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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Aware
PUZZLE: PALSEJM272L9 (Solved)
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bill
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Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 614
Location: Tampa

 		PUZZLE: PALSEJM272L9 (Solved)
From a chat with Marcus on YIM today.

marcusthesburg: Found a number that links to Joseph Palser. Not sure how or what it means. I think is some kind of encryption
marcusthesburg: PALSEJM272L9
bill: Where did that come from?
marcusthesburg: Picked it up in TOBI.... not sure where he got it. Source site bad on it
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 8:08 pm
Last edited by bill on Tue Apr 27, 2004 9:14 am; edited 1 time in total
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dmax
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Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Posts: 1387
Location: Location: Location!

 		Researching the number portion at the end, you get

a mouse genome sequence

http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/M_musculus/publications/fpcmap-2002/data/bac.index.616.html

then, looking for the link with that number, you get to

http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/M_musculus/publications/fpcmap-2002/data/bac.X.55.html

Which, to my eye, is useless.

I suspect that the L9 would indicate a line? Dunno

PostPosted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 8:20 pm
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jamesi
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Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 2195
Location: Canadia

 		Re: PUZZLE: PALSEJM272L9
bill wrote:
From a chat with Marcus on YIM today.

marcusthesburg: Found a number that links to Joseph Palser. Not sure how or what it means. I think is some kind of encryption
marcusthesburg: PALSEJM272L9


The number instantly reminded me of a driver's license. In Manitoba, your driver's license startes with the first 5 letters of your last name, following by the first letters of your first and (first) middle name. That is followed by a two-number sqeuence that, when added to the last two digits of your birth year, gives you the number 100. The three remaining numbers/letters are driving restrictions, such as a driver requiring glasses to drive, or a driver's inability to drive at night. For example: Barry Jordan Schwartz, born in 1964, would have the licence number SC-HW-AB-J36xxx.

In this case, it would appear (if I am, by some stretch of the imagination, correct) that Mr. Palser has a middle name that begins with M (Marcus? Weird coincidence, maybe...) and is born in the year 1973, making him a paltry 31 years of age. This is entirely WILD SPEC but, like I say, the format of the number/letter sequence was instantly recognizable to me.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 10:04 pm
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Misha
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Joined: 09 Dec 2002
Posts: 32
Location: Misery

 		I'm definitely leaning toward that plate too - or a username for something. I know a lot of peeps that do LastFIMI then a random number
But adding the L9 after the 272 definitely is odd for a user and more like a license plate. good lead. Anyone have access to a plate db?
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 10:12 pm
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grumpyboy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Posts: 660

 		If lance_lake/Jhonathan/the prof/Joseph Palser is staying true to his past, then his middle initial would be "J". See bottom of the page here (But there's no reason why the PMs can't change the character's alias in this game I suppose)

Throwing my 2 bits, the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the 12 character string was that it looked like a 6 char username (PALSEJ) and a 6 char password (M272L9). I was, however, working under the assumption that his middle initial is "J". And if it is a username/password, i don't know what for. Razz

Edited this post because the URL string made the table too wide. The link is still intact, it's the one you get to by clicking here. -- jamesi

EDIT: oops - sorry (thanks jamesi for fixing) and I guess the PMs/Joseph did "change" his middle name Wink

PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 12:18 am
Last edited by grumpyboy on Sun Apr 25, 2004 1:04 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Myssfitz
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Joined: 26 Feb 2003
Posts: 695
Location: In the pasture

 		Ok. Going out on a big limb, but doing an anagram of PalseJM gives you jam and pels. Doing a search on that pulls up The Diary of Anne Frank (the Van Pels family made jam). What if PALSEJM272L9 means The Diary of Anne Frank, page 272, line 9?

Like I said, big limb.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 1:39 am
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Lysithea
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Joined: 04 Feb 2004
Posts: 468
Location: Australia

 		This is really looking to be a Washington state driver's license number (apart from the middle name). A Google search led me to a page about false Washington ids which explains the code, here.
* PALSE (first five characters of surname)
* J (first letter of first name)
* M (first letter of middle name)
* 27 (making him born in 1973 (100-27=73)
* 2 (a checksum)
* L (birth month June)
* 9 (birth day 29th)
The checksum is calculated from all the other details, and is indeed 2 in this case, as verified here.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 9:24 am
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jamesi
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Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 2195
Location: Canadia
Lysithea wrote:
This is really looking to be a Washington state driver's license number (apart from the middle name). A Google search led me to a page about false Washington ids which explains the code, here.
* PALSE (first five characters of surname)
* J (first letter of first name)
* M (first letter of middle name)
* 27 (making him born in 1973 (100-27=73)
* 2 (a checksum)
* L (birth month June)
* 9 (birth day 29th)
The checksum is calculated from all the other details, and is indeed 2 in this case, as verified here.


Nice work! From this, we now have his birthdate! Thanks for the extra work all of you put into this spec.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 11:12 am
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addlepated
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Joined: 17 Aug 2003
Posts: 1885
Location: Austin, Texas
Quote:
(U0010) - The information entered does not match an existing Driver License record. Please double check your entries and try again.

It's not a valid Washington state driver's license.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 6:29 pm
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Lysithea
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Joined: 04 Feb 2004
Posts: 468
Location: Australia

 		SPEC: Joseph licensed and dangerous?
addlepated wrote:
It's not a valid Washington state driver's license.

Can we trust anything on Drexel's blog?
If so then Joseph has become completely fed up with public transport and Greyhound coaches . Since the doctor that took his license away is hardly likely to give it back, Joseph has obtained a forgery. Perhaps we should start looking for reports of another car wreck.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:47 pm
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Zzedar
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Joined: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 107

 		Is it just me, or does the formula for calculating a checksum on that license plate site look an awful lot like the puzzle at the bottom of http://www.bluelouboyle.com/DDGABcC.htm?

PostPosted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 2:37 am
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Zzedar
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Joined: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 107
Lysithea wrote:
This is really looking to be a Washington state driver's license number (apart from the middle name). A Google search led me to a page about false Washington ids which explains the code, here.
* PALSE (first five characters of surname)
* J (first letter of first name)
* M (first letter of middle name)
* 27 (making him born in 1973 (100-27=73)
* 2 (a checksum)
* L (birth month June)
* 9 (birth day 29th)
The checksum is calculated from all the other details, and is indeed 2 in this case, as verified here.
When I put this info in to the program, and when I do it by hand, I get a checksum of 6.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 3:07 am
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Caterpillar
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Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 1887
Location: cem's otherbody

 		Interesting coincidence that you would recognize a WA DL jamesi......too cool:
Quote:
The Check Digit Scheme:
Consider the twelve character Washington State/Manitoba Province
driver's license number a1a2a3a4a5a6a7a8a9a10a11a12.
The check digit a10 is created by first assigning digits to the non-digit characters in the identification number using the table below and then performing the following calculation:


I too get a check digit return of 6 though??????

PostPosted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:59 pm
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Lysithea
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Joined: 04 Feb 2004
Posts: 468
Location: Australia

 		Embarassed I was looking at the wrong number. Embarassed

PostPosted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 12:59 am
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Shelina
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Joined: 03 Apr 2003
Posts: 552
Location: Madrid, Spain

 		According to this mail from Marcus:

Quote:
Last night someone else brought the license to my attention and we have in-fact deemed it a fake. The source we finally linked it to was a Blockbuster Card in Olympia in 1999. I wonder if he has ever used it for anything else. TOBI isn't coming up with anything. If so, defiantly a low-tech business w/o much chance for TOBI to look into their books.


And now what??

PostPosted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 6:43 am
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