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 Fri Nov 15, 2024 3:14 pm
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 » 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
View previous topicView next topic
Page 34 of 59 [877 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, ..., 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, ..., 57, 58, 59  Next
Author Message
Bendover
Veteran


Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 111
Location: San Jose

 		I believe some where in the vast archives of this card posting someone e-mailed Bruce Schneier and asked him about the card and he replied with the partial quote above

PostPosted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:29 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
BBuck
Decorated

Joined: 13 Dec 2005
Posts: 184
themandotcom wrote:
Not necessarily BBuck. All a polyalphabaic solution is is different alphabets that are added together. No plaintext required (thought recommended.) Techincally this is a chosen plaintext attack.


Sorry, should have made clearer. I wasn't referring to your approach of two pieces of ciphertext encrypted with the same keystream, but OliLu's idea of working back from a section of keystream to a starting order of the pack. The "known" keystream would be worked out from known plaintext. If we knew a sufficiently long bit of plaintext and hence keystream, we could reduce the possible starting orders considerably.

I've not done the maths, but guess that a very lengthy bit of keystream would be needed to make things manageable. In addition, we would need to be able to reconstruct from a particular pack starting order the keyphrase used to order it, as even with eliminating nearly all of the possible starting orders, we will still be left with a number of options. To eliminate them, we would need to look at whether the keyphrase made sense. There is a chance that this would still leave several intelligible keyphrases, but I think the probability of this happening must be minute.

I hate to suggest it, but should we consider a "brute force" dictionary attack on the key? A limited one was performed previously, but without result.

The combinations that we'd need to test would be in the order of W^n, where W is the number of distinct words to test, and n is the number of words used in the keyphrase. Whilst W will be massive, n could be pretty small.

Doing the maths, a dictionary of 60, 000 and up to three words would result in roughly the same number of combinations as 13th Labour. Sad

I know it's inelegant, should be unnecessary, and there are huge risks (unusual word in key, more than a four word key). But this card has resisted for so long, I'm losing confidence that it will be solved any quicker. I'd prefer not, but thought I should throw it in.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 12:15 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
RedZed333
Boot


Joined: 13 Jul 2006
Posts: 24
Location: Sunderland

 		How does one contact Garnet?

I'd like to ask him if we need to send him a specific message for him explain how to solve the rest of the card.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 9:13 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
fretty
Decorated

Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 281
Location: South Yorkshire, England

 		If the "testing words" approach is needed then there will most likely be the words "the", "Garnet", "Djinn", "worm", "is" etc.

Are we thinking along the lines of a vigenere or one time pad cipher then?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:29 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
donstobbart
Veteran


Joined: 20 Nov 2005
Posts: 96
Location: Cumbria

 		As far as I remember from way back when we first started this card, when we solve the cipher it will give us a message which we are supposed to send to Garnet, who will reply with the answer to the card (I think). It is in the first shuffled thread somwehere!

Don
_________________
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:39 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
fretty
Decorated

Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 281
Location: South Yorkshire, England

 		No, we attempted to ask Garnet what the message said but the reply told us to send him the decrypted message and he will shed some light on it. The answer box asks just for what the message says, which will come straight from the decryption.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:50 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
themandotcom
Veteran


Joined: 28 Apr 2006
Posts: 136
Location: Syosset, New York, USA, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe
fretty wrote:
If the "testing words" approach is needed then there will most likely be the words "the", "Garnet", "Djinn", "worm", "is" etc.

Are we thinking along the lines of a vigenere or one time pad cipher then?


One time pad, no. That is impossible to break. Something similar to a vigenere cipher would be going into this (assuming that 2 messages are encoded with the same keystream) This is relativly simple, just takes time to subtract all the numbers. I may get on that but if anyone can poke around the internet and maybe find a website that has an app that can do this or maually do it. If anyone out there can do it, I will go and break the simple cipher myself. That is the easy part!
Quote:
I hate to suggest it, but should we consider a "brute force" dictionary attack on the key? A limited one was performed previously, but without result.


I was thinking about this one. How can we do a dictionary attack with no definite key length or anything like that? I thought a dictionary attack helped with the hash of a word, checking against the hashed value, as in password hacking or something, right?
_________________
13th Labour!

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:55 pm
 View user's profile AIM Address
 Back to top 
arnezami
Veteran


Joined: 14 Apr 2006
Posts: 136
themandotcom wrote:
One time pad, no. That is impossible to break. Something similar to a vigenere cipher would be going into this (assuming that 2 messages are encoded with the same keystream) This is relativly simple, just takes time to subtract all the numbers. I may get on that but if anyone can poke around the internet and maybe find a website that has an app that can do this or maually do it. If anyone out there can do it, I will go and break the simple cipher myself. That is the easy part!


There is more in this thread than you think Wink.

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=250990#250990

Read on after that because I posted an update of the program a little later.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 3:26 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
fretty
Decorated

Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 281
Location: South Yorkshire, England

 		The one time pad is not impossible to break if either the key is also senseful or you've got two or more cipher texts encrypted with the same key. In either case, you can test common or known words.

It has been thought that this card consists of two different ciphertexts so it could possibly be a one time pad cipher.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:33 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
manleym
Decorated


Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 197
Location: Norwich UK

 		Just had to laugh was trying out a new idea
& the first bit that came out was
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
EBAYWIOH

(Im spending way to much time on this card at the moment)
_________________
A Bolt here, a screw there, Ahh my Cube detector is nearly finished Mwah ha ha Twisted Evil Twisted Evil
The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
http://www.manleym.co.uk/shop

PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:33 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website Yahoo Messenger MSN Messenger
 Back to top 
Sh1ft
Veteran


Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 110
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

 		Thought I was on to something:

Code:

$ echo EODMF|./sol.pl -d 'pokerface'
IRONY


Great, now to try the rest:
Code:

$ echo EODMF XRUTH|./sol.pl -d 'pokerface'
IRONY SVXAL


Darn.

(None of the other permutations I tried have decrypted to anything sensical.)

PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:51 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
RedZed333
Boot


Joined: 13 Jul 2006
Posts: 24
Location: Sunderland
Sh1ft wrote:
Thought I was on to something:

Code:

$ echo EODMF|./sol.pl -d 'pokerface'
IRONY


Great, now to try the rest:
Code:

$ echo EODMF XRUTH|./sol.pl -d 'pokerface'
IRONY SVXAL


Darn.

(None of the other permutations I tried have decrypted to anything sensical.)


Sounds interesting.........What is it?

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 9:56 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
brokasaphasia
Boot

Joined: 31 May 2006
Posts: 26

 		Re: beginning of a hakiu?
boofar wrote:
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.

I've been reading Cryptonomicon and this seems even more poignant since Bobby Shaftoe writes Haiku (he first hears Haiku by overhearing Goto Dengo recite Haiku in a Sushi Bar.)

In fact, I realized that the whisper could be 2/3 of a Haiku on my own and before I posted my find I found this message much earlier this year from Boofar.

I've scanned ahead in the book, and none of the Haiku seem to be close in wording or meaning as the whisper however... So, I'm not sure how to finish the whisper Haiku, if it is a Haiku.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 5:00 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Sh1ft
Veteran


Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 110
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
RedZed333 wrote:
=Sounds interesting.........What is it?


The perl program - sol.pl is the perl script from Schneirer's site.

It merely means that EODMF as cryptotext decrypts to IRONY using the passphrase POKERFACE. That's all.

The haiku angle is interesting. Finishing it is a challenge.

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
heat death is final?

or how about:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
Mostly Frustrated

or:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
Ice cubes cool drinks well

maybe:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
Randomizing bits

perhaps:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
Deck is shuffled, yo

and:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
Introspection sucks

what if:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
Garnet is smarter

could it be:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
Devious puzzle

Argh.

(This thread has pretty much stagnated. Post up your best haiku that completes:
If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold)

PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:53 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
manleym
Decorated


Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 197
Location: Norwich UK
Sh1ft wrote:

The haiku angle is interesting. Finishing it is a challenge.

If entropy wins
Outward looks should leave you cold
heat death is final?



I was looking at a haiku page the other day and haiku in english is normally split into 3 lines

so i was thinking it could be:

If entropy wins
Outward looks should
leave you cold

which would leave the syllable's as

4 - 7 - 6

P.S : I cant recall anywhere in the threads that the keys are not numbers
_________________
A Bolt here, a screw there, Ahh my Cube detector is nearly finished Mwah ha ha Twisted Evil Twisted Evil
The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
http://www.manleym.co.uk/shop

PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 5:27 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website Yahoo Messenger MSN Messenger
 Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 34 of 59 [877 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, ..., 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, ..., 57, 58, 59  Next
View previous topicView next topic
 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC: Silver Puzzle Cards
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