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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Acheron
SOLVED: Colorbar stickers from fried CD-ROM mails
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Rasputin42x69
Decorated


Joined: 11 Oct 2003
Posts: 184
Location: Eris' Bar & Grill, Limbo

 		SOLVED: Colorbar stickers from fried CD-ROM mails
As discussed in this thread, I and others recieved a "modified" AOL CD-ROM in the mail this week. Since it's looking more and more like it's Acheron related, I'm going ahead and starting a thread here.

The sticker in question

Going with the spec that this is like a certain code from JMX, I've rotated the thing to where the long yellow strip is on the right. Substituting spaces for the white stripes, and periods for the yellow (I could be wrong about this), I've made this letter substitution:
Code:
ABCBCDEDCEFC BCFGCHFI.
GFACGHC.GJCE CAFAC JF.


If I'm correct about the spaces and periods, this could also be a number, since aside from white and yellow, there's exactly 10 unique colors in the image.

Thoughts?
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(Currently playing: BSeeingU - Watching: Year Zero - Played: Project MU, Acheron, Aware)

PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 5:14 pm
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

 		Re: PUZZLE: Colorbar stickers from fried CD-ROM mails
Rasputin42x69 wrote:
As discussed in this thread, I and others recieved a "modified" AOL CD-ROM i...The sticker in question
...
If I'm correct about the spaces and periods, this could also be a number, since aside from white and yellow, there's exactly 10 unique colors in the image.

Thoughts?


The sticker looks like one of those magnetic anti-theft things they put on cds or dvd to make the alarm go off when you exit without having the sticker deactivated.
There could be a hidden code in it, I am not savy enough of a encryption cracker to know the difference.

However, I am looking at the pink stickers... so far a couple have had written "thanatos" (or munged versions of it), the rest have "fragile computer equipment" on them... Who do we know with that much involvement with computer equipment to get his hands on those stickers and anti theft tags for the eqiupment... I'm thinking John Baxter would... (if this is indeed Acheron related and not another ARG's rabbit hole) he did hand out a CD to the group at ARGCon Las Vegas. Odd that he'd be breaking AOL cds to get us to pay attention....
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 6:32 pm
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catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 4109
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

 		Re: PUZZLE: Colorbar stickers from fried CD-ROM mails
Magesteff wrote:
Who do we know with that much involvement with computer equipment to get his hands on those stickers ...


The fluorescent stickers are easy enough to make yourself. I used to work in a tax office, and we bought sheets of bright green blank labels to run thru the laser printer, to make our own "TAX INFO - Open Immediately!" stickers for the outside of envelopes.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 8:12 pm
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

 		Why Friday on Wednesday?
Wednesday
Quote:
casual friday. freaky friday. boss wore funky striped shirt. now dreams have stripes. hope he doesn't wear knit rasta hats.

|||||||||
|||||||||
Reggie 9:00 PM


This is the relevant quote from reggie's blog. OK I know this is silly but there was a movie called Freaky Friday and the background of the poster I found has stripes. Another stripe hint? in case we flippin' missed it?

FYI http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/freaky_friday/
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:06 pm
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AnthraX101
Entrenched

Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Posts: 797

 		Re: PUZZLE: Colorbar stickers from fried CD-ROM mails
Magesteff wrote:

The sticker looks like one of those magnetic anti-theft things they put on cds or dvd to make the alarm go off when you exit without having the sticker deactivated.
There could be a hidden code in it, I am not savy enough of a encryption cracker to know the difference.

However, I am looking at the pink stickers... so far a couple have had written "thanatos" (or munged versions of it), the rest have "fragile computer equipment" on them... Who do we know with that much involvement with computer equipment to get his hands on those stickers and anti theft tags for the eqiupment... I'm thinking John Baxter would... (if this is indeed Acheron related and not another ARG's rabbit hole) he did hand out a CD to the group at ARGCon Las Vegas. Odd that he'd be breaking AOL cds to get us to pay attention....


I'm not sure, but I doubt that they are the anti-theft tags. Those are usualy a metal strip within two peices of plastic. This looks too thin to be one of those. They wouldn't be able to hold information, but the other possibility is that they have RF tags within them. Those could hold a lot of info. I didn't get one of these, otherwise I would try and find some reading equiptment.

AnthraX101
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:17 pm
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katya2032
Veteran

Joined: 08 Sep 2003
Posts: 149
Location: Texas

 		Re: Why Friday on Wednesday?
rose wrote:
Wednesday
Quote:
casual friday. freaky friday. boss wore funky striped shirt. now dreams have stripes. hope he doesn't wear knit rasta hats.

|||||||||
|||||||||
Reggie 9:00 PM



I mentioned this last night. All the disks so far have a posted date of Jan. 30, which was last Friday. I think that's as far as the Friday thing Reggie wanted to go.

We also discussed the rasta hat and its signifigance. The Rastas' colors are red, black, green and occassionally yellow. However, I don't know if we are suppose to use those colors, or throw them out.

Anyone else?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:59 pm
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dmax
Unfictologist

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Posts: 1387
Location: Location: Location!

 		Re: Why Friday on Wednesday?
rose wrote:
Wednesday
Quote:
casual friday. freaky friday. boss wore funky striped shirt. now dreams have stripes. hope he doesn't wear knit rasta hats.

|||||||||
|||||||||
Reggie 9:00 PM


This is the relevant quote from reggie's blog. OK I know this is silly but there was a movie called Freaky Friday and the background of the poster I found has stripes. Another stripe hint? in case we flippin' missed it?

FYI http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/freaky_friday/

More importantly, Freaky Friday has Jamie Lee. Mmmm.



PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:05 pm
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

 		I have put the five colorbar pics in one place for ease of comparison...

http://tinyurl.com/26lwn

*edit*
Rasta (Rastafarianism) is another religious reference.
Quote:
The colors of the Ethiopian flag (red, green, yellow) are now popularly identified with Rastafarians. Ironically many foreigners associate these colors with Jamaica and are sometimes surprised when they realize that these are not the colors in the Jamaica flag. The original colors adopted by Rastafarians were Red, Black and Green


Does it have anything to do with our color bars? I have no idea. Just offering some food for thought to those who might.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 11:09 pm
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Slyfox
Unfettered


Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 323
Location: Manchester, UK

 		Hi all,

I'm new here but keen to help. A questions and a suggestion.

1) Are all the barcodes the same? As far as I can tell they are but some of the images are a little hazy. I think that this is worth confirming.

2) The colour stripes are the same as those use to label electrical resistors. Significant? See

http://enrich.sdsc.edu/SE/physicsresistor.html

Hope this helps, apologies if not.

S. Fox

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 5:25 am
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lurker
Boot


Joined: 06 Nov 2003
Posts: 52
Location: uk

 		Hi Slyfox - welcome on board

I like the resistor idea

Counting the multi-coloured bands as 'blanks', the other colours covert to these numbers:

(Starting with brown top left)
1 2 - 2 - 1 3 1 - 3 0 - 9 2 - 0 5 - 6 0 8 4
5 0 1 - 5 6 - 4 5 7 - 3 9 - 1 0 1 - 9 7 0 4

(Starting with yellow top left)
4 0 7 9 - 1 0 1 - 9 3 - 7 5 4 - 6 5 - 1 0 5
4 8 0 6 - 5 0 - 2 9 - 0 3 - 1 3 1 - 2 - 2 1

Not sure what to try next though...

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:03 am
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial
Slyfox wrote:
1) Are all the barcodes the same? As far as I can tell they are but some of the images are a little hazy. I think that this is worth confirming.


The images are hazy but it does look like all the coror bars are the same.

Quote:
2) The colour stripes are the same as those use to label electrical resistors. Significant?


Very interesting indeed. I need to add that site to my list of references.
I wonder if the letters on the pink stickers could relate to the Letters of each of the colors/resistor values? And what do we do with the multicolored ones? Since there are two sets or four sets (top-bottom, and left-right) do we have id / passwords or do we have something else?
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A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead


PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:37 am
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dmax
Unfictologist

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Posts: 1387
Location: Location: Location!
Slyfox wrote:
Hi all,

I'm new here but keen to help. A questions and a suggestion.

1) Are all the barcodes the same? As far as I can tell they are but some of the images are a little hazy. I think that this is worth confirming.

2) The colour stripes are the same as those use to label electrical resistors. Significant? See

http://enrich.sdsc.edu/SE/physicsresistor.html

Hope this helps, apologies if not.

S. Fox


Sweet. Makes the most sense so far.

I tried to take the pic and assign HTML color numbers to them, but there is too much variation - even in the same bar - for me to have luck that way.

Perhaps if there were an excellent scan of one of the samples, it would be easier. But I'm not convinced it's the way to get to the answer.

edit: hey, Magesteff - congratulations on 1400 posts!

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 3:50 pm
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bagsbee
Unfettered


Joined: 21 Oct 2003
Posts: 417
Location: NYC

 		Random thoughts....

- From this thread:

Rasputin42x69 wrote:

Code:
.ROMR...IE
1234567890


My gut feeling seems to be on target thus far... I'm willing to bet that the missing letters are F, E, G, G, in that order... Smile


Since mine had "F 1" on it, I'd be willing to bet Ras is correct:
Code:
FROMR...IE
1234567890


He's just letting us know who it's from Smile

- Another idea suggested in the above thread is that there are a specific # of disks. It's unlikely, since many are bound to get lost/tossed/sent to wrong address, etc. I would guess that a few of each number/letter combo were sent out, say 3 of each, so that enough people would get them for us to be able to figure out who it's from.

- I also like the transistor idea, especially since all ten colors are represented. I'm starting to think the multicolored bars have no significance other than to point us in that direction. Now it's simply a matter of stepping aside and letting grumpyboy solve it Wink

- dmax is closing in on 1000. I'll get the bubbly and confetti ready.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 4:39 pm
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Flynn
Decorated


Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 240
Location: UK

 		Another idea that's just occurred - assuming that this is from Reggie, could he be saying "SPECTRUM" to us? I can't really be sure from looking through the reference guides whether Reggie is aware of the spectrum project or not so it could be useless, just thought I'd toss it out there

*rushes off to try spectrum/resistor on the backdoor page* Laughing

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 5:13 pm
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grumpyboy
Unfettered

Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Posts: 660

 		SOLVED!
lurker wrote:

1 2 - 2 - 1 3 1 - 3 0 - 9 2 - 0 5 - 6 0 8 4
5 0 1 - 5 6 - 4 5 7 - 3 9 - 1 0 1 - 9 7 0 4
Not sure what to try next though...

i do!
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
solid yellow bar on the right. convert to resitor values as in lurker's post. add the digits which are grouped together. convert to letters (1+2=3=c, 2=b, 1+3+1=5=e, etc)

top line: cbecker
bottom line: fkplbt
Use them as username/password on the NRU page.

big kudos to Slyfox for finding the resistor connection and lurker for doing the numbers...

i rule! Very Happy

PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 1:22 am
Last edited by grumpyboy on Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:46 am; edited 2 times in total
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