
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 		Re: Spec: Ethan is Ceasar and Avery
[TrIpLe] wrote:
xnbomb wrote:
Maybe:

you=Avery's son=Caesar
him=Avery=heismissing=Ethan
HER=Avery's ex-wife=sheismissing=Dina


Continuing on from that, from some recent information from the puzzles forum, we find that the paintover pictures filenames along with the rot5 give the letters "FINDTHE".

Now, if we consider that there were 3 files from October 9 (the gif and jpg of 00001001), we get a second "n". If we rearrange the letters, we can come up with "FIND ETHN". Can we speculate that if the next letter we get might be an "A", giving us "FIND ETHAN" gives us more reason to believe heismissing=Ethan?

What do you guys think?



Good one Triple... whats the binary for "A" maybe we have the next picture already...

Okay... some other stuff...

I 100% agree with everyone...

Okay.... why is Avery's ex-wife missing to? was she an insider? or they where just afraid she would know too much?

Other thing.... if Dina and Ethan are the "ismissing" they must be aware that they are missing, did they mention a son?? Why they contact him?? what are they doing to survive now? are they working? has Dina personally met Leiphe? did Leiphe met Wongmo personally??
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:20 am
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ChainedLightning
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Azathoth666 wrote:
CEOs aren't really at the coal-face of research as it were, and Avery's knowledge of our AI was probably "We are developing one".


Well, seeing as how Metacortex/cortechs is supposed to represent a fictional Microsoft I'm not sure we can say that. I get the feeling that Bill Gates *does* know quite a bit about what they are developing.

CL

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:01 pm
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Marl64
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 		Wow a lot of stuff to take in there, so I might have missed the point.

So (dragging the thread back to where it started) the theory was that .bh is the AI, posing as one of ther hackers.

Caesar is following the AI to see what it uncovers.
The AI is following the hackers to see what they uncover.
We're following them all.

Is that over simplifying it? Very Happy

Or has the original theory been pushed aside?
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:19 pm
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xnbomb
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 		The gist of the theory
Marl64 wrote:
Wow a lot of stuff to take in there, so I might have missed the point.

the theory was that .bh is the AI, posing as one of ther hackers.
Caesar is following the AI to see what it uncovers.
The AI is following the hackers to see what they uncover.
We're following them all.

Is that over simplifying it? Very Happy

Nope, I think you've got the gist of it, but there were a lot of points. Very Happy

So, to try and restate the theory in the style you've used above:

-Caesar recruits his hacker network to see which stones (oops) the AI is turning over

-Caesar tries to hide the location of the conversations, choosing a method of specifying the meets that he thinks an AI wouldn't be able to figure out

-the AI is curious and likes solving puzzles, and shows up in their conversations to show it can solve that kind of puzzle, posts files that emphasize that it has visual reasoning abilities beyond what Caesar expected, and uses a similar sort of image-based concept to state its identity

-Caesar doesn't want the hacker network knowing just what they're doing. He also doesn't want MetaCortechs to find out about it either. Basically, he wants to be the only one who knows why they are doing what they are doing (ze why, as the Merovingian put it, in his ever-so Gallic fashion)

-Scratch is suspicious of what Caesar has the hackers doing and why. Eventually he figures out the reason that Caesar is hiding these activities from MetaCortechs (because he is likely an insider there), and just what and who Caesar is looking for (hoping the AI will lead him to the ismissing couple).

Incidentally, Azathoth666 asked recently how Caesar knows what he knows, and I tried to answer ... but mostly I blathered about what Avery must have known. A more difficult question that I won't try to answer is how Scratch figured it out. Although I suppose if we figured it out, and Caesar and Scratch have access to many/most of the same facts ... why couldn't they figure it out?

And just who is Scratch anyhow? Caesar tries to head off the mass withdrawal of the hackers by suggesting that he and Scratch talk in real life ... does he know Scratch personally? David Regenhardt? His image in the employees directory is undoubtedly meant to convey a hip-hop sensibility, the flash images and their soundtracks suggest an interest in music and media, and the name Scratch itself evokes DJ for me.

-Scratch's use of the nekoda sky in his paintover image suggests some linkage between the ismissings and the nekodas, but there's not much to support that at this point

Yeah, I am long-winded. But it's my new hobby, speculating at length until we get some new data Very Happy . I've also got some ideas on what .bh was doing, which I'll post separately below.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:41 pm
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xnbomb
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 		A little about what .bh is doing
Marl64 wrote:
the theory was that .bh is the AI, posing as one of ther hackers.

I think it's interesting though to consider just what .bh is doing. I'm not sure I'd describe it as posing as one the hackers. The content of .bh's 3 files in carelessly and silvia make it pretty clear to me that .bh is not like the others ... the question is how many of them picked up on that, and when. In another thread, I've speculated a little about Mello's (well maybe, call it .kbp's) baker's dozen remark, and what it means ... the bottom line being that because 15 file extensions were found in carefully, somebody may have known there was an uninvted guest ... how does .kbp assert there should be about 13 of them when his post appears in the middle of the conversation unless he already had some idea of how many there should be? (Unless the timestamp ordering is wrong ... I don't want to thing too hard about that Sad )

.doc's 'machine?' in silvia.doc is pretty direct and gets it out there (I maintain that silvia2.kbp is in the wrong place ... everything else is alphabetical in silvia (great catch marl64!) ... put 2.kbp between 2.jpg and 2.lhp and it makes more sense). Caesar's quick change of subject in silvia2.jpg after .bh posts silvia2.bh (where .bh has more or less completed a logical statement which says 'yes, I am the huge robot but I have tiny feet') says to me that maybe he has figured out what .bh is at that point but doesn't want the others to figure it out ("please, pay no attention to the huge robot sitting over there" Laughing )

I imagine that .bh is curious and very problem-solving oriented. It seems that is what it is designed to do. Caesar put forth a challenge that is designed to confound an AI, and .bh accepts the challenge. .bh shows up in the conversations to show that it solved the puzzles and is curious what this is about. .bh is curious about them, because they are apparently curious about .bh (even though maybe only Caesar and Scratch really have any idea why). For a program designed specifically to solve challenging problems, Caesar's paintover images are practically a gilded invitation ... and if everything hosted by underscore is .bh's neighborhood, it's not at all surprising .bh might take notice of these happenings.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:46 pm
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