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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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Teebor
Boot


Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 67

 		Just to check if this has been done (cant remember everything in both these threads)

Has anyone tried using something like numerology on the whispered phrase in an attempt to get a key for the deck?

If not I shall give it a shot.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 8:02 am
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dbdueitt
Greenhorn

Joined: 17 Sep 2006
Posts: 3

 		the LUL
it is most certainly a solitaire cipher. the putting letters in groups of five is merely a tradition practiced by the users of this insanely tricky encryption. if the letters of the message being sent do not equal a multiple of five, then a last group of 'not five' is tagged onto the end. this inclines me to believe that the heat sensitive first ten and last ten are just hints to finding the key to this deck, not part of the actual cipher.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:05 pm
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lanefields
Guest


 		The flame is the key
I don't know if you guys have found this yet
I was going through new packs today and found another card with heat sensitive letters - there is a candle on the card. #022 - cold fission. The letters in heat say "The password is YIISTIA - is that of any use here? Does anyone even still look at these posts.

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:58 pm
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Cabbage
Unfettered


Joined: 22 May 2006
Posts: 320
Location: North-East England, UK

 		Re: The flame is the key
yes we have
lanefields wrote:
I was going through new packs today and found another card with heat sensitive letters - there is a candle on the card. #022 - cold fission. The letters in heat say "The password is YIISTIA - is that of any use here? Does anyone even still look at these posts.


Yes they do. At 7 minutes to four in the morning.

Counter question: Does anyone ever use Search? See page 1 of this beloved fred and check out hexDa3m0n's post.

As they say around here "Search is your fiend".

I got up for this?
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:55 pm
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jimmyt
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Oct 2006
Posts: 7

 		I have the key
i think
I'm new to the game and to these posts but having gotten a shuffled card last week and read through most of these posts, I have had an epiphany. First off, I think everyone has gone too in depth with their solitaire codes etc. Remember the person who received this message was able to work it out with only the pack of cards he received and the clue from the messenger. If entropy wins outward looks should leave you cold. Notice in the centre of the card it has a star symbol. on the outer ring are segments. in the centre is a map of the earth. If outward looks should leave you cold wouldn't that mean you get the right answer or letter when the letter is aligned along the equator. at that point if you looked left or right you would be looking at the cold. Remember vons hint said if you were cold you were oversensitive ie too far away from the poles to be that cold. He also said everything you need to solve the code is on the card, not the perplex city card but the joker with the star (only one in the pack with the star on it also). I have also noticed that in the very centre of the earth circle there is a little arrow that seems to point to the 4th segment to the right of north. I am unsure whether this means to start the code there or whether it is a partial solution to the first letter to get you started. IE if you start at the north segment as A, then the 5th segment or the one the arrow is pointing to would be E. Now i am pretty sure i am close but am missing some perspective but i am 100% that this fits in with the cryptic clues from the messenger and Von. I have made myself up a circle with segments like the one on the card and have transposed the code going clockwise. Am not sure whether you note the letter as it goes past or if it lands exactly on it. Another thought i had would be that if you wrote the code out with the letters on the segment they landed on you would have some letters that landed 3 or 4 times on the same segment and some once or twice. The code could be reading these 36 letters on the outside of the ring (outward looks?). Also unsure how the heat sensitive letters come into it. Possibly they are the only ones that count and the rest is filler to get you to the last set of heat sensitive numbers.

I implore everyone to explore this path for the solution as i believe strongly that the answer lies there.

PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:06 am
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jaikaiman
Boot


Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 55

 		Re: I have the key
i think
jimmyt wrote:
I'm new to the game and to these posts but having gotten a shuffled card last week and read through most of these posts, I have had an epiphany. First off, I think everyone has gone too in depth with their solitaire codes etc. Remember the person who received this message was able to work it out with only the pack of cards he received and the clue from the messenger. If entropy wins outward looks should leave you cold. Notice in the centre of the card it has a star symbol. on the outer ring are segments. in the centre is a map of the earth. If outward looks should leave you cold wouldn't that mean you get the right answer or letter when the letter is aligned along the equator. at that point if you looked left or right you would be looking at the cold. Remember vons hint said if you were cold you were oversensitive ie too far away from the poles to be that cold. He also said everything you need to solve the code is on the card, not the perplex city card but the joker with the star (only one in the pack with the star on it also). I have also noticed that in the very centre of the earth circle there is a little arrow that seems to point to the 4th segment to the right of north. I am unsure whether this means to start the code there or whether it is a partial solution to the first letter to get you started. IE if you start at the north segment as A, then the 5th segment or the one the arrow is pointing to would be E. Now i am pretty sure i am close but am missing some perspective but i am 100% that this fits in with the cryptic clues from the messenger and Von. I have made myself up a circle with segments like the one on the card and have transposed the code going clockwise. Am not sure whether you note the letter as it goes past or if it lands exactly on it. Another thought i had would be that if you wrote the code out with the letters on the segment they landed on you would have some letters that landed 3 or 4 times on the same segment and some once or twice. The code could be reading these 36 letters on the outside of the ring (outward looks?). Also unsure how the heat sensitive letters come into it. Possibly they are the only ones that count and the rest is filler to get you to the last set of heat sensitive numbers.

I implore everyone to explore this path for the solution as i believe strongly that the answer lies there.


I agree with you JimmyT, I think that everything we need is on the card, however, if i'm reading you right - The Front of the card is a compass, and the compass arrow is pointing to South West if you are holding the card as it should be held, ie the long side vertical. It is also interesting that the compass arrow is exactly parallel to the vertical line that splits the card. Further, the segments you speak off (black & white), equal exactly a - z + 1 - 10 reading clockwise round the face. I do think that you possibly believe that North is at the bottom of the card and not the top, however, i would say the opposite, as the gold band ususally signifies the top of a product. If this is the case, the the arrow points directly to V. Could this be another clue to the person.
Violet Kiteway perhaps...especially when looking at her profile, it states:
"Violet shunned the usual academic channels, instead preferring to apply her mind to more exciting challenges - such as poker."

PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:12 am
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jimmyt
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Oct 2006
Posts: 7

 		the key continued
Thanks for your reply.

I don't think i did explain myself very well but in saying the fourth segment to the right of north i did mean the north as the top of the pack (gold bar). However did you notice that the arrow is not one directional but points in the opposite direction. I hadn't thought of anything like a compass but just of it as a pointer to the segment. I thought that you may move the pointer around say 5 places for E, 6 places for F etc and when it aligned on the east marker of the card (ie the one with the circle next to the code text) that would be the letter you take.

I haven't had any luck with this so far and have tried it starting from the E in the heat sensitive letters and starting from the W in the non heat sensitive letters. Have not had any luck getting a code from this though. I also tried it starting from the cards north and starting from the NE marker on segment 4. No luck with this yet.

I do think we're on to something though and i will mull over your ideas of the compass points and the a-z. We need to equate some movement of the compass to the letters though.

Anyway keep posting if you think of anything else and maybe we can crack this sucker with some fresh ideas

Jimmyt

PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 9:20 pm
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lanefields
Guest


 		Backing Into the Passphrase
Forgive me if I am repeating anything, I did a search, but didn't see the idea of backing into the Passphrase. I'm not talking about reversing the code. If the assumption is correct, we should be able to come close to verifying the position of possibly 20 cards. Hopefully, the pattern would lead us to the rest of the deck.

First, I believe that the cards ARE ordered in the pack as if they were new in the Motor deck - otherwise Sente would not tell us they were "new and untouched." That is a key phrase. According to Sente the only "touched" card is the joker with a star on it. I think the deck order is simply: J, J, A-Kd, A-Kc, A-Kh, A-Ks as has been previously noted - with the possibility of the second joker in another position.

Second, per a previous post about filling the first 10 and last 10 spots with x's. If that is true, could we not back in to passphrase. If we know that the starting code is x (10 times) and we know the final ciphertext letters (EODMF XRUTH), then that would only leave 2 options to get us there for each cipher letter. I was content to just eliminate the disappearing letters as red herrings, but they had to be chosen for a reason, thus my thought that maybe they did begin as x's. And they are obviously not the passphrase, or someone would have solved this already.

Thus the first through tenth output cards would be either: (in order)

1 - 7 clubs / 7 hearts
2 - 4 diamonds / 4 spades
3 - 6 clubs / 6 hearts
4 - 2 diamonds / 2 spades
5 - 8 clubs / 8 hearts
6 - K diamonds / K spades
7 - 7 diamonds / 7 spades
8 - 10 diamonds / 10 spades
9 - 9 diamonds / 9 spades
10 - 10 clubs / 10 hearts

If we have to make 10 x's before we can continue to the heart of the message, these cards in that order would get us to an "x." (Verify my math)

I know, in order to follow the logic, you have to accept A LOT of assumptions, and I'm probably grasping at straws. Does anyone think this is a possibility.

I have repositioned the "starred" joker into every possible location and not come up with any message in english, so while I used to not believe in the passphrase - I now am a true believer.

Also, does anyone have a link or a program that will let you key your own "starter" and then put a passphrase on that. All the programs I have found assume the bridge order if you are going to apply a passphrase.

PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 9:51 pm
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jimmyt
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Oct 2006
Posts: 7

 		What if the 36 segments on the star ring on the joker are a-z (26) and then the 10 disappearing numbers on each line. IE have a to z then eodmf for the top line of code and a to z and fhurg ifulp for the second line of code. and maybe the positioning means for the top line it is the disappearing text then the letters and for the second one vice versa. Then maybe you use the compass pin effect and when you line up a letter you get the opposite side of the ring letter.

PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 10:53 pm
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lanefields
Guest


 		Backing into the Passphrase
Of course, I dreamed about it all night, I made a bad choice of words in my previous post. We wouldn't be backing into the passphrase, we'd be determining the deck order after the passphrase was executed on it. Hope that doesn't confuse anybody.

Hot showers can do wonders!!!!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 7:57 am
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brokasaphasia
Boot

Joined: 31 May 2006
Posts: 26

 		Re: Backing Into the Passphrase
lanefields wrote:
Thus the first through tenth output cards would be either: (in order) snip.


I have thought a LOT about the disappearing letters being output from the algorithm just prior and just after enciphering the plain text. Sure, you can determine what you think the output cards were... but there are billions and billions of deck permutations to produce a particular output card.

Yes, having multiple output cards in sequence will reduce deck permutations, but I have yet to figure out a mechanism to generate the resulting deck permutations that will produce a sequence of 10 or 20 output cards.

Someone with more set/math theory would need to solve that problem.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:38 pm
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FairmontKing
Boot

Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 25
Location: Michigan, USA

 		I have read all of the posts. Good work by all so far. Like many of you, I think the key to the puzzle is coming up with the correct passkey from the "If entropy wins.." phrase. I've had several ideas that I thought were good, but didn't get anything meaningful out of the two on-line decrypters I found from this thread when I plugged them in.

http://www.perplexcitycardmanager.com/solitaire.html#fields

and

http://mikesroom.org/shuffled/decoder.cgi

Upon further inspection, I noticed that I got different results from the 2 decoders when using the same passkey. Neither seem to give the right results for the test vectors from the schneier site, either.

Am I not using them correctly? Can someone help set me straight? Thanks!

PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:43 pm
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ariock
Has a Posse


Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 762
Location: SF East Bay

 		It worked for me as long as I used all caps in the first decoder and "Use Jokers" was unchecked in the second decoder. The starting deck found in the first was the same as "Keyed 1" in the second decoder.

Working from Schneier's page and Decoder 1, Passkey: FOO, click Key, Length: 15, click Generate, Keystream=HSGYTIHVFQEZQLV. Ciphertext:ITHZUJIWGRFARMW, Decrypt, Click Go Go, Cleartext =AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Check.

Working from Schneier's page and Decoder 2, ciphertext: ITHZUJIWGRFARMW, pass: FOO, Use Jokers unchecked, Click Submit, Deck 1=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Check.

FairmontKing wrote:
I have read all of the posts. Good work by all so far. Like many of you, I think the key to the puzzle is coming up with the correct passkey from the "If entropy wins.." phrase. I've had several ideas that I thought were good, but didn't get anything meaningful out of the two on-line decrypters I found from this thread when I plugged them in.

http://www.perplexcitycardmanager.com/solitaire.html#fields

and

http://mikesroom.org/shuffled/decoder.cgi

Upon further inspection, I noticed that I got different results from the 2 decoders when using the same passkey. Neither seem to give the right results for the test vectors from the schneier site, either.

Am I not using them correctly? Can someone help set me straight? Thanks!

_________________
"It says, 'Let's BEE friends'...and there's a picture of a bee!" -Ralph Wiggum
When the Apocalypse comes, it'll be in base64.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:54 pm
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Cabbage
Unfettered


Joined: 22 May 2006
Posts: 320
Location: North-East England, UK
Clutching at straws
Sent this email to cardsSPLATperplexcity.com over the weekend (think Brokasphasia tried something similar fairly recently)

Quote:

> Hello there
>
> I hope you don't think I'm being a little impertinent, but given that
> there are a fair few errors on other cards, has anyone
> checked card #243 Shuffled for errors?
>
> If not, then I guess us Earthlings are maybe a little dim-witted or
> slow to catch on and that Garnet must be fed up of waiting for the
> penny to drop.
>
> Best regards
> Cabbage


and got this reply:

Quote:
Hi Paul,

Garnet tells us that this card is quite fine. It really is a mystery
wrapped in an enigma marinaded in a conundrum, isn't it? Good luck!

Best regards,

Guy @ Perplex City Customer Services



I know it was clutching at straws but it was worth a try, n'est-ce pas mes amis?
_________________
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:47 pm
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FairmontKing
Boot

Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 25
Location: Michigan, USA
ariock wrote:
It worked for me as long as I used all caps in the first decoder and "Use Jokers" was unchecked in the second decoder. The starting deck found in the first was the same as "Keyed 1" in the second decoder.

Working from Schneier's page and Decoder 1, Passkey: FOO, click Key, Length: 15, click Generate, Keystream=HSGYTIHVFQEZQLV. Ciphertext:ITHZUJIWGRFARMW, Decrypt, Click Go Go, Cleartext =AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Check.

Working from Schneier's page and Decoder 2, ciphertext: ITHZUJIWGRFARMW, pass: FOO, Use Jokers unchecked, Click Submit, Deck 1=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Check.

FairmontKing wrote:
I have read all of the posts. Good work by all so far. Like many of you, I think the key to the puzzle is coming up with the correct passkey from the "If entropy wins.." phrase. I've had several ideas that I thought were good, but didn't get anything meaningful out of the two on-line decrypters I found from this thread when I plugged them in.

http://www.perplexcitycardmanager.com/solitaire.html#fields

and

http://mikesroom.org/shuffled/decoder.cgi

Upon further inspection, I noticed that I got different results from the 2 decoders when using the same passkey. Neither seem to give the right results for the test vectors from the schneier site, either.

Am I not using them correctly? Can someone help set me straight? Thanks!


Thanks a lot. I had 'use jokers' checked on #2 and was not using all caps on #1. Once I had that straight, I tried some of my passkeys. I've been trying various poker terms/slang that have a 'thermal' slant, but nothing yet.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:57 pm
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