unforum

[Danives]

Im thinking the same as you alisdair, I thought that maybe if every two letters is a card (maybe just in the order they are eg ace of clubs is WB) and then maybe form them into poker hands and put the letters together...seems a bit labourous...maybe Iv just been thinking about it 4 too long, lol!

Dan

[doomsdayred]

Lookit!! Can anyone find a hidden clue in here. I can't.

http://www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/01/view_from_earth_28.html

Anyone come across any articles by this guy before?

EDIT: This is a dead end please ignore.

[Jakeo]

[doomsdayred]

Doh! I was hoping that maybe that was a cryptic clue. Consider me trouted. I'll alter my above post to link rather than show the whole text then.

In line with one of the other theories it doesn't look as though the codes relate to the face value of the card or the suit. The reason I say this is that there are 108 characters in total (excluding thermal sensitive ink) 55 characters in the top line and 53 in the lower. If we were looking for a face value and suit there would only be 106 characters as the jokers don't have a suit match.

Of course you could argue the theory that because of the star on one of the jokers you can differentiate between the two but even then we would have 107 characters as one joker would still remain suitless.

[Jakeo]

Check a couple of my earlier posts. Its not that we are necessarily looking for a direct letter to suit mapping for the first letter, and letter to value for the second letter.

As was demonstrated earlier, you could just put them in alphabetical order and assign them values from 1 to 54, which is a perfectly valid mapping (it didn't seem reasonable above because there were duplicates).

It might be that the add the numerical values of each letter together and order them by the resulting number (I doubt this particular method).

Basically, a single character doesn't provide enough complexity to represent every different card available, but 2 letters does. HTH

[doomsdayred]

Just showing work here for other peoples ref only.

Adding the top line to the bottom line with heat sensitive ink removed and then converting a la Soliataire cipher.

[c1023]

A common trick used in computer programs to shuffle a deck of cards is to start with an ordered deck, and pick two random cards. The positions of the cards in the deck are swaped, and the process is repeated.

We could do somthing similar by splitting the deck into two equal piles (left and right). Taking the letters in pairs, the first could be the position of a card in the left pile, and the second in the right pile. Swap the two cards, and repeat for the rest of string. Putting the two halves back together should give a pretty well shuffled deck.

I havn't got time to try this, so maybe someone else can give it a go.

[doomsdayred]

[ALISDAIRPARK]

OK, I stopped frantically trying everything I could think of through Solitaire, took a mental step back and thought this through some more. Here's where I've got too:-

That the "If entropy wins.." clue is purely a link to the heat sensitive text, and the ..leaves you cold" means it should be disregarded. (I know this has been mentioned before, but we keep going back and forth on it).

I think the code is purely in the 108 letters, and the fact the last group has only 3 is to point us to that. I think I've persuaded myself away from the Solitaire route now, as based on my previous thinking we have no key, and an unkeyed deck doesn't work. Like Doomsdayred I tried one half of the 108 against the other, and got no further.

Where this falls apart is I've no idea what decryption is on the 108 if it's not Solitaire

[BBuck]

[rose]

[doomsdayred]

[padge]

My current thinking is this:

The 108 chars somehow represent the initial deck key for solitaire (2 chars per card). We need to put the deck in the order that these 108 chars specify and then use solitaire to decode the outer 20 (heat sensitive) chars. Hopefully this will give us the answer.

The passphrase in Solitaire is used purely to order the deck. If we have the deck order specified explicitly then we don't need a passphrase.

I'm convined that jakeo's theory (108 chars = deck order) is right, I just can't suss out how to translate the 108 chars into the deck order.

Maybe the 108 chars are solitaire encrypted using some other passphrase, but that still leaves us trying to guess a pass phrase.

That damn motorbike has got to have something to do with it....

[X]

Magic Lamp

[Flux-Deluxe]

I don't have the time to check this out right now, but has anyone tried this?

http://members.shaw.ca/a00/eflewqewfoo.html