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 Forum index » Diversions » TimeWasters
[PUZZLE TRAIL] In from the Cold
Moderators: Giskard, ndemeter, ScarpeGrosse
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SpaceBass
The BADministrator


Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 2701
Location: pellucidar

 		 [PUZZLE TRAIL] In from the Cold
Please hint first and spoiler tag any solutions.
Another one, courtesy of the greengecko. Smile

http://www.grngecko.com/infromthecold.htm
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PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 1:09 pm
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Uberg33k
Entrenched


Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 905
Location: Atlanta

 		Good grief, we haven't even finished Torment yet!!! You are truly evil, grngecko.

PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 3:49 pm
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Uberg33k
Entrenched


Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 905
Location: Atlanta

 		I'm putting Torment on the back burner for now since I've come up short.

Anyone want to work this one with me?

PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2007 3:01 pm
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Isendre
Greenhorn

Joined: 16 May 2007
Posts: 5

 		I'm on it since I am stuck on Torment as well. I've already tried to map the spy puzzles to see if there is any pattern to how the puzzles change when you click on the spy multiple times. I've also started on the cyrillic puzzle and done a little research on Russian cryptography since there seems to be a theme on this one.

What are you thoughts on the size of this riddle? Once we get the answer for the front page from decoding the puzzles, do you think there will be more levels or will that be it?

PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2007 3:55 pm
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Uberg33k
Entrenched


Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 905
Location: Atlanta
Isendre wrote:
I'm on it since I am stuck on Torment as well. I've already tried to map the spy puzzles to see if there is any pattern to how the puzzles change when you click on the spy multiple times. I've also started on the cyrillic puzzle and done a little research on Russian cryptography since there seems to be a theme on this one.

What are you thoughts on the size of this riddle? Once we get the answer for the front page from decoding the puzzles, do you think there will be more levels or will that be it?
No, I think its these six puzzles combined yield the final answer. WYSIWYG

I can tell you one thing about the Cyrillic : it isn't Russian. I think I know how to decode it, but it will take some time. I also know the song in quesiton on one of the other pages, if you need help with that.

PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2007 4:08 pm
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simokon
Boot


Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 45
Location: San Jose, CA

 		I've actually been working on this for some time. I haven't managed to solve anything yet, though.

Here's a summary of what I've found so far (there are no real solutions inside, but I'll spoiler it anyway)
Spoiler (Rollover to View):

Russian: is the Russian alphabet, but is not actually Russian. Coordinate points to Rybachiy submarine base in Russia, specifically to the dock for sub "Delta III".

Metal thing: Coordinate is in John Mullaly Park in the Bronx, NY.

Pencil: Coordinate is in Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan.

Photo: Photo is of the "Big Dipper" ferris wheel in Gorky Park, Moscow. Coordinate is also in Gorky park - looks like it's at or near the place that the photo was taken. The song is the Russian National Anthem.

Nickel: Coordinate is onFoster Ave in Brookyn, NY between New York Ave and Brooklyn Ave (closer to former). Nothing partiularly significant about the spot. Looks like it's on the street in front of something that looks like a housing project. Also the hollow nickel indicates the VIC cipher - usually passed as a piece of microfilm in a fake coin. It was also in the form of five-digit numbers.

Paper: Coordinate points to Lubyanka, the former KGB headquarters and prison (in Moscow).

No progress on the ciphers though.

Also, grngecko once had a geocache with a similar set of puzzles (including the Gorky Park picture, but without the coordinates or the song). So we may need to solve all of them to get the solution.


PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2007 5:00 pm
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simokon
Boot


Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 45
Location: San Jose, CA

 		grngecko left a hint on his forum regarding the CIA's historical collection (searchable index here: http://www.foia.cia.gov/ ) so I've been following up on that angle. Got some more info on the coordinates:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The coordinate for the nickel page happens to point to 3403 Foster Ave in Brooklyn, which is where the famed hollow nickel (containing the first evidence of the VIC cipher) was originally found. A good summary of the whole story is here: http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/abel/abel.htm

The "pencil" coordinate in Fort Tryon park likely refers to one of locations where "Victor" exchanged codes with other agents (hollow bolt in a lamp post). The coordinate for the odd metal thing is not very far from another of these locations (Macombs bridge).

The KGB headquarters coordinate isn't much of a stretch given the tie to a KGB agent. Unclear what the significance is for the submarine base or Gorky Park.


PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2007 1:47 am
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simokon
Boot


Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 45
Location: San Jose, CA

 		Am I all alone here? Anybody still working on this?

I found a document on the CIA website detailing the VIC cipher and spent yesterday learning to encode and decode it. I tried decoding the "nickel" cipher using Vic's keywords but it doesn't produce anything useful. We probably need the results of the other ciphers to get the right keywords and numbers.

PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:03 pm
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Uberg33k
Entrenched


Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 905
Location: Atlanta
simokon wrote:
Am I all alone here? Anybody still working on this?

I found a document on the CIA website detailing the VIC cipher and spent yesterday learning to encode and decode it. I tried decoding the "nickel" cipher using Vic's keywords but it doesn't produce anything useful. We probably need the results of the other ciphers to get the right keywords and numbers.
I've managed to crack the cyrillic cipher and have a theory for cracking everything other than the nickel.

PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2007 6:33 pm
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simokon
Boot


Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 45
Location: San Jose, CA

 		Oh good, there you are.

Uberg33k wrote:
I've managed to crack the cyrillic cipher and have a theory for cracking everything other than the nickel.


I just got the Cyrillic cipher myself (so busy throwing frequency analysis at it when I should have been looking at letter patterns...). I should be able to decode the nickel once we have the rest of the keys. The Cyrillic one seems to have provided the personal number, and the Gorky Park page gives the song. We still need a keyword (which should have a max of 10 distinct letters, Vic's was the russian word for "snowfall") and a date (Vic's was the Russian VJ Day).

It may be possible to get by without the keyword (it's the last step), but the date is necessary to start.

I still haven't managed to connect the submarine base to the other locations. Maybe it's just the name that's important.

PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:07 pm
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ASL
Guest


 		The vic cipher uses a 20 letter key word to produce 2 sets of 10 numbers. The keyword if in fact a song is probably the tune on the ferriswheel page. Thus you would take the first 20 letters of that song to make your numbers for chain adding. This is a much better (and easier) site to check for deciphering the vic than the cia website:

http://www.quadibloc.com/crypto/pp1324.htm

PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2007 10:58 pm
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simokon
Boot


Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 45
Location: San Jose, CA

 		Note that the author of the quadibloc page cited the original CIA paper. He also makes at least one questionable modification to the selection of the transposition column widths, and he completely changed the construction of the straddling checkerboard from the Russian version.

So I'm puzzled. Grngecko seems to be pointing us to the CIA archives, but the Russian checkerboard does not adapt easily to English (Russian alphabet's got more letters). And the quadibloc version doesn't seem all that authentic.

Bah.

PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:54 am
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Uberg33k
Entrenched


Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 905
Location: Atlanta

 		That's ok, I thought that the random letters in sets of 5 were a one time pad based on the hint in the cyrillic cipher. I assumed that the message was actually only one of the pages and the other two formed the pad. Apparently, this is not the case. If it is a OTP, I don't have the right pad. Besides working on that for a long time, ROT, simple substitution, and Vigenere are not what's going to crack any of those pages.

PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 9:14 am
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Uberg33k
Entrenched


Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 905
Location: Atlanta

 		After trying a bunch of methods and analysis, I reread the FBI file on the hollow nickel. It does seem that at least the message in the hollow bolt is a OTP, if not all of the scrambled text ciphers. Problem is that I can't figure out what the hell the pad could be. If you go in order of the FBI story, the bolt will contain the next clue and we'll need to solve that before trying to tackle the nickel. Any ideas of what he could be using as a pad?

PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:49 pm
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HyprBorea
Guest


 		Okay, I'm being a dunce here. I recognized the coordinates as coordinates, but apparently don't get the format. For instance, the coordinates I entered into Google Earth from the picture of
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Gorky Park
put me in the ocean off the coast of Norway. So I'm clearly not reading them right. A little help?

PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 1:49 pm
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