unforum

[Elizabeth123]

Can we wait to see where the next artifact is before we assign someone to be the double-agent? I'm sure a lot of people here would love to do it, but I think if at all possible, it should be the player who picks the artifact up. (Note that I DEFINITELY think it's most important that the person be an actual player, rather than a friend/acquaintance of a player, so we'll look at other options if necessary. But why don't we wait to see where the artifact(s) are going to be before someone's chosen?)

Don't mean to slap anyone down or sound adamant about this, and I think it's great you guys want to help, so feel free to disagree.

[Shad0]

Re: [Chat] Ariadne 16 April (Re: Communicating with Theo)

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Purple Hell also has a pretty good tool for the initial part of the Bacon encoding.

[AUZ505]

[sapagoo]

Attempt 1.
http://sapagoo.unfiction.com/bacon.html

Put your code you want everyone to see in box 1.
Put your code you want Theo to read in box 2.
Change the fonts if you want.
ENCODE.

Make sure your bogus nonsense post is 5 times longer than your message.

Create a post, and click the PLAIN TEXT tab on the findthelostring forum tab.
Paste in the "output", and check the Preview.

Feel free to discuss... about this tool, and the actual message that we want to send. I just felt a encoder would help speed up the actual sending process.

PS - I'm using the more binary version, instead of combining i/j, and u/v.
In otherwords,
A=0 = 00000 = AAAAA
B=1 = 00010 = AAABA
Z=25 = 11001 = BBAAB

Edit: Baconator v1.0 uploaded - now tells you if your post is too short or if it's long enough. Arial & Verdana are fairly similar. Try Arial and Courier to notice the differences.

[Tenchizard]

I have just tried it, and have some big doubts...

if the letters are too similar, how do you realize there's a secret code?

if the letters are too different, wouldn't it be too obious

and, of course... how would Theo decode this? Let's face it: a player community would do it in just some minutes, but a PM? do they have such a dedication to solve the codes? Remember they "don't look" in here...

Anyway, the coder is great, just that without a decoder, the result is quite... untamable

PD: I have just tried it with arial/courier and the final effect is so creepy it's great

[AUZ505]

[Elizabeth123]

[thebruce]

it's a trade-off really... whitespace means 5x the words, but whitespace is retained in the post and source, and not visible when reading live in the forum, and if you quote the original message, the code is still not obvious, and whitespace is still retained; bacon on letters (with fonts at least) is much more noticable, and bulks up the html enormously, but it's 5x the letters.

meta-ish, it shouldn't matter which method (even if another) is chosen - it'll get decoded, but it would be nice to be consistent with the people... considering how intelligent Theo supposedly is, different fonts would be quite obvious, whereas whitespace would be quite inconspicuous. html markup wouldn't need as long a source text, but whitespace would be much 'sleeker'.

Theo will know what the coding method is by the note, so really it doesn't matter which way we go, I just think whitespace would be more fun Plus IIRC, the font/italic version of the bacon cipher was more used for printed messages anyway, right? Because the source isn't visible, one would have to rely on a keen eye to pick up the subtle differences. In a forum post, you see the different font, you copy the source html, and run it through a decoder.

*shrug* I'm sure it doesn't need to be this complicated
I'm sure any way will be just fine...

[bryanflurry]

there seems to be alot of vlogs about Theo that is coming out, so, what method are we gonna use and what will the message be?

[mr.judkins]

Thanks for bringing this back to the fore, bryanflurry.

Sapagoo, that tool is awesome - and indeed makes some freaky messages when you use weird fonts together!

However, I have to agree with thebruce - that using whitespace ends up being sleeker, and very much html rather than print-based. I think your javascript might just come in handy for future use of the Bacon Cipher though...

So, I've had a play and come up with a demo encoded post.

This uses the Whitespace Bacon Cipher.

Can someone have a go at decoding it to see I got it right?

1-space = A
2-space = B

Tool to decode result.

If this looks good to everyone, I say let's lock it off as Task A = Achieved.

[Elizabeth123]

Okay, am I being stupid? It all looks like one space to me. (Note that there's a misspelling in the 3rd line.)

[jasper]

It looks like one space to me too, but I could see the extra spacing when looking at the source code?

[mr.judkins]

[Elizabeth123]

Got it (duh.) I'll decode, if nobody else is working on it.