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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Art of the Heist » The Art of the Heist: Puzzles
[SOLVED] SD5 {My Travel/factsandnotes.zip/} 2 jpg files.
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johnny5
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Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 995
Location: Elysian Fields

 		[SOLVED] SD5 {My Travel/factsandnotes.zip/} 2 jpg files.
OK, I transcribed the notes.jpg
Code:
GoodtohearfromyouAmycalled
herewithanotherquestionYou
Knowsoonanotherreplywillbe
neededtoanswerherquestions
Iguessforeveryonewedoreply
toanewquestionarisesWeneed
tofindasolutionsoonAdecent
rewardliesattheendforusand
attheendofeverythinghardIf
itisariddleshewantsariddle
ImakeTruthisIenjoyitanyway
soIveyettobeoverwhelmedThe
singlecommonthingweallneed
isfaithbutcanlovebutheloIf
wecouldbesoontargetwithour
plansourdreamsshouldfollow
closebehindUntillaterJames


26 characters x 16 lines.

the string of numbers at the bottom of germanyfacts.jpg is:
75,3,82,41,26,73,63,2,36,28,57

I did a quick Book cipher on the text and got:
lodrdwoones

Next step is to try a word count/pick the first letter cipher.
Here is the breakdown, if someone sees a better sentence construction, feel free to chime in.
Code:
Good to hear from you
Amy called here with another question
You Know soon another reply will be needed to answer her questions
I guess for every one we do reply to a new question arises
We need to find a solution soon
A decent reward lies at the end for us and at the end of everything hard
If it is a riddle she wants a riddle I make
Truth is I enjoy it anyway so Ive yet to be overwhelmed
The single common thing we all need is faith but can love but help
If we could be so on target with our plans our dreams should follow close behind
Until later James


PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 1:35 pm
Last edited by johnny5 on Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:20 am; edited 2 times in total
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jlandgr
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Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 67
Location: Münster, Germany

 		another thing: the jpeg filesize is very large for what it is, a b/w text.
Running stegdetect doesn't result in a negative but "skipping (false positive likely)", which means that stegdetect isn't sure but that there might be steganography in this file.
Hmmm ....

PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 2:02 pm
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johnny5
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Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 995
Location: Elysian Fields

 		Sparse images don't compress well using the jpeg algorithm.
This image is 24 bits deep and contains 1298 unique colors. So, lots of wasted space.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 2:35 pm
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nhansard
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Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 159

 		Re: SD5 {My Travel/factsandnotes.zip/} 2 jpg files.
johnny5 wrote:

the string of numbers at the bottom of germanyfacts.jpg is:
75,3,82,41,26,73,63,2,36,28,57


I did some quick checks to see if this might be ascii via dec, hex, and oct and didn't get anything usefull. The 2 and 3 kinda throw that off.

-Nick

PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:10 pm
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nhansard
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Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 159

 		taking the germanyfacts.jpg numbers as letter indexes into the note string, i get the following:

ioerdssonee (counting from 1)
odsrhtwoord (counting from 0)

-nick

PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:20 pm
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johnny5
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Location: Elysian Fields

 		Corrected the text, sorry everyone.

Thanks nivra.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 4:08 pm
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jlandgr
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Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 67
Location: Münster, Germany
nhansard wrote:
taking the germanyfacts.jpg numbers as letter indexes into the note string, i get the following:

I also wonder about the coordinates, 51 N 9 E, which is in the middle of nowhere, not a major city, http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=51&lon=9&visit=3
Hmmm ...
edit: nevermind, I just found out that these coordinates are given in the CIA Worldfactbook, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/gm.html , too, from which all the info has been taken. I wonder why the CIA chose these coordinates specifically, no idea, though, but nevermind.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:00 pm
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jlandgr
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Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 67
Location: Münster, Germany
nhansard wrote:
taking the germanyfacts.jpg numbers as letter indexes into the note string, i get the following:

ioerdssonee (counting from 1)
odsrhtwoord (counting from 0)

-nick

Hmm, couting from 1 I get "lodrdwoones" just as j5 did above. Starting from 0 I got "ldeqhitooro" (have to check again).
The first string, "lodrdwoones" might be an anagram, I don't know. "world doones" (dunes?) "lord downes" ?
Well, whatever, if it is a somewhat obscure anagram, then there are too many possibilities.
I also tried the "background" text from the CIA website and used the numbers as a book cipher (as all the info is taken from the CIA site), but I only got "oEttdemsoon".

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 7:16 am
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nhansard
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Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 159
jlandgr wrote:
Hmm, couting from 1 I get "lodrdwoones" just as j5 did above. Starting from 0 I got "ldeqhitooro" (have to check again).
The first string, "lodrdwoones" might be an anagram, I don't know. "world doones" (dunes?) "lord downes" ?
Well, whatever, if it is a somewhat obscure anagram, then there are too many possibilities.
I also tried the "background" text from the CIA website and used the numbers as a book cipher (as all the info is taken from the CIA site), but I only got "oEttdemsoon".


I ran my count on the text posted in the first message before it was fixed. There were missing letters so it didn't work right. I forgot to go back and fix it. Thanks for catching that.

-nick

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:33 am
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johnny5
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Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 995
Location: Elysian Fields

 		This may be nothing, but here it is:
There are 11 numbers at the bottom, and 11 facts containing numbers.
So it would go:
Code:
75 - 51 00, N 9 00 E
 3 - 357,021 sq km
82 - arable land: 33.85%
41 - permanent crops: 0.59%
26 - other: 65.56% (2001)
73 - Irrigated 4,850 sq km (est.)

Hazards: flooding

63 - Population: 82,431,390
 2 - 0-14 years: 14.4%
36 - 15-64 years: 66.7%
28 - 65 years +: 18.9%
57 - 8.33 births/1,000 population


PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 1:57 pm
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johnny5
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 		Another thought is to use the numbers from the germanyfacts to pick letters from notes.jpg to form a cipher text, then use the letters picked using the row of numbers as a Vigi key to decode the ciphertext.

PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 2:17 am
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rowan
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Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 1966

 		Ok, Virgil had an interesting comment on these pictures - they are both 600x600 pixels.

Using that info, I overlayed notes onto the germany picture, and noticed that certain words showed up in the grey boxes:

Quote:
an answer for every question a solution lies at the end of every riddle Truth is yet to be common but can be soon


Then xnbomb had the idea that the numbers at the bottom might correspond to this new text, so I applied them and I got: machschnell. Unfortunately - I haven't been able to open up any new zips with this password. But the way the words lined up so nicely with the grey boxes makes me think that this is closer than we have been.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 6:55 pm
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toongoon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 217
Location: SF Bay Area, CA

 		You likely already know but it wasn't stated here..."mach schnell" is essentially "hurry up" or literally "make haste" so I wouldn't call that a coincidence.

What to do with that I don't know at this point.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 8:55 pm
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