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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Find the Lost Ring
[Chat] Ariadne 16 April (Re: Communicating with Theo)
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mr.judkins
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Joined: 26 Feb 2008
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Location: Wellington, NZ

 		[Chat] Ariadne 16 April (Re: Communicating with Theo)
Below is the transcript of a chat I had with Ariadne over breakfast this morning.

The short version is that Ariadne agrees with Eli that we need to start communicating with Theo.
She suggests the only way to do this may be to encode messages for him in posts on her blogs and forums.

She stresses that we need to do this very secretly, and it's important we don't give the game away anywhere Theo might read.

As such, please do not discuss any of this on the findthelostring.com forums, or mention it to anyone who may already be a double agent.

Quote:
me: I am concerned about what Eli has been suggesting though. That some of us will have to become double-agents and align ourselves with Theo. (even if only to bring information back to our cause)

Ariadne: i'm not sure about collaborating with theo either but it would be good to understand what he wants and how many people are working with him

me: Indeed. How do we get ahold of him however? I speculated he may start trying to get ahold of US.

Ariadne: i have been thinking about that too, how do we communicate to theo? i guess he is watching our blogs. he found noriko and larissa where they LIVE. i guess if we have something to say we can say it... but that's so public. no idea how to send a PRIVATE message. maybe it it were encoded somehow??

me: Now there's an idea...

Ariadne: maybe something for thumos and sofia to work on together. we could send theo a coded message on our blogs. coding it so the rest of team agonothetai doesn't worry that we're reaching out to or working with theo. because we're not really, we're just trying to make it seem like we are so we can learn more. so i was wracking my brain to think of a code theo might already know

me: More secrets in plain sight, then? I saw that Francis Bacon had a cypher which was described as just that.

Ariadne: i wonder is there a code described in the new atlantis?? doe we know francis bacon's cypher??

me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon_cipher
If he's obsessed with Bacon too, he'll know this one. Wink It's described in Bacon's Advancement of Learning.

Ariadne: hmmm that would be kind of obvious wouldn't it, like all aaaababaaababbaaaabababaa

me: No - the aabba only represent which font you're using. you use normal letters as a normal blog post.

Ariadne: whoah. that would be creepy if it works. does it work???

me: but use two different fonts. it would take a bit of work to make and a bit of work for Theo to Decipher. Somehow we'd have to communicate to him that we may be using the Bacon Cypher too.

Ariadne: we would have to hint to theo that we're using it. maybe leave a note behind in the next artifact location?? like the agonothetai in toronto did

me: Perfect! better examples of the cypher in use: http://home.att.net/~mleary/bonciphe.htm If we can't talk about this openly with others, I'll send some emails and private messages to those we can trust.

Ariadne: okay!! GOOD yes i guess i can't openly make a strength mission for it. cc: me on emails if you can please!! so i know who you trust


Now, I suggested Bacon's Cipher simply because it seemed like a nice link as well as suitable to our purposes. In a discussion with thebruce earlier, he proposed the alternative of hiding the coded messages using the spacing between words in the html (which appears as single spaces when viewed normally). We could use a single space = 0 and a double space = 1 and create a binary message, which would require 8 spaces per letter. There are no doubt a variety of other options too.

All in all, I see a few tasks required to enact this plan:

a) decide on a cipher to use for hiding messages for Theo in forum posts.
b) create a key for that cipher which can be left for Theo in place of the next Artifact pickup.
c) find people (Thumos?) willing to pose as double agents who will post the messages on the findthelostring.com forums.
d) Encode the messages to be posted (Sofia?)
e) Contact one of the next Artifact collectors and get them to leave the key behind.
f) Finally make contact?

A big thanks to lehall, momonga, thebruce & danteIL who assisted getting this approach in order and helped me work out how to broach it to the community.

I'll reiterate again, for this to work Theo can't get a whiff of the double-double cross.
Please respect Ariadne's wishes and keep this under wraps.
I've posted this here in lieu of PMing and emailing everyone because these forums are beyond his reach, and anything discussed here cannot be found by him.

Lucky huh? Wink

So there it is - what do people think? Can we do this? Are you in?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 4:42 am
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unagi
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 		Re: [Chat] Ariadne 16 April (Re: Communicating with Theo)
mr.judkins wrote:
these forums are beyond his reach, and anything discussed here cannot be found by him.

Why do you think so?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:20 am
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mr.judkins
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 		Re: [Chat] Ariadne 16 April (Re: Communicating with Theo)
unagi wrote:
Why do you think so?


A very good point, sir.

Essentially, I've been assured that "those are the rules".

If the consensus is that I have been led astray in that, I'll remove the post as soon as possible.

The only other option was for a faction of us to work behind everyone else's back - which didn't seem ideal either (or fair). I am told this is the one of the sorts of situations these "OOG" forums were created for...

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:30 am
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Elizabeth123
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 		Theo (and the agons) don't know that uF exists. Those are the rules. Razz

I think this is truly amazing and awesome and cool. And I like the idea of using Bacon's Cipher, since it fits in so well with everything that's happened so far, and should be very easy for Theo to figure out how to decipher. As a Sofia (and a wordsmith), I'd love to work on encoding a message.

What should that message be, though? Would the poster tell Theo they want to work with him? Wouldn't we have to have a better idea what his motivations are before telling him that we understand what he's trying to do? Or would it be enough to just say we agree that NeoPangaeia would be a good thing?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:45 am
Last edited by Elizabeth123 on Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:57 am; edited 1 time in total
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_june
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 		I am ridiculously excited about the possibility of being a double agent!
All my childhood dreams are coming true... sigh.

I'm gonna get me versed up on this cipher! Very Happy

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:49 am
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Tenchizard
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Elizabeth123 wrote:

What should that message be, though? Would the poster tell Theo they want to work with him? Wouldn't we have to have a better idea what his motivations are before telling him that we understand what he's trying to do? Or would it be enough to just say we agree that NeoPangaeia would be a good thing?


remember Eli's response to Monique:
Quote:
I am startled by your email. It strikes me that there is some optimisim in your interpretation of what it would mean to return to a state of Pangaea. I have had a very discouraging week, and so your optimsim breathes some life into my mission.
While I still believe that a new Pangaea would wreak global devastation, purely as a inevitable consequence of geographic upheaval, I can imagine that geoglobal politics would be transformed as well. Perhaps for the better, at least for those who survived.
Thank you for raising an interesting possibility. In fact, now as I ponder it, I wonder if perhaps you have shown me a truth I have been looking for. A motivation I had missed. Well. I am most grateful to you.


If you want to get to the other side with Eli, work on that "the end justifies means" attitude, praising how global politics would become so easy once all the countries are together, and of course show your human side by giving ideas of how humanity could be saved if the moment of the change was known and everyone could be prepared to survive it and such...
Maybe something on that line would work.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:00 am
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unagi
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 		Re: [Chat] Ariadne 16 April (Re: Communicating with Theo)
Thanks, mr.judkins and Elizabeth. So you mean no IG characters read uF.
(To be honest, I'd been wondering for a long time whether I may translate here a few confidential points in Noriko's video/blog)

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:10 am
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Elizabeth123
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 		Re: [Chat] Ariadne 16 April (Re: Communicating with Theo)
unagi wrote:
Thanks, mr.judkins and Elizabeth. So you mean no IG characters read uF.
(To be honest, I'd been wondering whether I may translate here a few confidential points in Noriko's video/blog)


Yes, please do! She won't see them.

Tenchizard wrote:
If you want to get to the other side with Eli, work on that "the end justifies means" attitude, praising how global politics would become so easy once all the countries are together, and of course show your human side by giving ideas of how humanity could be saved if the moment of the change was known and everyone could be prepared to survive it and such...Maybe something on that line would work.


I had a similar thought. I'm a little worried that if those aren't his motivations, he may not go along with it. But maybe all he needs to know is that someone's on his side.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:18 am
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thebruce
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 		if it weren't for ariadne's reference to new atlantis and liking the bacon cypher idea, I'd still suggest the spaces to be virtually un-visible unless you knew what to look for.

the font change would work, it would also be much more bloated in html. I don't think there are two fonts that are virtually identical that every has.

So, while it's possible to use two fonts that -no one- has (make a font name up) so that the text all looks the same and one would need to use the html source to decode, it may just be possible to use (instead of font tags) a custom tag, or a class name... basically, the visible text should be indistinguishable, which means it can only be decoded by analyzing the html source.

If it's a bacon cypher using html, it'll get really bloated, but it's doable.
I think it's pretty clear the Theo knows the cipher, so he just needs to know the finer encryption points.

I also think it's cool that Ariadne noticed the note we left Razz outside uf, there's only one photo of it, hehe
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:37 am
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unagi
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 		Is "NewWorld" in the following thread a member of the double-spying team? Very Happy
http://forums.findthelostring.com/thread/1526

EDIT: I found its copies in others' forums: 3 in ariadne's, 1 in larissa's and 1 in diego's.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:43 am
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ariock
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 		I've been assured that there are no rules. There is the very real possibility that someone will use this information in a way that you would not wish them to. It is unlikely that the information posted here would be used by in-game characters, however nothing is stopping another player from relaying it to an IG character and thus bringing it IG.

Take that into consideration.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:12 pm
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VictorSueiro
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ariock wrote:
I've been assured that there are no rules. There is the very real possibility that someone will use this information in a way that you would not wish them to. It is unlikely that the information posted here would be used by in-game characters, however nothing is stopping another player from relaying it to an IG character and thus bringing it IG.

Take that into consideration.


Everything is under control Wink

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:40 pm
Last edited by VictorSueiro on Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:41 pm; edited 1 time in total
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VictorSueiro
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unagi wrote:
Is "NewWorld" in the following thread a member of the double-spying team? Very Happy
http://forums.findthelostring.com/thread/1526

EDIT: I found its copies in others' forums: 3 in ariadne's, 1 in larissa's and 1 in diego's.

Wink

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:40 pm
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thebruce
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ariock wrote:
I've been assured that there are no rules. There is the very real possibility that someone will use this information in a way that you would not wish them to. It is unlikely that the information posted here would be used by in-game characters, however nothing is stopping another player from relaying it to an IG character and thus bringing it IG.

Take that into consideration.

*Resistance flashback*
Bang Head
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:45 pm
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VictorSueiro
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thebruce wrote:
ariock wrote:
I've been assured that there are no rules. There is the very real possibility that someone will use this information in a way that you would not wish them to. It is unlikely that the information posted here would be used by in-game characters, however nothing is stopping another player from relaying it to an IG character and thus bringing it IG.

Take that into consideration.

*Resistance flashback*
Bang Head


What?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:47 pm
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