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[kevjuice]

[PUZZEL?] passwords on halo 2 website

[AngriBuddhist]

For me, the time is always 5 hours ahead. I'm on the west coast. Unfiction is on the, east coast? Depending on where you are, there will be a time difference.

[kevjuice]

how are u 5 hours behind. there are 4 time zones in the us. east, central, i think its called mountain, and pacific. when its 5pm on the east coast it should be 1 pm on the west. or did i miss one.

but im in illinois. thats central time. but i see people that post and the times say that they're 3-6 hours ahead of me. that has been bothering me for a couple days. is it something wrong with the forum. or did i do something wrong.


[EDIT] nvm i dont care about the times. this post was mainly about the passwords. i dont want to stray from my original topic.

[SuperJerms]

I think you have the wrong thread. This topic has been discussed ad nauseam in the 17 page thread on the Halo2 website. Just for recap, there is no extra stuff in that flash file, so if the password even exists (we don't know that it even does yet), it's not to unlock something within that flash.

[SpghEddy]

that other thread was for decoding -- it's good to have separate threads for different types of puzzles. So I think this thread is a good idea.

Those guys who "decoded" the shockwave file -- did they actually look at the code that checks the input? Or did they just scan for text strings in the file? If you scan for text, and don't find any passwords, that doesn't mean that the input isn't being checked somehow... you need to look at the actual code.

[SuperJerms]

Well, I'm a relative nub when it comes to Flash, but as far as I am aware you can't import the full code...just the library. Otherwise, trying to open the file just runs it in shockwave. To look at the contents, you'd have to import the SWF to the stage in a new flash file. That would give you a rough timeline and all of the image/symbol/elements of the swf file. That would not give you the code for execution or effects, nor the password info (but would give you anything inside of the file that the pw would unlock). But again, I am a flash mx n00b.

In the other thread they are talking about possible passwords, and the consensus from others flashers is that there is no password currently (because there's no additional content to be unlocked within the file). They're spec'ing that it's a situation similar to DOOM3, where players had to access the Internet at a specific point in the game to unlock some .wav files on a PDA. Accordingly, folks are spec'ing that the passwords will be found in the single player campaign of HALO2.

I do want to point out that there is an alternate possibility. The password may be live now, and it just launch a new browser window with the content. This would allow the passwords to be active now, but keep us from knowing what they unlock (since the content isn't actually in the file). This is also the more logical option if the passwords unlock anything that is larger (they wouldn't want to include bigger files in the SWF as it would slow the load time for the site).

Can someone with better knowledge of flash verify this stuff?

[thebruce]

well IIRC, there are a number of flash formats, and the most widely used is shockwave... so when a developer creates an entire flash demo, it'll most likely be saved as shockwave... in essence, it's a compiled project. Trying to get the original flash project from a shockwave is like trying to get basic source code from a compiled EXE. The information just isn't there..

from what I recall, opening a flash in the editor opens it as frames... where once there was an object path, there are now frames upon frames of stepped motion. No path. So in the same way, you're probably going to miss a lot of informatin if you try to 'hack' the flash...

but it's been a long time for me with flash too, so I could be wrong but my gut says I'm right...

though there should still be some kind of link or command if the password boxes are supposed to do something more than just look pretty. After all, the flash would need to know what to do, so there would have to be a command somewhere, even if it's not as obvious as "HEY! Here's the passwords y'all are looking for!"

[Daffy889]